Today's Birthdays 11/4 - GET OUT & VOTE!

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 11/2/08 at 9:57pm

Thomas Johnson 11/4/1732 - 10/26/1819 American Revolutionary War leader; governor of Maryland (1777-9); associate justice (1792-93) of U.S. Supreme Court, source mat'l - 1776

Edmund Kean 11/04/1787 - May 15, 1833 performer, source mat'l - considered one of the finest actors of the early 18th century, and subject of a 1961 musical, Kean. Among his greatest roles will be Shakespeare's Richard III; Kean

Will Rogers 11/04/1879 - Aug 15, 1935 performer, mayor: Beverly Hills, source mat'l - The Wall Street Girl, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court; humorist: “I never met a man I didn’t like.”; better known as rope-twirling comic philosopher Will Rogers, star of the Ziegfeld Follies and other Broadway shows, and, later, movies. He will be the subject of the 1991 musical, The Will Rogers Follies.

Arthur Schwartz 11/04/1900 - Sep 1984 Producer, Writer, Lyricist, Composer; father of Jonathan - The New Yorkers; 1st & 2nd Little Show; The Band Wagon; Flying Colors; Revenge with Music (Libby Holman, Geo. Metaxa, Charles Winninger); A Tree Grows in Brooklyn; Jennie (Mary Martin); That's Entertainment

Gig Young 11/04/1913 - Nov 19, 1978 performer, husband of Elizabeth Montgomery (12/28/56 - 1963) divorced - Oh Men! Oh Women (Franchot Tone, Betsy Von Furstenberg, Larry Blyden); Under the Yum-Yum Tree (Dean Jones); There's a Girl in My Soup (Rita Gam); tv's & film's Academy Award-winning actor: They Shoot Horses Don’t They? [1969]; Teacher’s Pet, Young at Heart, Desperate Hours, The Rogues

Walter Cronkite 11/04/1916 performer - recorded voices for the following 2 shows: 1995 How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying; Gore Vidal's The Best Man; Emmy Award-winning news anchor & news correspondent: CBS Evening News; narrator, host: The 20th Century, The 21st Century, The Facts We Face, Open Hearing, Man of the Week, It’s News to Me, Air Power; received Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Governor’s Award [1979] "And that's the way it was."

Cameron Mitchell 11/04/1918 - Jul 6, 1994 performer - 1940 The Taming of the Shrew (Lunt & Fontanne); The Trojan Women (Walter Slezak, Dame May Whitty); orig Death of a Salesman; Southern Exposure (Pat Crowley); tv's & film's Trapped Alive, Hollywood Cop, Swift Justice, Blood and Black Lace, How to Marry a Millionaire, Desiree, The Tall Men, (my fav) Carousel, Homecoming, The High Chaparral, Swiss Family Robinson

Art Carney 11/04/1918 - Nov 9, 2003 performer - The Rope Dancers; Take Her, She's Mine; the orig Felix Unger in The Odd Couple (Walter Matthau, dir. Mike Nichols); Flora, The Red Menace (Liza, Mary Louise Wilson); tv's forever Ed Norton on the Honeymooners; Academy Award-winning actor: Harry and Tonto [1974]; Last Action Hero, Izzy and Moe, House Calls, Roadie, Take this Job and Shove It, Terrible Joe Moran; Emmy Award-winner: The Jackie Gleason Show: The Honeymooners [1954, 1955, 1966-1967, 1967-1968], The Art Carney Special [1959-1960]

Martin Balsam 11/04/1919 - Feb 13, 1996 performer - 1948 Macbeth (Michael Redgrave, Flora Robson); The Rose Tatoo (Maureen Stapleton!, Eli Wallach, Sal Mineo, Ludmilla Toretzka); Camino Real (Hurd Hatfield, Jo Van Fleet); Nowhere to Go But Up [a musical!] (Frank Campanella, Tom Bosley, Bert Convy, Dorothy Loudon, Mary Ann Mobley); You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running; Cold Storage (Len Cariou); tv's & film's Academy Award-winning actor: A Thousand Clowns [1965]; All the President’s Men, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Carpetbaggers, Death Wish 3, Delta Force, The Goodbye People, Harlow, Little Big Man, Marjorie Morningstar, Murder on the Orient Express, Psycho, Tora! Tora! Tora!, Twelve Angry Men, All in the Family

Kate Reid 11/04/1930 - Mar 27, 1993 performer - alternate in orig Va. Wolfe; Dylan (Alec Guiness); Slapstick Tragedy (Zoe Caldwell); film's Andromeda Strain

Doris Roberts 11/04/1930 Performer, Stage Manager - The Desk Set (Shirley Booth, Louis Gossett) Marathon '33 (Julie Harris, Joe Don Baker); The Office (Tony Lo Bianco, Elaine May, Jack Weston); The Natural Look (Zorah Lampert, Gene Hackman, Brenda Vaccaro); Last of the Red Hot Lovers (James Coco, Linda Lavin); tv's & film's Emmy Award-winning actress: St. Elsewhere [1983], Everybody Loves Raymond [2001, 2002]; Remington Steele, Maggie, Angie, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Ordinary Heroes, Used People

Loretta Swit 11/04/1937 performer - replacement in The Mystery of Edwin Drood & Same Time, Next Year; tv's Major Margaret Houlihan of television’s most honored series, “M*A*S*H”

Ralph Macchio 11/04/1961 performer - Cuba & His Teddy Bear (Robert De Niro); tv's & film's Eight is Enough, Karate Kid series, Distant Thunder, My Cousin Vinny

Sean Combs 11/04/1969 performer - 2004 A Raisen in the Sun (Audra McDonald, Phylicia Rashad); tv's & film's Made; Monster's Ball; Carlito's Way

Daisy Eagan 11/04/1979 performer, Wife of Patrick Comer (2003 - present); Youngest actress ever to win a Tony Award - The Secret Garden; James Joyce's The Dead; tv's & film's Judgment; Losing Isaiah; Ripe; Tony 'n' Tina's Wedding; Numb3rs; Ghost Whisperer

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

1905 Eddie Foy stars as dog trainer Jim Cheese in the Broadway premiere of the British musical The Earl and the Girl, which opens tonight and runs 148 performances at the Casino Theatre. Jerome Kern gets one of his earliest Broadway assignments writing the interpolated song, "How'd You Like To Spoon With Me?," which was staged with chorus girls issuing the invitation while swinging over the front of the audience in flower-bedecked swings.

1937 Luther Adler stars as a conflicted boxer in Clifford Odets' drama Golden Boy, which opens at the Belasco Theatre today under the auspices of the Group Theatre, and goes on to run 250 performances. It will be made into a musical with Sammy Davis Jr. in the 1960s.

1954 Future legend David Merrick makes his debut as a Broadway producer today with the Harold Rome musical Fanny at the Majestic Theatre, starring Walter Slezak (Tony Award), Ezio Pinza and Florence Henderson (20 yrs old). Based on Marcel Pagnol's stories of romance on the waterfront in old Marseilles, it will run 888 performances.

1990 Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story opens at the Shubert Theatre tonight. The cast, led by Paul Hipp playing the title role, was under the direction of Rob Bettinson. The show concerns the life of the late rock 'n' roll legend and features Holly's music in the score. Though A Chorus Line was hurried to its closing the previous spring to make way for this London hit, Buddy will run on Broadway for only 225 performances.

2007 Rock 'n' Roll

ON THIS DAY IN:

1914 After the exposed flesh in The Passing Show of 1914 disturbs Boston mayor Curley, the city's "Purity Squad" threatens producers who allow bare legs in their shows. They agree to have their chorines wear tights and "knee panties."

1922 - King Tutankhamen’s tomb was discovered in Egypt -- in the Valley of the Kings. The tomb was hidden under a house that had been erected for workers excavating the tomb of Ramesses IV. King Tut came into power at the tender age of nine. He was pharaoh of ancient Egypt until his death at the ripe old age of 18 or 19 (in 1352 BC).

1928 Gangster Arnold Rothstein is murdered in the Park Central Hotel - now the Omni Park Central - on Seventh Avenue. No one is convicted, but the murder probe reveals corruption leading to the downfall of Mayor Jimmy Walker.

1990 The woman whose grandchildren introduced her as "Peter Pan," Mary Martin, died today. Martin, who was known for her exuberant voice and high-spirited demeanor, will always be remembered for Peter Pan, South Pacific and her portrayal of Maria in the original stage version of The Sound of Music.

(sources: IBDB, IMBD, NYT's ON THIS DAY, 440.com’s Those Were The Days, Playbill.com)

Milla