Today's Birthdays 12/18
Today's Birthdays 12/18
#1Today's Birthdays 12/18
Posted: 12/17/06 at 10:27pm
Dame Gladys Cooper 12/18/1888 - 11/17/1971 performer, Wife of Philip Merivale (? - 1946) his death, Was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1967 - Shining Hour (Raymond Massey); 1935 Othello; Spring Meeting (dir. John Gielgud); The Chalk Garden (Marian Seldes, Betsy Von Furstenberg, Fritz Weaver); A Passage to India (James Coco, Donald Moffat)
George Stevens 12/18/1904 - 3/8/1975 American film director, "Swing Time", "Gunga Din", "Alice Adams", "Annie Oakley", "Woman of the Year", "I Remember Mama" and "Shane" - Never Gonna Dance (Based on the movie directed by George Stevens)
Christopher Fry 12/18/1907 - Jun 30, 2005 writer - A Phoenix Too Frequent / Freight (Nina Foch); The Lady's Not For Burning (John Gielgud); Venus Observed (Rex Harrison, Lilli Palmer, Hurd Hatfield); The Dark Is Light Enough (Katharine Cornell, Ty Power; Christopher Plummer, Sydney Pollack); The Firstborn (Katharine Cornell, Anthony Quayle)
Abe Burrows 12/18/1910 - May 17, 1985 Writer, Director - Guys and Dolls; Three Wishes for Jamie (John Raitt, Charlotte Rae, Bert Wheeler); Can-Can; Reclining Figure; Say, Darling (Vivian Blaine, Johnny Desmond, Elliott Gould, Peter Howard, Robert Morse); Golden Fleecing (Tom Poston, Mickey Deems, Suzanne Pleshette); Cactus Flower (Lauren Bacall, Brenda Vaccaro, Barry Nelson); No Hard Feelings (Eddie Albert, Stockard Channing, Nanette Fabray); How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
Betty Grable 12/18/1916 - 7/2/1973 performer - film's Down Argentine Way, Tin Pan Alley, Moon Over Miami, Song of the Islands, Springtime in the Rockies and Sweet Rosie O’Grady. Her famous legs insured by Lloyds of London for somewhere between a quarter million and a million dollars.
Ossie Davis 12/18/1917 - Feb 4, 2005 Writer, Source Material, Performer, father of Guy Davis; husband of Ruby Dee (December 9, 1948 - present) - 2006 Purlie; Jeb (Reri Grist, Ruby Dee, Grover Burgess); 1951 The Green Pastures; Jamaica; replacement A Raisin the Sun; Purlie Victorious; The Zulu and the Zayda (Louis Gossett, Joe Silver); tv's & film's Grumpy Old Men, Evening Shade
Danny Simon Dec 18, 1918 - Jul 26, 2005 Writer, Director, Other; brother of Neil Simon - Catch a Star (Pat Carroll); New Faces of 1956 (John Reardon, Maggie Smith, Inga Swenson); 1985 The Odd Couple
Steven Spielberg 12/18/1946 Husband of Kate Capshaw (1991 - present), Amy Irving (1985 - 1989) divorced; director, producer; Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation (Steven Spielberg, Founder and Chairman) - Academy Award-winning director: Schindler’s List [1993], Saving Private Ryan [1998]; E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Indiana Jones series, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Jurassic Park, The Color Purple Shrek, Artificial Intelligence: AI; Oscar’s Irving G. Thalberg Award [1986]; Munich; War of the Worlds
Ray Liotta [Raymond Julian Vicimarli] 12/18/1955 performer; married Michelle Grace (15 February 1997 - 2004) (divorced) 1 child - Match (Frank Langella); tv's & film's Another World; Smith; Unforgettable, Corrina, Corrina, Goodfellas, Field of Dreams, Dominck & Eugene, Something Wild, The Lonely Lady
Brad Pitt 12/18/1963 performer; He left college two credits short of graduating to move to California. Before he became successful at acting, Pitt supported himself by driving strippers in limos, moving refrigerators and dressing as a giant chicken while working for "el Pollo Loco." - film's 12 Monkeys, Seven, Legends of the Fall, A River Runs Through It, Thelma and Louise, Twelve Monkeys, The Devil’s Own, Meet Joe Black, Fight Club, Ocean’s Eleven & Twelve, Troy, Mr. & Mrs. Smith; 7 Yrs in Tibet; Troy; Babel
SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:
1892 Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker Suite" premiered in St. Petersburg, Russia.
1952 The Children's Hour with Patricia Neal, Kim Hunter, Robert Pastene
1956 Uta Hagen plays both a man and a woman in Bertolt Brecht's The Good Woman of Setzuan at New York's Phoenix Theatre. The three week run is directed by Eric Bentley.
1967 Roy Dotrice plays 17th century diarist and biographer John Aubrey in Brief Lives. Patrick Garland penned the script.
1969 Screen goddess Katharine Hepburn tries her hand at a Broadway musical, starring as designer Coco Chanel in the Andre Previn musical Coco at the Mark Hellinger Theatre. it runs 329 performances.
1975 The Glass Menagerie with Maureen Stapleton, Paul Rudd (the 2nd), Pamela Payton-Wright, Rip Torn & Nancy Marchand (s/b for The Mother).
1985 Jerry's Girls, a musical revue celebrating the music and lyrics of Jerry Herman, opens tonight. The performers include such legendary names as Dorothy Loudon, Chita Rivera and Leslie Uggams. Herman wrote the scores to some of Broadway's biggest hits including Hello, Dolly!, Mame and La Cage aux Folles.
ON THIS DAY IN:
1865 Slavery ended in the United States as the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was declared in effect.
1939 Journalist Heywood Campbell Broun dies today at age 51. Broun contributed to New York's Tribune and World newspapers and a collection of his theatre criticism, "Seeing Things at Night," was published in 1921.
(sources: IBDB, IMDB, NYT's ON THIS DAY, 440.com’s Those Were The Days, Playbill.com)
Milla
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