Today's Birthdays 12/4

[do_re_milla]

Today's Birthdays 12/4#1

Posted: 12/3/07 at 7:29pm

Lillian Russell 12/04/1861 - Jun 6, 1922 mother of Dorothy Russell performer; she had a legendary affair with "Diamond Jim" Brady; called "The American Beauty"; she studied voice with the noted musician Leopold Damrosch [as in Damrosch Park & 1 of the founders of the original Juilliard School]; source mat'l - Wild Fire; burlesque: The Great Mogul; Whoop-Dee-Doo (Gloria's pop - Carter De Haven, Lew Fields & Joseph Weber); Hokey-pokey / Bunty, Bulls and Strings (Fay Templeton). Lillian died on my birthday! Always loved the legend of this performer.

Rainer Maria Rilke 12/04/1875 - Dec 29, 1926 source mat'ls, author - Metamorphoses ["Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes." by Rainer Maria Rilke]

Alex North 12/4/1910 - Sep 8, 1991 Husband of Sherle North (1966 - 1991) his death, composer - Mother (Lee J. Cobb, Lester Lonergan, Jr.); incidental music Death of a Salesman; Of V We Sing

Deanna Durbin 12/4/1921 performer; by age 14 she was the most highly paid female star in the world - film's Up in Central Park, His Butler's Sister, Mad About Music, Lady on a Train, 100 Men and a Girl, It Started with Eve, Can’t Help Singing, always loved her zany, peppy, corney films

Jack Washburn 12/04/1927 - Mar 15, 1992 performer - Fanny; Mr. President

Dena Dietrich 12/04/1928 performer; Best known for her TV margarine commercial in which she utters the famous line: "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature!" - Here's Where I Belong (James Coco, Bud Fleming, Walter McGinn, Heather MacRea); The Prisoner of 2d Ave. (Peter Falk, Lee Grant, Vincent Gardenia); tv's & film's The Wild Party; The Ropers; All My Children; The Golden Girls; The Sky Is Falling; Sister's Keeper

Horst Buchholz 12/04/1933 - Mar 3, 2003 performer - Chéri (Kim Stanley); Andorra (Lou Antonio); film's Faraway, So Close!, Avalanche Express, Raid on Entebbe, The Savage Bees, Fanny, The Magnificent Seven

Jeff Bridges 12/4/1949 son of Lloyd Bridges, brother of Beau, performer, songwriter - tv's & film's Seabiscuit; White Squall, Wild Bill, Blown Away, The Vanishing, American Heart, The Fisher King, The Fabulous Baker Boys, Starman, Against All Odds, The Last Picture Show, The Company She Keeps, Fearless, Thunderbolt & Lightfoot, Sea Hunt; In Search of America
Derek Smith 12/04/1959 performer - Timon of Athens; The Government Inspector; Jackie (Erika's brother, Victor Slezak, Margaret Colin); Getting and Spending; Ring Round the Moon; The Green Bird; Heaven's Gate; A Dog Year; How to Lose Friends & Alienate People

Marisa Tomei 12/04/1964 performer - 1998 Wait Until Dark; 2003 Salome; Top Girls; tv's & film's Academy Award-winning actress: My Cousin Vinny [1993]; Chaplin, Oscar, The Paper, Untamed Heart, A Different World, The Flamingo Kid, As the World Turns; Alfie; I Was a Network Star; Before the Devil Knows You're Dead; War, Inc.; The Rich Inner Life of Penelope Cloud

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

1906 Douglas Fairbanks stars in The Man of the Hour by George Broadhurst. The plot -- Fairbanks as a reformer out to expose corruption at City Hall -- angers the Tammany Hall politicians and fans the interest of the public. It will run 479 performances.

1916 Rosalie with Mme. Sarah Bernhardt

1928 Whoopee! composer Brian Gari's grandpop Eddie Cantor, Buddy Ebsen, Ruth Etting

1933 - Tobacco Road, a play based on Erskine Caldwell’s book, premiered at the Masque Theatre in New York City. The play ran for eight years and 3,182 shows.

1939 Hamlet with Maurice Evans, Katherine Locke

1965 - Composer, lyricist, and singer, Jacques Brel made his American debut in concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Brel composed Jackie, You’re Not Alone, If You Go Away and more.

1977 Chapter with Anita Gillette, Judd Hirsch

1982 Baby with Liz Callaway, Beth Fowler, Philip Hoffman, Martin Vidnovic, Catherine Cox, Judith Thiergaard. I wish everyone could have heard the trio "I Want It All" @ the 2006 Bway Originals @ Town Hall. It was super.

1986 Neil Simon's Broadway Bound opens at the Broadhurst tonight. It will go on to run 756 performances. The cast includes Linda Lavin, John Randolph, Phyllis Newman, and Jason Alexander. It is the third of Neil Simon's autobiographical plays, which include Biloxi Blues and Brighton Beach Memoirs.

1988 Our Town with Spalding Gray, Robert Maxwell, W. H. Macy, Penelope Ann Miller, Eric Stoltz

1997 The Diary of Anne Frank - Linda Lavin, Harris Yulin, George Hearn, Sophie Hayden and Natalie Portman star in a James Lapine-directed revival of The Diary of Anne Frank, notable for its inclusion of personal material about Anne's budding sexuality and her strained relationship with her mother.

2002 Our Town with Paul Newman, Jayne Atkinson, Frank Converse, Jane Curtin, Stephen Spinella, Jason's boy Jake Robards), loved this prod'n!

ON THIS DAY IN:

1783 Gen. George Washington said farewell to his officers at Fraunces Tavern in New York. It's still there at 54 Pearl Street.

1875 William Marcy Tweed, the "Boss" of New York City's Tammany Hall political organization, escaped from jail and fled the country.

1932 - “Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. North and South America and all the ships at sea. Let’s go to press!” The Jergens Journal aka The Walter Winchell Show and later, Kaiser-Frazer News was first heard on the NBC Blue network. Winchell kept that gossip show going on the radio for 23 years. It was sponsored at first by Jergens lotion and, later, by Dryad deodorant, Kaiser-Frazer cars and Richard Hudnut shampoo.

1942 President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the dismantling of the Works Progress Administration, which had been created to provide jobs during the Depression. We could use a new WPA.

1962 - James Caan made his TV acting debut in A Fist of Five, an episode of The Untouchables on ABC-TV, starring Robert Stack, today’s Unsolved Mysteries host.

2000 A Florida state judge refused to overturn Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush's certified victory in Florida, and the U.S. Supreme Court set aside a ruling that had allowed manual recounts. And so it goes....

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

Milla