Today's Birthdays 2/10

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 2/10/09 at 9:45pm

Bert Kalmar 02/10/1884 - Sep 18, 1947 Producer, source mat'l, Writer, Lyricist, Composer, Performer - The 5 O'Clock Girl [1 of my fav songs "Thinking of You" comes fr this show]; The Corn Is Green (Ethel Barrymore); 3 Little Words

Boris Pasternak 2/10/1890 - 5/30/1960 poet, writer: Doctor Zhivago

Alan Hale 02/10/1892 - Jan 22, 1950 father of Allan Hale, performer - The Poor Little Rich Girl; A Lonely Romeo; film's Robin Hood, Captain Blood

Jimmy Durante 2/10/1893 - 1/29/1980 performer - Show Girl; Jumbo; Red, Hot & Blue; tv's & film's Ziegfeld Follies, The Man Who Came to Dinner, It Happened in Brooklyn, The Jimmy Durante Show; Catchphrases included "I got a million of 'em! [Jokes]" "Everybody wants to get into the act!" "Goodnight Mrs. Calabash, whereever you are," and, when comically caught stealing a pachyderm in Jumbo memorably stood in front of it and asked his pursuers, "What elephant?"

Dame Judith Anderson 2/10/1898 - 1/3/1992 Australian-bn. American stage and film actress, Knighted in 1960 - As You Desire Me; The Old Maid; 1936 Hamlet (John Gielgud, Lillian Gish); 1941 Macbeth (Maurice Evans, John Ireland); 1942 3 Sisters (Kirk Douglas, Katharine Cornell, Ruth Gordon, Edmund Gwenn)[WOW! what a cast!]; 1982 Medea (Zoe Caldwell); film's Rebecca, The Ten Commandments, Star Trek 3, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, A Man Called Horse

Bertolt Brecht 2/10/1898 - 8/14/1956 writer, lyricist, ferociously left-wing playwright. An early convert to the cause of socialism, he wrote scathing attacks on capitalist society, including musicals Threepenny Opera and Happy End, both with composer Kurt Weill. After World War II, he settled and worked in communist East Germany. Other plays include The Good Woman of Setzuan and Mother Courage and Her Children, Arturo Ui; Happy End

Stella Adler 2/10/1901 - 12/21/1992 performer, dir., teacher, daughter of Jacob P. & Sara Adler, Half-sister of Abram & Celia Adler, sister of Charles, Jay, Julia, Luther, Florence, Frances Adler; wife of Mitchell Wilson (? - 1973) his death, Horace Eleaschreff (? - ?) divorced, Harold Clurman (1943 - 1960) divorced - 1931- (Sandy Meisner, Morris Carnovsky, Clifford Odets, Franchot Tone; staged by Lee Strasberg); Gold Eagle Guy (Luther Adler, Jules [John] Garfield, Morris Carnovsky, Russell Collins, Elia Kazan, Sanford Meisner, Clifford Odets [LORDY! WHAT A CAST!]; Sunday Breakfast (Cloris Leachman)

Erik Rhodes 02/10/1906 - Feb 17, 1990 performer - The Little Show; Gay Divorce; Dance Me a Song (Joan McCracken, Bob Fosse, Wally Cox, Donald Saddler, Biff McGuire) Can-Can; Shinbone Alley; Jamaica (Lena Horne, Alvin Ailey, Ricardo Montalban); film's The Gay Divorcee; Charlie Chan in Paris; 1 Rainy Afternoon

Larry Adler 2/10/1914 - 8/6/2001 composer; Was nominated for an Oscar for his work on the soundtrack of Genevieve (1953), though he was originally kept off the credits because of a McCarthy blacklisting. Despite his self-imposed exile, he remained an American citizen, and turned down a knighthood for that reason. Along with fellow American John Sebastian (father of the same named folk-rock performer), Adler was responsible for the harmonica becoming accepted in serious musical circles. Such distinguished composers as Darius Milhaud, Ralph Vaughn Williams, and Cyril Scott , wrote works especially for him, and Maurice Ravel was so impressed with his arrangement of Ravel's "Bolero" for harmonica that he asked to keep it as a souvenier. When he was asked to do the score for Genevieve his agent asked for 750 pounds but was told the studio couldn't afford that much and instead offered him 2.5% of the profits. The agent tried to convince him to decline saying this film was intended to be a 'quota' film which would probably never make back its cost in takings. He decided to take the chance having liked what he had seen of the work thus far and as a result, within four weeks it made back the costs and he found himself able to pay to send his children through college with the money he made from the movie. movie scores: A Cry from the Streets, Genevieve [love this film!], Great Chase; A High Wind in Jamaica

Philippa Bevans 02/10/1916 - May 10, 1968 performer - 1941 Ah! Wilderness (Zachary Scott, Harry Carey); Harriet (Helen Hayes); Dream Girl (Betty Field, Wendell Corey); A Temporary Island (Vera Zorina, Rita Gam); Mr. Pickwick (Estelle Winwood); The Starcross Story (Eva LeGallienne, Mary Astor, Christopher Plummer); My Fair Lady (Julie Andrews, Rex Harrison); Look After Lulu (Roddy McDowall, Jack Gilford); What Did We Do Wrong? (Paul Ford); tv's & film's Madigan (Henry Fonda, Richard Widmark, Inger Stevens, Harry Guardino, James Whitmore, Sheree North); The World of Henry Orient (Peter Sellers, Angela Lansbury, Paula Prentiss, Tom Bosley, John Fiedler); The Group (Candice Bergen, Shirley Knight,Jessica Walter, Carrie Nye, Hal Holbrook); The Notorious Landlady [Writing credits Blake Edwards & Larry Gelbart (Kim Novak, Fred Astaire, Jack Lemmon, Estelle Winwood); The Alfred Hitchcock Hour; The Phil Silvers Show

Neva Patterson 02/10/1922 performer; Wife of James Lee - The Druid Circle (Leo G. Carroll); Ring Around the Moon (Denholm Eliott, Lucile Watson); The Seven Year Itch (Tom Ewell); Double in Hearts (Julia Meade); Speaking of Murder (Lorne Greene, Estelle Winwood); Make A Million (Sam Levene); Romantic Comedy [replacement] (Mia Farrow, Anthony Perkins)

Leontyne Price 02/10/1927 Wife of William Warfield (1952 - 1972) divorced, Juilliard alum, performer & 1 of the great operatic sopranos - Four Saints in Three Acts; 1953 Porgy and Bess [alternate]

Robert Wagner 2/10/1930 performer; author; Jill St. John (26 May 1990 - present), Natalie Wood (16 July 1972 - 29 November 1981) (her death) 1 child, Marion Marshall (22 July 1963 - 1970) 1 daughter, Natalie Wood (28 December 1957 - 27 April 1962) (divorced) - tv's & film's Austin Powers Series, Hart to Hart, The Mountain, The Towering Inferno, Titanic, It Takes a Thief, Pink Panther, Midway; With A Song In My Heart; A Kiss Before Dying; Switch

Peter Allen 02/10/1944 - Jun 18, 1992 Brother-in-law of Lorna & Joey Luft, husband of Liza Minnelli (March 3, 1967 - 1972) divorced, performer, composer, lyricist, writer, source mat'l - Soon; Up in 1 (Lenora Nemetz); Legs Diamond (Julie Wilson); The Boy From Oz; tv's & film's Here We Go Again; Arthur; Dominick and Eugene; 1982 The Pirates of Penzance (Keith Michell)

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

1914 Composer Sigmund Romberg makes his Broadway debut with The Whirl of the World. The hit musical will run 161 performances, and starts Romberg on a 40-year career that will include Maytime, Blossom Time, The Desert Song and The New Moon.

1949 Willy Loman knows his territory and wants to make a sale. His big pitch happens tonight with Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, starring Lee J. Cobb. Fifty years to the day later, Robert Falls directs a 1999 revival starring Brian Dennehy, Elizabeth Franz and Kevin Anderson at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre.

1955 Paul Newman, Karl Malden, and Nancy Coleman fill The Desperate Hours. Joseph Hayes' thriller about a family held hostage by escaped convicts will run at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre for 212 performances.

1960 Bud Freeman and Leon Prober couldn't Beg, Borrow or Steal a hit with their urban musical, which ran just five performances at the Martin Beck. Estelle Parsons, Eddie Bracken, Betty Garrett, Larry Parks and Biff McGuire all had feature roles.

1965 There will be just five performances of Diamond Orchid at the Henry Miller Theatre. Playwrights Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee seem to draw heavily from the life of Eva Peron. Jose Quintero stages.

1965 Also today, Albarwild Theatre Arts. a new producing team consisting of Edward Albee, Richard Barr and Clinton Wilder, open their first New Playwrights Series at the Cherry Lane Theatre. The opening bill showcases three budding playwrights, Lanford Wilson, Sam Shepard and Paul Foster, two of whom would go on to win Pulitzer Prizes and change the course of 20th century theatre. In the next few years, Albarwild would provide a commercial creative engine for the Off-Off-Broadway movement.

1999 A revival of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman opens at Broadway's Eugene O'Neill Theatre starring Brian Dennehy exactly 50 years after the original Broadway debut of the play, starring Lee J. Cobb, at the Morosco Theatre.

ON THIS DAY IN:

1840 Britain's Queen Victoria married Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg-Gotha.

1966 Broadway impressario Billy Rose dies today. The dynamo behind such spectacles as Jumbo, and the 1939 World's Fair Aquacade was also the owner of the Ziegfeld Theatre. He was 66 years old.

1968 Peggy Fleming of the United States won the gold medal in women's figure skating at the Winter Olympic Games in Grenoble, France.

2005 Playwright Arthur Miller died at his home in Roxbury of heart failure. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for “Death of a Salesman” in 1949, when he was just 33 years old. Published his autobio, “Timebends: A Life,” in 1987.

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

Milla