Today's Birthdays 2/17

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 2/17/08 at 8:52pm

Marjorie Lawrence 2/17/1909 - 1/6/1979 source mat'l, opera soprano: “One of the truest Wagnerian interpreters of our time, unchallenged for the stirring magnificence of her Brunnhilde and the tender simplicity of her Sieglinde, or the stately loveliness of her Elsa and the compelling malevolence of her Ortrud.”; film's Interrupted Melody

Arthur Kennedy 02/17/1914 - Jan 5, 1990 performer, Father of Laurie Kennedy - origs Life and Death of an American; All My Sons (Ed Begley); Death of a Salesman; The Crucible; The Price; film's Champion; Laurence of Arabia, The President’s Plane is Missing, Some Came Running

Kathleen Freeman 02/17/1919 - Aug 23, 2001 performer - 13 Rue de l'Amour (Louis Jourdan); The Full Monty; film's The Affairs of Dobie Gillis; The Blues Brothers

Hal Holbrook 02/17/1925 husband of Dixie Carter (1984 - present), Carol Rossen (1966 - 1979) divorced, performer - Mark Twain Tonight! [1966 & 2005]; After The Fall; Incident at Vichy; Mark Twain Tonight!; I Never Sang For My Father (Lillian Gish, Teresa Wright); An American Daughter; film's All the President’s Men, Sorry Wrong Number, Midway, Our Town, The Firm, Wall Street, Magnum Force

Lee Hoiby 02/17/1926 Composer - The White House (James Daly, Helen Hayes, Fritz Weaver, Gene Wilder); 1965 Tartuffe

Patricia Routledge 02/17/1929 performer - How's the World Treating You?; Darling of the Day; 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, (Ken Howard, Beth Fowler); Love Match [didn't make it to Bway, closed in Arizona] (Hal Lindon, Ken Richards)tv's & film's Keeping Up Appearances; Hetty Wainthropp Investigates; Lock Up Your Daughters (Chris Plummer, Susannah York, Glynis Johns)

Alan Bates 02/17/1934 - Dec 27, 2003 performer, father of Tristan Bates (1971 - 1990) died during asthma attack, father of Benedick Bates, husband of Victoria Ward (1970 - 1992) her death - Look Back in Anger; The Caretaker (Donald Pleasence, Robert Shaw); Poor Richard (Gene Hackman); Butley; Fortunel's Fool; film's An Unmarried Woman, Women in Love, Zorba

Barry Humphries 02/17/1934 performer, Dame Edna Everage [Pseudonym] - orig. Oliver!; Dame Edna: The Royal Tour; Dame Edna Back With A Vengeance!

Zina Bethune 02/17/1945 choreo., performer - orig The Most Happy Fella; film's Sunrise at Campobello, Who’s that Knocking at My Door?, The Nurses, Nutcracker: Money, Madness & Murder

Cris Groenendaal 2/17/1948 performer, bea-u-tiful tenor voice! Heard him sing "Johanna" a yr or so ago & he's still singing it in my dreams, the voice that I compare all other to who attempt "Johanna". He's still got it: the same sweetness, technique & musicality! - Sweeney Todd (Len Cariou, Angela Lansbury, Victer Garber, Merle Louise, Sara Rice); Sunday in the Park with George; The Phantom of the Opera; Passion; 1996 A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

Don Scardino 02/17/1949 writer, performer, dir.; Husband of Pamela Blair - The Playroom; The Loves of Cass McGuire; The Unknown Soldier and His Wife; Johnny No-Trump; My Daughter, Your Son (Robert Alda, Dody Goodman, Vivian Vance); Godspell; Angel (Fred Gwynne); A Few Good Men; Sacrilege (Ellen Burstyn); Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All; Lennon

Becky Ann Baker 02/17/1953 Wife of Dylan Baker, performer - The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas; 1988 A Streetcar Named Desire; Titanic; 2004 Assassins

Lou Diamond Phillips 02/17/1962 performer - 1996 The King and I; film's Courage Under Fire, Extreme Justice, Young Guns series, Harley, La Bamba, Stand and Deliver

Jordan Lage 02/17/1963 performer - 1988 Our Town; The Old Neighborhood (Patti LuPone, Peter Riegert); Gore Vidal's The Best Man; 2005 Glengarry Glen Ross; 2007 Inherit the Wind

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

1925 John Barrymore's Hamlet reigns at the Haymarket in London. Fay Compton, Constance Collier and Malcome Keen join him for the 67 performances.

1976 Opening night of legendary flop Rockabye Hamlet, Cliff Jones' rock musical version of Shakespeare's tragedy, which has a 7-performance run at the Minskoff Theatre with a cast that includes Larry Marshall as Hamlet, Beverly D'Angelo as Ophelia (who commits suicide by strangling herself with her immense microphone cord), and Meat Loaf as a Priest.

1977 The Cherry Orchard with Meryl Streep, Mary Beth Hurt, Christine Estabrook, Christine Estabrook, Irene Worth & my beloved Raul Julia.

2002 Bea Arthur on Broadway; Pianist was Billy Goldenberg

ON THIS DAY IN:

1933 - Blondie Boopadoop, the title role and flapper in the comic strip, Blondie, married Dagwood Bumstead. The marriage took place three years after Chic Young’s popular strip first debuted in U.S. newspapers. Later, Blondie became a hit on radio, television and in films, as well.

1982 Instructor-teacher Lee Strasberg, the foremost advocate of Method acting, dies at the age of 80. "Art is longer than life," he once said, and his style of acting lives on at his Lee Strasberg Institute of the Theatre, in both New York and Los Angeles.

2003 Walloped by a blizzard that drops more than 20 inches of snow in Times Square, several Broadway shows cancel performances.

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

Milla