Today's Birthdays 2/20

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 2/19/06 at 11:16pm

Mary Garden 2/20/1874 - 1/3/1967 Scottish-bn. American opera singer

Russel Crouse 02/20/1893 - Apr 3, 1966 Presenter, Producer, Writer, Source Material, Performer, Other, Theatre Owner/Operator; father of Lindsey Crouse - prodigious output of scripts, many in partnership with Howard Lindsay, includes State of the Union and The Great Sebastians, librettos to The Sound of Music, Call Me Madam and Anything Goes, and the play that is still the longest-running non-musical in Broadway history, Life With Father

Gloria Vanderbilt 2/20/1924 performer, source mat'l, fashion designer; wife of Wyatt Cooper (1963 - 5 January 197 (his death) 2 children, Sidney Lumet (27 August 1956 - 1963) (divorced), Leopold Stokowski (21 April 1945 - 1955) (divorced) 2 children, Pat DeCicco (1941 - 20 April 1945) (divorced), Children: Leopold Stanislaus Stokowski, born 1950, and Christopher Stokowski, born 1955, by Leopold Stokowski; Carter Vanderbilt Cooper, born 1965, committed suicide 1988, and Anderson Cooper, born 1967, by Wyatt Cooper; Mother of "The Mole" host Anderson Cooper; subject of famous Vanderbilt child-custody case; tv's & film's The Young Doctors; Adventures in Paradise

Sidney Poitier 02/20/1924 another source lists 1927, dir., performer - Lysistrata [all black cast](Rex Ingram, Etta Moten); 1947 Anna Lucasta; A Raisin in the Sun; Carry Me Back to Morningside Heights (Louis Gossett, Diane Ladd, Cicely Tyson); film's Academy Award-winning actor: Lilies of the Field [1963]; Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, To Sir With Love, Sneakers

Robert Altman 02/20/1925 director - Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (Karen Black, Cher, Kathy Bates, Sudi Bond); film's M*A*S*H, Nashville, Brewster McCloud; A Prairie Home Companion; Gosford Park (Helen Mirren)

Patricia Smith 02/20/1930 performer - Point of No Return; Maybe Tuesday; Howie (Leon Ames, John Fiedler, Gene Saks); film's Spirit of St. Louis, Save the Tiger

Richard Beymer 2/20/1938 - performer - film's The Diary of Anne Frank, West Side Story, Twin Peaks, The Longest Day; Murder, She Wrote

Mike Leigh 2/20/1943 dir, writer, actor - His play, Abigail's Party performed at the New Ambassador's Theatre, was nominated for a 2003 Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Best Revival of 2002; tv's & film's Vera Drake; Topsy-Turvy; Four Days in July

Brenda Blethyn 02/20/1946 performer - 'night, Mother (Edie Falco); film's A River Runs Through It; Little Voice

Sandy Duncan 02/20/1946 performer, wife of Thomas Calcaterra (1973 - 1979) divorced, Don Correia (1980 - present), Bruce Scott (1968 - 1972) divorced - 1996 Chicago [replacement]; Canterbury Tales; Love Is a Time of Day (Tom Ligon); 1970 The Boy Friend; 1979 Peter Pan; tv's & film's Pinnochio, Roots, The Hogan Family; Law & Order; G Spots? (Keith David); Never Again (Jeffrey Tambor, Jill Clayburgh)

Peter Strauss 02/20/1947 performer - Einstein and the Polar Bear; tv'd Rich Man, Poor Man; Body & Soul; Rich Man, Poor Man 1 & 2

Jennifer O’Neill 2/20/1948 performer - film's The Summer of ’42, Cover-Up, Rio Lobo; Time Changer

Edward Albert 2/20/1951, son of Eddie Albert performer - tv' & film's Mind Games, Butterflies are Free, The Heist, Terminal Entry, Guarding Tess; Port Charles; Unbowed; The Last Convertible; my favs Beauty and the Beast & 40 Carats

David Beach 02/20/1964 performer - Mamma Mia! [replacement]; Urinetown; Moon Over Buffalo; off bway "Big, Fat & Ugly with a Moustache," "Modigliani," "Pets," "That's Life," "Hell's Kitchen Sink"; tv' s& film's Firetrap; Neptune's Rocking Horse (Helen Gallagher); Law & Order; American Family

Ron Eldard 02/20/1965 performer - On the Waterfront; 1999 Death of a Salesman [replacement]; tv's & film's One Life to Live; ER; Men Behaving Badly; Death of a Salesman; Black Hawk Down; Blind Justice; Freedomland

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

1934 Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thompson collaborate on an unusual Broadway "opera," Four Saints in Three Acts, which runs 48 performances at the 44th Street Theatre.

1973 Demonstrating the difference in sensibilities between London and New York, the farce No Sex Please, We're British, opens at Broadway's Ritz Theatre today en route to a 16-performance flop run. The London original will continue for a run of 6,761 performances, their longest-running comedy ever.

1980 The Broadway premiere of Lanford Wilson's Talley's Folly opens at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. The play is the prequel to Wilson's Fifth of July which, also under the direction of Marshall W. Mason, will open later in the year.

2003 First Off-Broadway performance for the puppet/human musical Avenue Q at the Vineyard Theatre. The show by Robert Lopez, Jeff Marx and Jeff Whitty will earn raves and move to Broadway.

ON THIS DAY IN:

1872 - The Metropolitan Museum of Art opened in New York City.

1954 Augustin Duncan, the American producer-director-actor died today in Astoria, New York. In 1922 he directed and starred in Eugene O'Neill's The First Man, and in 1926 he starred in and directed Sean O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock. He was 81 years old.

1962 - America’s first space hero, John Glenn, made space history. Glenn orbited the world three times in 4 hours, 55 minutes. “Godspeed, John Glenn. You’re cleared for orbit.”

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

Milla

[Matters]

Posted: 2/19/06 at 11:45pm

and me! YEah, I'm not famous.....I'll let myself out....

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 2/20/06 at 6:34pm

Matters - Happy Birthday! Hope it's magical...

Milla