Today's Birthdays 2/28

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 2/28/08 at 9:41pm

Geraldine Farrar 2/28/1882 - 3/11/1967 American operatic soprano

Ben Hecht 02/28/1894 - 4/18/1964 novelist: Eric Dorn; scriptwriter: Wuthering Heights; playwright: The Front Page

Marcel Pagnol 02/28/1895 - Apr 18, 1974 Source Material, Writer - Merchants of Glory; Topaze; Marseilles; Fanny

Vincente Minnelli 02/28/1903 - 7/25/1986 father of Liza Minnelli, husband of Judy Garland (1945 - 1951) divorced; Writer, Source Material, Director, Designer - Earl Carroll's Vanities [1932]; Ziegfeld Follies of 1936; Hooray For What!; Very Warm for May; Academy Award-winning director: Gigi [1958]; An American in Paris, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever

Bugsy Siegel 2/28/1906 - 6/20/1947 American gangster who started Las Vegas gambling, source mat'l

Zero Mostel 02/28/1915 - 9/8/1977 Fiddler on the Roof, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Rhinoceros; film's The Producers; A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum; Journey into Fear

Charles Durning 02/28/1923 performer - Drat! The Cat!; The Happy Time; That Championship Season; Boom Boom Room; The au Pair Man; 1996 Inherit the Wind; 2000 Gore Vidal's The Best Man; film's Spy Hard, The Hudsucker Proxy, Dick Tracy, Death of a Salesman, Tootsie, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Sharky’s Machine, The Final Countdown, When a Stranger Calls, North Dallas Forty, The Hindenburg, Dog Day Afternoon, The Sting, Evening Shade, Studs Lonigan, Eye to Eye, The Cop and the Kid, Captains and the Kings

Tom Aldredge 02/28/1928 performer; Husband of Theoni V. Aldredge - The Nervous Set; UTBU; The Engagement Baby (Constance Towers); How the Other Half Loves; Sticks & Bones; 1973 The Iceman Cometh; 1974 Where's Charley?; Rex; Vieux Carré; On Golden Pond; Into the Woods; Passion; The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; 2002 The Crucible; 2004 Twentieth Century; 2004 Twelve Angry Men

Gavin MacLeod 02/28/1930 performer - The Captains and the Kings; tv's & film's Love Boat, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, McHale’s Navy, Operation Petticoat

Tommy Tune 02/28/1939 Choreographer, Director, Performer, Producer, Creative Consultant - Baker Street, Two for the Seesaw, My One and Only, Grand Hotel, A Day in Hollywood and a Night in the Ukraine, Nine; Will Rogers Follies

Mercedes Ruehl 02/28/1948 performer - I'm Not Rappaport; Lost in Yonkers; 1995 The Rose Tattoo; The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?; film's Indictment: The McMartin Trial, Lost in Yonkers, Last Action Hero, The Fisher King, Married to the Mob, Big, Radio Days

Bernadette Peters 02/28/1948 [Bernadette Lazarro] performer; Wife of Michael Wittenberg (1996 - 2005); his death - 1959 The Most Happy Fella; The Girl in the Freudian Slip; Johnny No-Trump; George M!; La Strada; 1971 On the Town; Mack & Mabel; Sunday in the Park with George; Song & Dance; Into the Woods; The Goodbye Girl; Annie Get Your Gun; 2003 Gypsy; tv's & film's All's Fair, The Jerk, Annie, George M, Dames at Sea, Pennies from Heaven

Brent Barrett 02/28/1957 performer - 1980 West Side Story; Dance a Little Closer; Candide; Princesses

John Turturro 02/28/1957 performer, Cousin of Aida Turturro - Life (x) 3; film's Girl 6, Quiz Show, Barton Fink, Miller’s Crossing, The Sicilian, Hannah and Her Sisters, The Color of Money, To Live & Die in L.A., Desperately Seeking Susan

Robert Sean Leonard 02/28/1969 performer - Breaking the Code; The Speed of Darkness; Arcadia; The Invention of Love; 2003 Long Day's Journey Into Night; The Violet Hour; tv's & film's House; The Boys Next Door, Safe Passage, The Age of Innocence, Mr. & Mrs. Bridge, Dead Poets Society, Manhattan Project

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

1955 Ben Bagley's Shoestring Revue has a big name cast. Chita Rivera, Beatrice Arthur and Arte Johnson head the cast at the President Theatre in New York.

1979 Ernest Thompson's late-in-life drama On Golden Pond, which premiered Off Broadway Sept. 13 at the Hudson Guild Theatre, transfers to Broadway's New Apollo Theatre. The play, starring Tom Aldredge and Frances Sternhagen, will close Mar 14, 1980 after a switch to the Century Theatre.

1988 Robert Prosky and Sam Waterston play Russian and American negotiators trying to pull the world back from nuclear confrontation in Lee Blessing's Pulitzer finalist A Walk in the Woods, which opens today at the Booth Theatre, beginning a 137-performance run.

2002 Off-Broadway opening today for Eve Ensler's drama Necessary Targets, about sexual violence against women during the early 1990s war in Yugoslavia.

2008 Passing Strange

ON THIS DAY IN:

1854 About 50 slavery opponents met in Ripon, Wis., to call for creation of a new political group, which became the Republican Party. & so it begins...

1916 Novelist Henry James dies today in London. Several of his novels became the basis for plays. "Washington Square," which came to life as The Heiress was the most successful. He was 73 years old.

1959 Playwright Maxwell Anderson died today in Stamford, Connecticut. Among his many plays are Elizabeth the Queen, Mary of Scotland, Anne of the Thousand Days, and The Bad Seed. He was 71 years old.

1999 The Jason Robert Brown-Alfred Uhry-Harold Prince musical Parade, which opened at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theatre Dec. 17, 1998, closes. Brent Carver and Carolee Carmello starred in the show, based on the real-life Leo Frank case and tragic events that followed.

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

Milla