Today's Birthdays 3/10

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 3/10/04 at 9:30pm

Barry Fitzgerald 03/10/1888 - Jan 4, 1961 performer, Brother of Arthur Shields - 1934 & 1940 Juno and the Paycock; film's Academy Award-winning [supporting] actor: Going My Way [1944]; Bringing Up Baby, How Green Was My Valley, The Quiet Man

Sam Jaffe 03/10/1891 - Mar 24, 1984 performer - origs: Jazz Singer (George Jessel); Grand Hotel; 1937 A Doll's House (Ruth Gordon); Cafe Crown (Sam Wannamaker); Mademoiselle Colombe (Julie Harris, Edna Best); film's Asphalt Jungle; The Scarlet Empress; my fav Gunga Din

Claire Boothe Luce 3/10/1903 - 10/9/1987 American playwright and politician - playwright: The Women, Kiss the Boys Goodbye, Margin of Error; editor: Vogue, Vanity Fair; politician: U.S. Congresswoman [1943-47]; U.S. Ambassador to Italy [1953-56]

David Rabe 03/10/1940 playwright - Streamers, Casualties of War, I’m Dancing as Fast as I Can

Katharine Houghton 03/10/1945 performer; niece of actress Katharine Hepburn - A Very Rich Woman; The Front Page (Peggy Cass, Julia Meade); film's Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Billy Bathgate, The Night We Never Met

Mark Lamos 03/10/1946 Director, Performer, Other, Producer - The Love Suicide at Schofield Barracks (Mercedes McCambridge); The Creation of the World and Other Business (Zoe Caldwell, George Grizzard); Our Country's Good (Cherry Jones, J. Smith-Cameron)

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

Marie Dressler's "All Star Gambol" 03/10/1913

1954 A posthumous revival of Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera proves to be his biggest hit. The Theatre de Lys revival translated by Marc Blitzstein and directed by Carmen Capalbo will run seven years and attain Off-Broadway's record run, until surpassed by The Fantasticks. Stars of this production include Bea Arthur, Lotte Lenya, Scott Merrill, Jo Sullivan, John Astin and Charlotte Rae.

1959 Sweet Bird of Youth plays at the Martin Beck Theatre in New York. Geraldine Page stars as an aging actress with Paul Newman as her paid escort. Rip Torn, Diana Hyland, and Sidney Blackmer are also in the cast. This Tennessee Williams drama will play for 375 performances. Elia Kazan stages.

1965 - Walter Matthau and Art Carney opened in The Odd Couple, one of Neil Simon’s greatest theatrical triumphs. It would also become a hit on television, with Tony Randall playing the tidy Felix Ungar and Jack Klugman as slovenly sportswriter, Oscar Madison. The play opened at the Plymouth Theatre in New York City.

Abelard and Heloise 03/10/1971 - Keith Michell, Dianna Rigg - wish I'd seen this!

Ulysses in Nighttown 03/10/1974

1975 Critics and audiences don't know what to make of Richard (Ritz) O'Brien's London import, a bizarre science-fiction musical called The Rocky Horror Show. It opens today and runs just 45 performances at the Belasco Theatre. Broadway stars Tim Curry, Meat Loaf, and O'Brien will repeat their roles in the film version, which will become one of the all-time successful cult classics.

2000 Tony-nominated composer-lyricist Michael John LaChiusa begins performances of his Broadway musical, The Wild Party, at the Virginia Theatre, starring Mandy Patinkin and Eartha Kitt. Coincidentally, it is the second New York musical of this season to be based on that 1928 poem by Joseph Moncure March. Off-Broadway's Manhattan Theatre Club staged composer-lyricist-librettist Andrew Lippa's version with the same title.

ON THIS DAY IN:

1956 - Julie Andrews was 23 years old this night when she made her TV debut. She appeared with Bing Crosby and Nancy Olson in the musical adaptation of Maxwell Anderson’s play, High Tor.

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

Milla