Today's Birthdays 3/18

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 3/18/05 at 11:02am

Edward Everett Horton 3/18/1886 - 9/29/1970 performer - 1912 Elevating a Husband; 1951 Springtime for Henry; tv's & film's narrator: Fractured Fairy Tales on The Bullwinkle Show; It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Lost Horizon, Sex and the Single Girl, Arsenic and Old Lace; Gay Divorcee; Shall We Dance; His Horace Hardwick in TOP HAT was super!

Smiley (Lester Alvin) Burnette 3/18/1911 - 2/16/1967 performer, 1 of Gene Autry's sidekicks, very funny character actor - film's Western Double Features, Gene Autry Matinee Double Features, Dick Tracy: The Original Serial, King of the Cowboys, Springtime in the Rockies, Silver Spurs

Peter Graves 03/18/1926 brother of James Arness, performer - The Captains and the Kings; tv's & film's Mission Impossible, The Winds of War, Airplane, Airplane 2, Stalag 17, The President’s Plane is Missing, The Night of the Hunter; A&E's Biography

John Kander 03/18/1927 Composer, Arranger, Musical Director, Musical Staff - origs: Gypsy [Dance arrangements & Rehearsal Pianist] (Merman); Irma La Douce [dance music]; A Family Affair; Never Too Late (Orson Bean, Paul Ford, Maureen O'Sullivan); Flora, The Red Menace; Cabaret; The Happy Time; Zorba; 70 Girls 70 (Lillian Roth, Han Conreid, Mildred Natwick); Chicago; The Act; Woman of the Year; The Rink; The Crucible; 3 Men on a Horse; Kiss of the Spider Woman; Steel Pier; film's score for SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE (Angela Lansbury) film.

George Plimpton 3/18/1927 writer - Paper Lion, Shadow Box actor: Rio Lobo, Reds, Little Man Tate, Just Cause

John Updike 3/18/1932 writer: The Witches of Eastwicke, Rabbit Run

Brad Dourif 3/18/1950 performer - off-bway: When You Comin' Back, Red Rider?; film's Phoenix, Color of Night, Wild Palms, Final Judgement, Jungle Fever, Body Parts, Mississippi Burning, Blue Velvet, Dune, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Studs Lonigan, The Eyes of Laura Mars; Wise Blood, Heaven's Gate; Ragtime; London Kills; Lord of the Rings Parts 2 & 3

Vanessa Williams 03/18/1963 performer, wife of Ramon Hervey II (1987 - 1997) divorced; 3 children, Rick Fox (pro basketball player) (1999 - present); 1 child; Williams is known for being the first African-American Miss America (scandal later forced her to relinquish the crown) and for pop music career - Kiss of the Spider Woman [replacement]; 2002 Into The Woods; film's Eraser, Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man

Irene Cara 03/18/1964 performer - Maggie Flynn (Shirley Jones, Stephanie Mills; The Me Nobody Knows (Laura Michaels, Northern J. Calloway, Hattie Winston); Via Galactica; Got Tu Go Disco

Sutton Foster 3/18/circa 1975 dates unconfirmed; performer, sister of Hunter Foster - replacements in Les Misérables & Grease; 1997 Annie; The Scarlet Pimpernel; Thoroughly Modern Millie; Little Women

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

1952 George Tabori's Flight Into Egypt is staged by Elia Kazan at the Music Box Theatre. Zero Mostel, Jo Van Fleet and Paul Mann are the Viennese refugees struggling to get to America.

1963 Using the play by Robert E. Sherwood and Jacques Deval, David Shaw devises Tovarich. Peter Glenville directs Vivian Leigh and Jean-Pierre Aumont. Songs are composed by Lee Pockriss and Anne Crosswell. There will be 264 performances at the Broadway Theatre in New York.

1965 Elizabeth Allen plays a lonely woman desperate for love and wondering, Do I Hear a Waltz ?. Richard Rodgers and Stephen Sondheim provide music and lyrics for Arthur Laurents' adaptation of his play, The Time of the Cuckoo. Sergio Franchi is the married man who comes into her life. There will be 220 performances.

1993 At the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, Wendy Wasserstein's The Sisters Rosensweig opens after an Off-Broadway run at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre. The comedy-drama stars Jane Alexander, Robert Klein and Madeline Kahn who will win a Tony for Leading Actress in a Play.

1999 Playwright David Hare makes his Broadway acting debut at the Booth Theatre in a solo written by and about himself. Via Dolorosa or "Way of Sadness," about the Arab-Israeli conflict, will run through June 13.

ON THIS DAY IN:

1190 - Crusaders kill 57 Jews in Bury St Edmonds England

1922 Mohandas K. Gandhi was sentenced to prison in India for civil disobedience. He serves 2 years.

1940 Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini held a meeting at the Brenner Pass during which the Italian dictator agreed to join in Germany's war against France and Britain.

1942 - 2 black players, Jackie Robinson & Nate Moreland, request a tryout with the Chicago White Sox, they are allowed to work out.

1961 - Poppin' Fresh Pillsbury Dough Boy introduced

1989 - Largest Art robbery in the history (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston), where 12 paintings valued at $100 million are stolen

1992 - Leona Helmsley, hotel queen and convicted tax cheat, was sentenced to four years in prison. sentence to 4 years for tax evasion

1994 - Zsa Zsa Gabor files for bankruptcy

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

Milla
Updated On: 3/19/05 at 11:02 AM