Today's Birthdays 4/19

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 11:08pm

Madge Kennedy 04/19/1891 - Jun 9, 1987 performer; WHAT A CAREER! In 1906, Madge went to New York City to study at the Art Students League where she hoped to become an illustrator. This lasted until she appeared in a student musical, which led to a full time job in a traveling stock company. By 1912, Madge was a Broadway Star with the bedroom farce "Little Miss Brown". For the next five years, Madge continued to find success on Broadway appearing in similar roles. Within 3 months of the formation of Goldwyn Pictures, Sam Goldwyn had signed Madge Kennedy to a big movie contract. Goldwyn was at his best when it came to publicity. It was Goldwyn himself who gave Madge the title of "winsome", and Madge was as winsome and sweet as her light comedies suggested. Some of her films were 'Baby Mine (1917)', 'Our Little Wife (191', The Kingdom of Youth (191' and 'Dollars and Sense (1920)'. While at Goldwyn, Madge shared a dressing room with actress Mabel Normand. After 21 films, Madge left Goldwyn Pictures and appeared in a handful of films produced by her husband, Harold Bolster. These films included 'The Purple Highway (1923)' and 'Bad Company (1925)'. After that, Madge retired from the screen and returned to the stage. After a few years and her remarriage, Madge retired from acting altogether. In 1952, Madge was coaxed out of retirement by George Cukor for the small role of Judge Carroll in 'The Marrying Kind (1952)'. With that, she started another career as Character Actress appearing in films like 'Lust for Life (1956)', 'The Catered Affair (1956)', 'North by Northwest (1959)' and 'The Day of the Locust (1975)'. On the small screen, Madge played the part of Aunt Martha on "Leave It to Beaver (1957)". - Little Miss Brown; Poppy (W. C. Fields, Robert Woolsey); orig Private Lives [replacement]; Bridal Wise (Raymond Walburn); tv's & film's Scandal Street; The Marrying Kind (Judy Holliday, Aldo Ray); Main Street to Broadway (Rosemary DeCamp, Agnes Moorehead, Tallulah Bankhead, Ethel Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, Gertrude Berg, Vivian Blaine, Shirley Booth, Louis Calhern, Chris Durocher, Leo Durocher, Faye Emerson, Henry Fonda, Jack Gilford, Oscar Hammerstein II, Rex Harrison, Helen Hayes, Jessie Royce Landis, Joshua Logan, Mary Martin, Lilli Palmer, Bill Rigney, Richard Rodgers, Arthur Shields, John Van Druten, Cornel Wilde); Schlitz Playhouse of Stars; Studio 57; General Electric Theater; Science Fiction Theater; The Rains of Ranchipur; The Catered Affair (Bette Davis, Ernest Borgnine, Debbie Reynolds, Rod Taylor); Lust For Life; Houseboat; A Nice Little Bank That Should Be Robbed or How To Rob A Bank (Tom Ewell, Mickey Rooney, Dina Merrill); North by Northwest; The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp; Alfred Hitchcock Presents; Leave It to Beaver; Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night (Melvyn Douglas, Shirley Booth, Lois Smith) [I LOOOOOVE THIS TV MOVIE!]; They Shoot Horses, Don't They?; The Odd Couple; The Day of the Locust; Marathon Man

Vivienne Segal 04/19/1897 - Dec 29, 1992 performer - Ziegfeld Follies of 1924; Will Rogers; I Married an Angel (Vera Zorina, Dennis King, Walter Slezak); orig Pal Joey (Gene Kelly, Stanley Donan, June Havoc)

Eliot Ness 4/19/1903 - 5/16/1957 American crime fighter; headed the "Untouchables" in Chicago; source mat'l

Frank Fontaine 4/19/1920 - 8/4/1978 performer - comedian, actor, singer: tv's & film's Crazy Guggenheim on The Jackie Gleason Show; Call Me Mister; The Model and the Marriage Broker; The Godmothers

Hugh O’Brian [Hugh Charles Krampe] 4/19/1930 performer; Was the youngest Drill Instructor in Marine Corps history - Age 17; Was once a soda-jerk at Schwab's drug store on Sunset Boulevard; One of the first celebrities to frontline tours of Vietnam at the request of the State Department, Hugh once staged and directed a company of "Guys and Dolls" which toured Vietnam, Thailand and Japan for the troops. - O'Brian starred on Broadway in "Destry Rides Again," "First Love," and in the Broadway revival of "Guys and Dolls." He also starred in the national company of "Cactus Flower," "The Odd Couple," "The Tender Trap," "A Thousand Clowns," and "Plaza Suite." tv's & film's In Harm’s Way, Little Big Horn, There’s No Business like Show Business, Twins, Broken Lance, Ten Little Indians, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp

Jayne Mansfield 04/19/1933 - Jun 29, 1967 performer - Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter; film's Pete Kelly’s Blues, It Takes a Thief, The Girl Can’t Help It; killed in car crash near New Orleans LA; mother of Mariska Hargitay

Dick Sargent 4/19/1933 - July 8, 1994 performer - tv's & film's Bewitched, That Touch of Mink, Body Count, Fantasy Island

Dudley Moore 04/19/1935 - Mar 27, 2002 performer - Beyond the Fringe (Jonathan Miller); Good Evening (Peter Cook); film's Arthur, Arthur 2, 10, Crazy People, Parallel Lives, Bedazzled, The Hound of the Baskervilles

Elinor Donahue 4/19/1937 performer - tv's & film's Father Knows Best, The Andy Griffith Show, Get a Life, Pretty Woman; Star Trek

Tim Curry 04/19/1946 performer - Spamalot; The Rocky Horror Show; Amadeus; Travesties; tv's & film's Muppet Treasure Island, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, Oscar, Stephen King’s It, The Hunt for Red October, Oliver Twist, Annie, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, My Favorite Year, Amadeus, Hair, Wiseguy, The Legend of Prince Valiant, voice of King Chicken in cartoon: Duckman

Betsy Joslyn 04/19/1954 performer; Wife of George Hearn (1979 - 1984) divorced - orig Sweeney Todd; orig A Doll's Life; The Goodbye Girl; High Society

Ashley Judd 04/19/1968 performer - 1994 Picnic; 2003 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; film's De-Lovely; Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood; Frida; Twisted; Smoke; Time to Kill

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

1951 Edith Evans, Sybil Thorndike, and Wendy Hiller are residents at a country hotel in N.C.Hunter's Waters of the Moon. They won't be checking out till they register 835 performances at London's Haymarket. Frith Banbury stages.

1955 Leonard Bernstein's short opera, Trouble in Tahiti, dance routines by Paul Draper, and a staging of Tennessee Williams' 27 Wagons Full of Cotton are All in One. Maureen Stapleton and Myron McCormick appear in the Williams play. The evening runs six weeks at New York's Playhouse Theatre.

1956 Broadway starts Waiting for Godot, it's impatient though, and this production lasts just 59 performances at the Golden Theatre. E.G.Marshall and Bert Lahr are Didi and Gogo. Herbert Berghof directs.

1972 If only people listened when you say Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope! Micki Grant stars in and supplies the music and lyrics for this musical exploring the trials, and celebrating the pride, of African-American life. It will run 1,065 performances at the Edison Theatre in New York.

1979 Bernard Pomerance's tale of the grossly disfigured John Merrick, better known as The Elephant Man, opens on Broadway at the Booth Theatre. Philip Anglim stars as the stricken man (sans makeup) while Carole Shelley and Kevin Conway co-star. The play wins the Tony Award for Best Play.

1999 Martin McDonagh, whose The Beauty Queen of Leenane ended its yearlong Broadway run just weeks ago, now has another play, The Lonesome West, starting previews at the Lyceum Theatre tonight. The play is part of McDonagh's "Leenane" trilogy (the third being A Skull in Connemara) and opens on Broadway April 27.

2001 It's ker-ching time for Hitler -- and Mel Brooks and all of Broadway. Legendary opening night of The Producers at the St. James Theatre, as ticket buyers form lines down 44th Street to see Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick in the musical adaptation of the 1968 Brooks film. Wildly positive reviews the next morning prompt producers to raise the top ticket price to $100.

ON THIS DAY IN:

1951 - General Douglas MacArthur spoke before Congress. The highlight of this memorable address was General MacArthur stating, “Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.”

1956 - Actress Grace Kelly became Princess Grace of Monaco on this day. The beloved U.S. actress from Philadelphia married Prince Rainier III of Monaco in a storybook wedding. More than 1,500 radio, TV, newspaper and magazine reporters were on hand for the event in Monaco, as were most of the citizens of the tiny country.

On April 19, 1995, a truck bomb exploded outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, and injuring 500. Timothy McVeigh was convicted of the bombing and sentenced to death.

2003 Cholly Atkins, a Broadway tap dancer and choreographer whose collaborations with Charles "Honi" Coles were the stuff of showbiz legend, dies in Las Vegas at the age of 89.

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

Milla

[Caroline-Q-or-TBoo]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 11:10pm

my day has been enriched.

thank you

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 4/19/06 at 1:41pm

bump

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 4/19/06 at 1:44pm

It's appropriate, then, that my paper ON Waiting for Godot was due today, the opening date, which is also my birthday.

[BSoBW2]

Posted: 4/19/06 at 1:46pm

Carousel also opened in 1945.

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 4/19/06 at 4:58pm

bumpety bump

[bundy5000]

Posted: 4/19/06 at 5:13pm

Tim Curry!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TIM!!!!!!!!!!!!

He is my idol. If you didnt like him in rocky horror then howabout IT? if not that howabout CLUE! and if not that then Muppet Treasure Island. or to be more kid friendly Nigel Thornberry!