Today's Birthdays 4/30

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 4/30/07 at 6:35pm

Franz Lehar 4/30/1870 - 10/24/1948 Hungarian composer - The Merry Widow (Ethel Jackson); Gypsy Love; Eva; The Star Gazer (John Charles Thomas); Yours Is My Heart (Richard Tauber [glorious tenor!]); The Man with Three Wives (Charlotte Greenwood)

Joe Yule 04/30/1894 - Mar 30, 1950 performer; Mickey Rooney's father - replacement in Finian's Rainbow; film's scores of credited & uncredited films (many with his son) including Judge Hardy & Son; 1940 New Moon; Boom Town; The Trial of Mary Dugan; Billy the Kid; Shadow of the Thin Man; Woman of the Year; Maisie series; Jiggs & Maggie series (starring Joe Yule & Renie Riano)

Eve Arden 4/30/1908 - 11/12/1990 performer - Ziegfeld Follies of 1934 & 1936; Parade; Very Warm For May; Two For The Show (Betty Hutton, Alfred Drake); Let's Face It! (Danny Kaye, Nanette Fabray, [Understudy: Carol Channing]); Moose Murders [replaced in previews]; tv's & film's Emmy Award-winning actress: Our Miss Brooks [1953], Anatomy of a Murder, Grease, Stage Door, Tea for Two

Al Lewis 04/30/1910 - Feb 3, 2006 performer - The Night Circus (Ben Gazzara, Janice Rule ); One More River (Lloyd Nolan); Do Re Mi (Nancy Dussault, Phil Silvers, Nancy Walker); tv's & film's The Munsters, Car 54 Where are You?, My Grandpa is a Vampire, Married to the Mob

Sheldon Harnick 04/30/1924 Lyricist, Writer, Composer, Performer; brother of Jay Harnick, brother-in-law of Barbara Barrie, husband of Margery Gray, uncle of Aaron Harnick - Leonard Sillman's New Faces of 1952; 2's Company; The Body Beautiful; Portofino; Fiorello; Vintage '60; Tenderloin; She Loves Me; Fiddler on the Roof; Baker Street; The Apple Tree (Barbara Harris, Alan Alda, Larry Blyden [Standby: Ken Kercheval]); The Rothschilds; Rex; The Madwoman of Central Park West; Chita Rivera: The Dancer's Life; It's A Wonderful Life

Cloris Leachman 04/30/1926 performer, Sister of Claiborne Cary - Sundown Beach; orig South Pacific [replacement]; A Story for a Sunday Evening; Lo and Behold! (Lee Grant, Leo G. Carroll, Jeffrey Lynn); Dear Barbarians [Musician: Cy Coleman and Trio] (Betsy Von Furstenberg); King of Hearts (Jackie Cooper, Rex Thompson); Masquerade (Gene Lyons, Glenda Farrell); tv's & film's Academy Award-winning actress: The Last Picture Show [1971]; Emmy Award-winner: A Brand New Life [1972-73], The Mary Tyler Moore Show [1973-74], Cher [1974-75], Screen Actor’s Guild 50th Anniversary Celebration [1983-84]; Phyllis, Backstairs at the White House, The Facts of Life; High Anxiety; Young Frankenstein

Jill Clayburgh 04/30/1944 performer; mother of Lily Rabe, wife of David Rabe (1979 - ?) - origs: The Sudden & Accidental Re-Education of Horse Johnson; The Rothschilds; Pippin; Jumpers; 1984 Design For Living (Frank Langella, Lisa Kirk, Raul Julia); A Naked Girl on the Appian Way; Barefoot in the Park; film's An Unmarried Woman, Luna, Portnoy’s Complaint, Semi-Tough, The Silver Streak, Terminal Man, Firestorm: 72 Hours in Oakland, Honor Thy Father and Mother

Perry King 4/30/1948 performer, studied w/Houseman at Juilliard - A Few Good Men [replacement); tv's & film's The Day After Tomorrow (Dennis Quaide); Riptide; Captains & the King; A Cry in the Night, Kaleidoscope, The Lord’s of Flatbush, Mandingo (James Mason), Search and Destroy, Switch; Lipstick (with Margaux Hemmingway [Granddaughter of Ernest. Perry King is the grandson of Hemmingway's editor.]

Randy Danson 04/30/1950 performer - Plenty [standby]; 2003 Wonderful Town; Well [standby] (Lisa Kron, Jayne Houdyshell)

Craig Lucas 04/30/1951 writer, performer - origs: Shenandoah (John Cullum); Rex (Nicol Williamson, Penny Fuller, Glenn Close); On the Twentieth Century (John Cullum, Kevin Kline, Imogene Coca, Madeline Kahn, Judy Kaye); Sweeney Todd (Angela Lansbury, Len Cariou, Merle Louise, Sarah Rice, Victor Garber); orig & 2007 Prelude to a Kiss; Reckless; The Light in the Piazza (Victoria Clark, Kelli O'Hara, Matthew Morrison)

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

1948 Based on a recent book by John Gunther, Moss Hart, Arnold Auerbach and Arnold Horwitt script Inside the U.S.A.. The large cast, led by Beatrice Lillie, who also leads a choral ode to Pittsburgh, will run 399 performances.

1957 Australian Ray Lawler's drama Summer of the Seventeenth Doll is performed by an Australian company at London's New Theatre. This story of Queensland sugar-cane cutters wins 254 showings.

1972 It's not a full term, it's just An Evening with Richard Nixon. Gore Vidal's satire of the President plays just two weeks at the Shubert Theatre on Broadway. Ed Sherin directs and George S. Irving portrays Nixon.

1980 Barnum with Jim Dale, Glenn Close & the bway debut of Terrence V. Mann. Loooved this show & the song "Love Makes Such Fools of Us All"

1996 Sam Shepard is Broadway's newborn baby as his first play to reach The Great White Way, Buried Child, opens at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. Steppenwolf Theatre's production, about a family with a terrible secret, is directed by Gary Sinise and features James Gammon, Jim True and Lois Smith. The play makes it to Broadway nearly two decades after it wins the Pulitzer Prize for its original Off-Broadway production. I saw this prod'n. I was glued to my seat.

2000 Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, starring Sir Derek Jacobi, opens at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. The Roundabout Theatre Company's production of the show co-stars Roger Rees and Laura Linney and runs through June 11. Michael Mayer directs.

2002 Stephen Sondheim's and James Lapine's Into the Woods gets a starry, high-tech revival with Vanessa Williams, Laura Benanti and John McMartin. The show goes on to win the 2003 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical.

2003 Academy Award winners Al Pacino and Marisa Tomei play Herod and Salome in a Broadway revival of Oscar Wilde's Salome. The company also includes Dianne Wiest and David Strathairn in the production at Circle-in-the-Square Theatre.

ON THIS DAY IN:

1789 George Washington took office in New York as the first president of the United States.

1803 The United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France.

1975 - Saigon -- and all of Vietnam -- fell into communist hands this day, the unofficial end of the Vietnam War. As the U.S. withdrew completely from Saigon, the old noncommunist capital fell to North Vietnamese tanks. Americans commemorate the fall of Saigon with memorial services for the 58,153 Americans who died in Southeast Asia during the war.

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

Milla