Today's Birthdays 5/31

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 5/31/04 at 3:36pm

Walt Whitman 5/31/1819 - Mar 26, 1892 source mat'l, poet: Leaves of Grass, When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d, Passage to India, O Captain! My Captain! - We, Comrades Three (Patricia Conolly, Helen Hayes, Will Geer, Rosemary Harris)

Fred Allen 05/31/1894 - Mar 17, 1956 performer, Husband of Portland Hoffa - The Passing Show of 1922; The Little Show (Libby Holman, Clifton Webb); Three's a Crowd (Allen Jones, Fred MacMurray); Ziegfeld Follies of 1934; film's O. Henry's Full House (Oscar Levant, Charles Laughton, Jeanne Craine); We're Not Married (Ginger Rogers, Eve Arden, Marilyn Monroe, Paul Douglas)

Don Ameche 05/31/1908 - 12/6/1993 performer - Silk Stockings; Holiday for Lovers; Goldilocks; 13 Daughters; Henry, Sweet Henry; 1988 Our Town; film's Academy Award-winning actor: Cocoon [1985]; Trading Places, Corinna Corinna; 1 of my favs Midnight (Claudette Colbert, John Barrymore)

Denholm Elliott 05/31/1922 - 10/6/1992 performer - Write Me a Murder (Kim Hunter); 1964 The Seagull (Farley Granger, Eva Le Gallienne); 1967 A Touch of the Poet; film's A Room with a View, The Bourne Identity, The Boys from Brazil, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Voyage of the Damned, Trading Places, Scorchers

Shirley Verrett 5/31/1933 - opera singer: soprano (I liked her best as a mezzo): New York Met - 1994 Carousel

James Cahill 05/31/1940 performer - Break a Leg (Julie Harris); Einstein and the Polar Bear (Peter Strauss); The Marriage of Figaro (Christopher Reeve, Dana Ivey, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Anthony Heald, Louis Zorich); A Month of Sundays (Jason Robards, Lynne Thigpen); City of Angels (looooooved this show)

Tom Berenger 5/31/1949 performer - tv's & film's One Life to Live, If Tomorrow Comes, Platoon, Sliver, Eddie and the Cruisers, Gettysburg, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, A Murder of Crows, In the Company of Spies, Turbulence II: Fear of Flying, (1 of my favs) The Big Chill

Gregory Harrison 05/31/1950 - Steel Pier (Karen Ziemba, Debra Monk, Kristin Chenoweth, Standby: Cady Huffman); 2001 Follies; tv's & film's Logan’s Run, Trapper John, M.D., Family Man, Cadillac Girls, Caught in the Act

Vicki Sue Robinson 05/31/1954 - 4/27/2000 performer - Soon (Peter Allen, Barry Bostwick, Nell Carter, Richard Gere); orig Jesus Christ Superstar [replacement]

Lea Thompson 05/31/1961 performer - 1998 Cabaret [replacement]; tv's & film's The Right to Remain Silent, Dennis the Menace, The Beverly Hillbillies, Howard the Duck, Back to the Future series, Jaws 3, All the Right Moves, Caroline in the City

Brooke Shields 05/31/1965 performer, model: Ivory Snow baby - replacements in 1994 Grease & 1998 Cabaret; tv's & film's The Blue Lagoon, Pretty Baby, Brenda Starr, The Seventh Floor, Backstreet Dreams, Stalking Laura, Suddenly Susan

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

1946 Orson Welles circumnavigated the stage in Around The World , a musical he adapted from the Jules Verne novel, “Around the World in Eighty Days,” Cole Porter provided the music and lyrics for the production, mounted at the Adelphi Theatre.

1979 Liv Ullmann won't be forgotten as she headlines at the Majestic Theatre in I Remember Mama. The Richard Rodgers-Martin Charnin musical with book by Thomas Meehan is directed by Cy Feuer. It will play 40 previews and 108 performances before closing Sep. 2.

The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas 05/31/1982

1998 Natalie Portman, making her stage debut as the star of the Broadway revival of The Diary of Anne Frank, leaves the production at the Music Box Theatre to return to her movie career and be immortalized as Princess Leia's mother in the Star Wars "prequel" films. Natalie Paulding replaces her as Anne.

ON THIS DAY IN:

1889 - 2,300 people died and thousands lost their homes on this unfortunate day in Johnstown, PA. Heavy rains throughout the month caused the Connemaugh River Dam to break, flooding Johnstown. Some 800 unidentified victims were buried in a common grave. The flood was such a tragedy that the phrase, “Johnstown Flood,” became synonymous with a disaster.

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

Milla