Today's Birthdays 6/24

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 6/23/08 at 6:30pm

Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester 6/24/1532 - 9/4/1588 English favorite [to put it mildly] of Queen Elizabeth I. This historical story puts today's political power plays to shame!

David Rose 06/24/1909 - Aug 23, 1990 husband of Betty Bigelow (1948 - ?), Martha Raye (1938 - 1941) divorced, Judy Garland (1941 - 1945) divorced; Composer, Arranger, Conductor - Winged Victory (Red Buttons, Lee J. Cobb, John Forsythe, Karl Malden, Edmond O'Brien, George Reeves, Victor Young); and as I recall wasn't he involved somehow w/prod'g Carmen Jones

Michele Lee 6/24/1942 performer - Vintage '60; orig How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying; Bravo Giovanni; Seesaw; The Tale of the Allergist's Wife; tv's & film's Knots Landing, The Love Bug, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

Peter Weller 06/24/1947 performer - 1973 The Merchant of Venice (Rosemary Harris, Philip Bosco, Roberta Maxwell); Summer Brave (Jill Eikenberry, Alexis Smith); tv's & film's 24; Prey; Screamers, Mighty Aphrodite, Decoy, Sunset Grill, Naked Lunch, RoboCop series, A Killing Affair, Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai across the Eighth Dimension

Walter Willison 06/24/1947 performer - Norman, Is That You?; 2 X 2; Wild and Wonderful (Ann Reinkingj, Pamela Blair); Pippin; Grand Hotel; tv's & film's Initiation; Ziegfeld: The Man and His Women

Nancy Allen 6/24/1950 performer - Machinal; film's Carrie, Robocop, Blow Out, Dressed to Kill, I Wanna Hold Your Hand

Anne Lange 06/24/1953 performer - The Survivor (Joseph Adams, Željko Ivanek, Lonny Price); The Heidi Chronicles; 1995 Holiday; 2002 Dinner at Eight (Emily Skinner, Christine Ebersole, John Dossett, Marian Seldes); tv's & film's Shadows and Fog; Family Reunion; Cry Baby Lane; Law & Order

Anna Louizos 06/24/1957 designer - The Red Shoes; The Scarlet Pimpernel; Ave. Q; Steel Magnolias; Steel Magnolias; Curtains; In the Heights

Katherine Hiler 06/24/1961 performer, wife of Daniel H. Jenkins - The Kentucky Cycle; tv's & film's The Revolt of Mother; I'm Not Rappaport; Law & Order

Sally Mae Dunn 06/24/1963 performer - The Will Rogers Follies; The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public; 2001 Follies; Never Gonna Dance (Noah Racey, Nancy Lemenager, Ron Orbach, Karen Ziemba); Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Norbuert Leo Butz, John Lithgow, Sherie René Scott, Joanna Gleason, Gregory Jbara, Sara Gettelfinger)

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

1942 Gypsy Rose Lee and Bobby Clark are featured in Michael Todd's musical revue, Star and Garter, which opens a 609-performance run at the Music Box Theatre.

1976 Opening today, Paul Rudd (the 1st) stars as Henry and Meryl Streep as Katharine in the New York Shakespeare Festival's Shakespeare-in-the-Park mounting of Henry V. Among the costars are Michael Moriarty (as Chorus), Jay O. Sanders, Stephen Lang, Philip Bosco (as Pistol), Gerry Bamman and Lenny Baker.

1992 Al Pacino hopes to use his star power to help raise money for the Circle in the Square Theatre by playing two shows in brief repertory: Salome and Chinese Coffee.

1997 Off Broadway gets a taste of Grand Ole Opry when the musical biography Always...Patsy Cline opens at the Variety Arts Theatre. Ted Swindley directs the musical, which he wrote about the country & western star who died in a plane crash in 1963.

1999 Shear Madness, the longest-running show in the history of Washington, D.C.'s Kennedy Center, celebrates its 5,000th performance today. The improvisational murder-mystery opened for a 12-week run Aug. 12, 1987 and has been playing ever since.

ON THIS DAY IN:

1509 Henry VIII was crowned king of England.

1647 Margaret Brent, a niece of Lord Baltimore, was ejected from the Maryland Assembly after demanding a place and vote in the body.

1987 - ‘The Great One’, Jackie Gleason, died on this day, at the age of 71. Gleason was one of TV’s biggest stars in the 1950s and 1960s. He started on the DuMont Television Network, became a celebrated fixture on CBS-TV, and later, a movie star. He starred in honored films such as, Gigot and The Hustler. He also starred in Smokey and the Bandit. Jackie Gleason is best remembered from TV, however, as bus driver Ralph Kramden in The Honeymooners, which still ranks as one of TV’s greatest sitcoms.

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

Milla