Today's Birthdays 6/29

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 6/28/05 at 10:23pm

Frank Loesser 6/29/1910 - 7/28/1969 Producer, Lyricist, Composer, Writer, Musical Supervisor; father of Emily Loesser, husband of Jo Sullivan - Where's Charley?; Guys & Dolls; The Most Happy Fella; Greenwillow; How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying; Perfectly Frank

Nelson Eddy 6/29/1901 - Mar 6, 1967 performer - film's Rose Marie, Naughty Marietta, Girl of the Golden West

Ruth Warrick 6/29/1916 - Jan 15, 2005 (ibdb lists her birth year as 1915) performer - Miss Lonelyhearts (Fritz Weaver, Anne Meara); 1973 Irene; tv's & film's Citizen Kane, All My Children

Fredric N. Kelly 06/29/1916 - Mar 15, 2000 choreographer, performer; Brother of Gene Kelly; He taught Gene (and later John Travolta) to dance; introduced the cha-cha to USA - origs: The Time of Your Life [replacement]; My Romance (Anne Jeffreys); Follies (Dorothy Collins, Gene Nelson, John McMartin, Alexis Smith, Yvonne DeCarlo, Graciela Daniele, Marti Rolph, Virginia Sandifur, Dick Latessa)

Maria Conchita Alonso 06/29/1957 performer - Kiss of the Spider Woman [replacement]; film's Roosters, Texas, Predator 2, Vampire’s Kiss, Colors, The Running Man, Extreme Prejudice, Blood Ties, Moscow on the Hudson, One of the Boys

Sharon Lawrence 06/29/1962 performer - 1987 Cabaret; 1990 Fiddler on the Roof; 1996 Chicago [replacement]; tv's & film's NYPD Blue; The Heidi Chronicles; Little Black Book; The Alibi

Emily Skinner 06/29/1970 (Richmond, Va.) performer - Jekyll & Hyde; Side Show; James Joyce's The Dead; The Full Monty; Dinner at Eight; My Life With Albertine; film's The Adulterer; Anastasia

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

1977 The Cherry Orchard - Marybeth Hurt, Raul Julia, Irene Worth, Diane Lane, Ben Masters

1993 Howard Crabtree's Whoop-Dee-Doo!, the musical revue conceived, created and developed by Charles Catanese, Phillip George, Peter Morris, Dick Gallagher, Mark Waldrop and its namesake, Howard Crabtree, opens at the Actors' Playhouse. The latter three would later collaborate on When Pigs Fly, but Crabtree will fall ill due to complications of AIDS and die June 28, 1996 before the show opened on Aug. 14.

ON THIS DAY IN:

1954 A star is born as Carol Haney's understudy in The Pajama Game goes on in place of the ailing actress and is discovered by theatre critic George Freedly. Writes Freedly in his review of the musical: "The night I saw the show, Miss Haney was sick and her understudy Shirley MacLaine took over. It was one of the most accomplished and completely professional performances I have had the pleasure of enjoying." It will not be long at all before the future Academy Award winner MacLaine will come to Hollywood's attention.

1967 Actress Jayne Mansfield, 34, and two male companions died when their car struck a trailer truck east of New Orleans.

2002 Singer Rosemary Clooney died at age 74.

2003 Katharine Hepburn, the legendary Oscar-winning actress whose heart always remained close to the live theatre, dies at age 96 at her home in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, a few miles from the Ivoryton Playhouse where she played early stage roles. Among her stage roles was Coco Chanel in a 1970 musical, Coco, and in Broadway's The West Side Waltz, by Ernest Thompson, author of On Golden Pond (one of Hepburn's film hits). Her early Broadway triumphs included the original production of Philip Barry's The Philadelphia Story. She won four Leading Actress Academy Awards in her lifetime and was nominated 12 times in the category.

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

Milla

Updated On: 6/28/05 at 10:23 PM