Today's Birthdays 9/15
Today's Birthdays 9/15
Today's Birthdays 9/15#0
Posted: 9/14/06 at 11:17pm
Robert Benchley 09/15/1889 - Nov 21, 1945 father of Nathaniel Benchley, grandfather of Peter Benchley, performer, writer 1889 Robert Benchley, the acclaimed actor, critic, and humorist of the early Twentieth Century, was born today. Benchley was married to Gertrude Darling and made his stage debut in this month in 1923. An example of his incredible wit can be seen in his 1926 review of Jean Bart's Squall, which is about a gypsy woman who leaves her people to satisfy her lusts with an outsider. Included in the dialogue is: "Me Nubi. Nubi good girl. Nubi stay." Responding in his review, Benchley states, "Me Benchley. Benchley bad boy. Benchley go." Tallulah Bankhead, who was a friend of his, called him "as gay and thirsty a gentleman as I ever encountered." - THE MUSIC BOX REVIEW [1923] (Grace Moore into'd ALL ALONE BY THE TELEPHONE); film's The Sex Life of the Polyp; How to Break 90 at Croquet; China Seas; How to Sleep; How to Behave; How to Train a Dog; & the rest of the "How to" series; Picadilly Jim; Foreign Correspondent; The Trouble with Husbands; Nice Girl? (Deanna Durbin); Take a Letter, Darling (Roz Russell, Fred MacMurray); The Major and the Minor; I Married a Witch; Stork Club; Jane Gets Marries
Agatha Christie 09/15/1890 - Jan 12, 1976 source material, writer - 10 LITTLE INDIANS; WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION (Una O'Connor, Francis L. Sullivan); tv's & film's Murder on the Orient Express; Death on the Nile; Miss Marple and Poirot series
Alexander Kirkland 09/15/1901 - Producer, Writer, Director, Performer, Husband of Gypsy Rose Lee (1942 - 1944) divorced - A Month in the Country (Alla Nazimova); OUTWARD BOUND (Vincent Price); The Strings, My Lord, Are False (Ruth Gordon, Hurd Hatfield); tv's & film's Tarnished Lady; Charlie Chan's Chance; Strange Interlude; Bondage; NBC Presents; A Face in the Crowd (Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal, Lee Remick, Anthony Franciosa, Walter Matthau)
Fay Wray 09/15/1907 - Aug 8, 2004 wife of John Monk Saunders (June 15, 1928 - 1939) divorced, Wife of Robert Riskin (1942 - 1955) his death, performer - NIKKI (Archie Leach [aka Carey Grant]); MR. BIG (Robert Whitehead, Barry Sullivan, Betty Furness, Hume Cronyn, GOLDEN WINGS (Signe Hasso); tv's & film's Dr X; The Most Dangerous Game; King Kong; Shanghai Madness; Viva Villa; Bulldog Jack; Murder in Greenwich Village; Small Town Girl; Tammy and the Bachelor; Alfred Hitchcock Presents; 77 Sunset Strip; The 11th Hour; Perry Mason; Gideon's Trumpet (Henry Fonda, José Ferrer, John Houseman, Sam Jaffe, Dean Jagger)
Penny Singleton 09/15/1908 - Nov 12, 2003 (Mariana Dorothy Agnes Letitia McNulty) performer; Portrayed comic strip character "Blondie" on film and was the voice of Jane Jetson in "The Jetsons." - origs: Sky High; Good News [replacement]; Hey Nonny Nonny! (Ruth Gordon, Frank Morgan); 1971 No, No, Nanette [replacement]
Jackie Cooper 09/15/1921 performer, Husband of Hildy Parks (1950 - 1951) divorced; Spent 23 years in films before making Broadway debut. - MAGNOLIA ALLEY (Julie Harris, Anne Jackson, Bibi Osterwald, Hildy Parks); REMAINS TO BE SEEN (Janis Page, Ossie Davis); KING OF HEARTS (Cloris Leachman); fav film: THE CHAMP; SKIPPY; SUPERMAN series; TREASURE ISLAND; OUR GANG SERIES; tv's THE PEOPLE'S CHOICE (loved this show)
Bobby Short 9/15/1924 - 3/21/2005 pianist, singer, performer, in cabaret at the Carlyle for umpty-ump decades; regular on 1st Playboy TV series; autobiography: Black & White Baby - Night Life (Salome Jens, Alan Bergmann, Barry Newman, Jessica Walter); tv's & film's Hannah & Her Sisters; In the Heat of the Night; I Love Lucy; Call Me Mister
Henry Silva 9/15/1928 performer - Camino Real (Martin Balsam, Hurd Hatfield, Eli Wallach); A Hatful of Rain (Ben Gazzara, Shelley Winters, Harry Guardino); tv's & film's The Bravados, Green Mansions, Oceans Eleven, The Manchurian Candidate, Johnny Cool, Sharky’s Machine, Above the Law, Dick Tracy; 2001 Ocean's Eleven; 3 Days to a Kill
Roy Brocksmith 09/15/1945 - Dec 16, 2001 performer - 1976 3 PENNY OPERA (Raul Julia, Blair Brown); 1977 TARTUFFE (Victor Garber, Tammy Grimes, John Wood); STAGES (Jack Warden); THE 3 MUSKETEERS (Liz Callaway); tv's & film's Ally McBeal; Picket Fences; Murder One; The Road to Wellville; Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey; Stardust Memories; 1978 tv Tartuffe
Tommy Lee Jones 09/15/1946 performer; used to see him all the time in my UWS neighborhood; after appearing in 1 Life to Live, he moved with wife Kate Lardner, granddaughter of short-story writer/columnist Ring Lardner, and her two children from a previous marriage, to Los Angeles; married Dawn Jones (19 March 2001 - present), Kimberlea Gayle Cloughley (30 May 1981 - 1996) (divorced) 2 children, Kate Lardner (1971 - 197
(divorced); Never took an acting class; he and Al Gore were roommates while the two were students at Harvard University. The two remain close friends; According to author Erich Segal, Jones and his then Harvard roommate Al Gore, were the models for the character of Oliver in Love Story (1970); Ten days after graduating from Harvard, he landed his first role in the Broadway production of "A Patriot for Me" (with Maximilian Schell) which closed after 49 performances; Born on the exact same day as filmmaker and good friend Oliver Stone. - A PATRIOT FOR ME (Maximillion Schell, Dennis King); 4 IN A GARDEN; ULYSSES IN NIGHTTOWN (Zero Mostel, Swen Swenson, David Ogden Stiers, Margery Beddow); film's THE FUGITIVE; tv's ONE LIFE TO LIVE
Oliver Stone 9/15/1946 writer, producer director; married Elizabeth Stone (6 June 1981 - 1993) (divorced) 2 children, Najwa Sarkis (22 May 1971 - 1977) (divorced); Educated at Yale and New York University; In Vietnam Stone won the Bronze Star for Valor and the Purple Heart with First Oak Leaf Cluster. Stone was jailed for marijuana possession in Mexico at the age of 21; His father Louis Stone was a successful stockbroker on Wall Street, then he suffered some financial setbacks due to bad investments and a bitter divorce from Oliver's mother Jacqueline. The movie Wall Street (1987) is supposed to be modeled after Lou; Oliver's father met his mother while he was President Dwight D. Eisenhower aide in WWII in France; Was taught by Martin Scorsese at New York University Film School; His 11-minute student film made at NYU is called Last Year in Viet Nam (1971) - Midnight Express; Platoon; Wall Street [Charlie Sheen, Michael Douglas, Tamara Tunie, Hal Holbrook;, Martin Sheen, Terence Stamp]
Michael Countryman 09/15/1955 performer - FACE VALUE [never officially opened] (Jane Krakowski, Mark Linn-Baker, B.D. Wong); 1995 HOLIDAY (Tony Goldwynn); 1999 NIGHT MUST FALL (Matthew Broderick); tv's & film's Law & Order; You Can Count on Me; The Paper; Friday 13th; Kate & Allie
SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:
1941 The More the Merrier with Will Geer, Keenan Wynn, Teddy Hart {Lorenz's brother)
1942 New Priorities of 1943 with Bert Wheeler, Henny Youngman, Carol Bruce, Ted Adair
1948 Small Wonder with Jack Cassidy, Joan Diener, Tom Ewell, Tommy Rall
1954 Dear Charles with Tallulah Bankhead, Werner Klemperer
1972 Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris with Elly Stone, Joe Masiell, Janet McCall, Joseph Neal, Henrietta Valor
1976 Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf opens on Broadway at the Booth Theatre following a run at the Public Theatre. The drama, featuring seven female characters represented by colors of the rainbow, combines poetry and dance to explore the plight of women. Shange herself is in the cast of the production, which runs 742 performances.
1977 Man of La Mancha - Richard Kiley, Emily Yancy
1980 - The Elephant Man made its debut on Broadway with rock singer David Bowie in his acting debut.
2004 Three notable musicals begin their journeys today. Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Woman in White opens in London. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels begins its pre-Broadway tryout in San Diego. And the London stage adaptation of the Disney film musical Mary Poppins has its world premiere in Bristol, England.
ON THIS DAY IN:
1938 Thornton Wilder performs today as the Stage Manager in Our Town on Broadway. Although he is the author, he is filling in for the vacationing Frank Craven. Since the playwright was performing, he took the liberty of putting back in some of his own words that producer Jed Harris had cut for the run. During this run, Wilder's acting is reported by John Mason Brown, a critic of the time, as better than Sinclair Lewis' performance in the dramatization of his own novel, "It Can't Happen Here."
1965 - It was a grand time in Hooterville. Oliver (Wendell) Douglas and his socialite wife Lisa; storekeeper Sam Drucker; Arnold the Pig and a whole bunch of funny neighbors showed up at Green Acres on CBS-TV. Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor headed a memorable cast in this, the first of six seasons on the network.
(sources: IBDB, IMDB, NYT's ON THIS DAY, 440.com’s Those Were The Days, Playbill.com)
Milla
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