Today's Birthdays May 21

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 5/21/08 at 9:13pm

Alexander Pope 5/21/1688 - 5/30/1744 English poet and satirist - the Pastorals, An Essay on Criticism, The Rape of the Lock, The Art of Sinking in Poetry, The Dunciad, An Essay on Man

Richard Bennett 05/21/1872 - Oct 21, 1944 father of Constance & Joan Bennett; Producer, Writer, Director, Performer - A Royal Family (James Kean); orig Man and Superman (Maude Adams); He Who Gets Slapped; They Knew What They Wanted (Sanford Meisner); Winterset (Burgess Meredith)

Thomas "Fats" Waller 05/21/1904 - 12/15/1943 composer, performer - Keep Shufflin'; Hot Chocolates; Swingin' The Dream; Ain’t Misbehavin’; film's King of Burlesque, Hooray for Love, Ain’t Misbehavin’, Stormy Weather

Robert Montgomery 05/21/1904 - 9/27/1981 Husband of Elizabeth Allen (April 14 ,1928 - 1950) divorced; father of actress, Elizabeth Montgomery; performer; - Dawn (Elizabeth Allen); A Place of Our Own (Jeanne Cagney, Mercedes McCambridge); The Big Two; The Big Two; The Desperate Hours (Paul Newman, Karl Malden); tv's & film's Private Lives, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Here Comes Mr. Jordan; director: Eye Witness, Lady in the Lake, The Gallant Hours; host: Robert Montgomery Presents

Raymond Burr 5/21/1917 - 9/12/1993 performer - tv's & film's Perry Mason, Ironside, Rear Window, A Place in the Sun, The Defense Never Rests, Godzilla

Peggy Cass 05/21/1924 - Mar 8, 1999 performer - Touch & Go (Lewis Nye, Helen Gallagher); Auntie Mame (Rosalind Russell); 1969 The Front Page; Once a Catholic; tv's & film's To Tell the Truth; actress: The Hathaways, Women in Prison, Aunty Mame, Paddy, Gidget Goes Hawaiian, Cheaters; radio serial: The Doctors

Kay Kendall 05/21/1926 - Sep 6, 1959 wife of Rex Harrison (1957 - 1959) her death, performer - My Fair Lady [replacement]; film's Les Girls; Once More With Feeling (Yul Brynner); & my fav Genevieve

Alice Drummond 05/21/1929 performer - The Ballad of the Sad Cafe; The Chinese and Dr. Fish (Wm Devane, Louise Lasser); You Can't Take It With You (James Coco, Jason Robards, Colleen Dewhurst); tv's & film's Dark Shadows; King of the Gypsies; Pieces of April

Johnny Stewart 05/21/1934 performer - originals: High Button Shoes (Nanette Fabray, Phil Silvers, Helen Gallagher); Love Life (Nanette Fabray, Ray Middleton); The Happy Time; The King & I; The Grass Harp (Mildred Natwick); Bernardine (Peggy Cass); The Sleeping Prince (Barbara BelGeddes, Michael Redgrave); 1958 The Waltz of the Torreadors; tv's & film's Wesley; Last of the Commanches; Boots Malone

David Groh 05/21/1939 - 2/12/2008 performer - The Twilight of the Golds; tv's & film's General Hospital, Rhoda, Hot Shot, Broken Vows, Illegal in Blue

Mark Jacoby 05/21/1947 performer; was wonderful in BBTY - 1986 Sweet Charity (Debbie Allen, Bebe Neuwirth, Michael Rupert, Lee Wilkof); The Phantom of the Opera [replacement]; Grand Hotel; 1994 Show Boat; Ragtime; 2002 Man of La Mancha; 2005 Sweeney Todd


Paolo Montalban 05/21/1973 performer - 2004 The Man of LaMancha; 1996 The King and I; tv's & film's Mortal Kombat: Conquest; The Great Raid

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

1928 Dorian Gray

1959 - Gypsy, a musical based on the life of stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, opened on Broadway. Ethel Merman played Gypsy’s mother, Rose, who pushed her two daughters into burlesque. With music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, Gypsy closed on March 25, 1961 after 702 performances. Also with Sandra Church, Jack Klugman, Maria Karnilova and my friend Merle Louise.

1964 Roar Like a Dove - Betsy Palmer, Charles Ruggles

1966 A Time for Singing - Tessie O'Shea, George Hearn

1970 The Engagement Baby - Constance Towers

1977 Gemini - Danny Aiello, Jonathan Hadary

ON THIS DAY IN:

1832 The first Democratic National Convention got under way, in Baltimore.

1881 Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross.

1892 The opera 'I Pagliacci' by Ruggiero Leoncavallo was first performed, in Milan, Italy.

1924 Fourteen-year-old Bobby Franks was murdered in a 'thrill killing' committed by Nathan Leopold Jr. and Richard Loeb, two students at the University of Chicago.

1927 - Charles A. Lindbergh arrived to a hero’s welcome in Paris, in his spindly monoplane, The Spirit of St. Louis (the famous plane is now displayed in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC). Lindbergh’s flight marked the first time that a person had flown across the Atlantic Ocean. The event got more press coverage than any other single even in history to that time. In American newspapers alone, it was estimated that some 27,000 columns of words were used to describe Lindbergh’s epic journey. A depiction of that famous flight was portrayed by one of America’s great motion picture actors, Jimmy Stewart, in the film, The Spirit of St. Louis. Upon his return to American soil, Lucky Lindy was given another hero’s welcome.

1945 - Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart were married. Legend has it that the couple fell in love in 1943 during making of the film, To Have and Have Not. Theirs would become one of Hollywood’s most enduring marriages.

1956 The United States exploded the first airborne hydrogen bomb over Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.

1979 Former San Francisco City Supervisor Dan White was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the deaths of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk.

1998 A student suspended from a Springfield, Ore., high school opened fire in the cafeteria, killing one and wounding 23.

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

Milla

[thatgirl712]

Posted: 5/21/08 at 10:12pm

Happy Birthday all!