Today's Birthdays 12/28

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 12/27/05 at 9:25pm

Earl "Fatha" Hines Dec. 28, 1905 - 4/22/1983 the father of modern jazz piano, composer - film's The Fight Never Ends

Lew Ayres 12/28/1908 - 12/30/1996 performer - tv's & film's Dr. Kildare film series; The Biscuit Eater; Battlestar Galactica; All Quiet on the Western Front, Johnny Belinda, Advice and Consent, Of Mice and Men, Battle for the Planet of the Apes

Lou Jacobi 12/28/1913 performer - The Diary of Anne Frank; Fade Out - Fade In; Cheaters (Jack Weston, Doris Roberts); film's Irma La Douce, Arthur, Avalon, The Diary of Anne Frank, Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex

Hildegarde Neff 12/28/1925 - Feb 1, 2002 performer - Silk Stockings; film's The Snows of Kilimanjaro, The Three Penny Opera, Svengali, Bluebeard

Manuel Puig 12/28/1932 - 7/22/1990 Argentine novelist and screenwriter, source mat'l - The Kiss of the Spiderwoman

Dame Maggie Smith 12/28/1934 performer, mother of Chris Larkin, Toby Stephens, wife of Beverley Cross (1975 - 199 his death, Robert Stephens (1967 - 1974?) - New Faces of 1956 (Jane Connell, Inga Swenson); 1975 Private Lives (Remak Ramsay); Night and Day; Lettice and Lovage; fav film's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie; A Private Function; Gosford Park; Sister Act; A Room With a View; Harry Potter Series

Bruce Yarnell 12/28/1935 - 11/30/1973 singer, actor; His widow, singer/voice teacher Joan Patenaude Yarnell, began the Bruce Yarnell Scholarship in his name, to award young baritones, and presides as one of the judges. Sang baritone roles at the San Francisco Opera from 1971 until his death. - Camelot; The Happiest Girl in the World; 1966 Annie Get Your Gun (Ethel Merman, Jerry Orbach, Benay Venuta); The Happiest Girl in the World (Cyril Ritchard, Janice Rule, Joy Claussen) tv's & film's The Legend of Robin Hood; Annie Get Your Gun; Irma la Douce; Outlaws; Bonanza; Hogan's Heroes

Denzel Washington 12/28/1954 performer - 2005 Julius Caesar; Checkmates (Ruby Dee, Paul Winfield); Richard III (in CP); tv's & film's Academy Award-winning actor: Glory [1989]; Malcolm X, St. Elsewhere, The Pelican Brief, Crimson Tide, Courage Under Fire, The Hurricane, Remember the Titans; Man on Fire

Malcolm Gets 12/28/1963 performer - 1995 The Molière Comedies; Amour (Melissa Errico, Louis Cleale, Christopher Fitzgerald, Norm Lewis); tv's & film's Adam & Steve; Caroline in the City; Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

1897 "Cyrano de Bergerac," the play by Edmond Rostand, premiered in Paris.

1927 George S. Kaufman & Edna Ferber's comedy The Royal Family opens at the Selwyn Theatre and runs for 196 performances. It's a thinly-disguised portrait of the Barrymore acting dynasty. The play will also have a hit revival with George Grizzard 48 years later, and be adapted as a musical by William Finn.

1938 Thornton Wilder has a flop with his comedy The Merchant of Yonkers, which closes after just 39 performances. He'll have more success with the revised version, retitled The Matchmaker in 1955, and even more success when the latter becomes a musical, Hello, Dolly! in 1964.

1944 The musical, On the Town, opened in New York City for a run of 462 performances. It was Leonard Bernstein’s first big Broadway success. Stars Nancy Walker, Betty Comden, Adolph Green

1954 Clifford Odets paints a comic picture of the Biblical Noah (of Ark fame) and his wife and kids as a bickering middle-class Jewish family. Menasha Skulnik plays Noah. It will run 135 performances at the Belasco Theatre and be adapted as the musical Two by Two by Martin Charnin and Richard Rodgers. It's Odet's final Broadway play.

1961 The Night of the Iguana - Bette Davis

1969 James Coco is the Last of the Red Hot Lovers. Neil Simon's comedy exposes a married man worrying that the sexual revolution is happening without him. It will run for 706 performances.

1970 Lovely Ladies, Kind Gentlemen but no audience. John Patrick's musical adaptation of his play based on the novel "Teahouse of the August Moon" by Vern Schneider will run two weeks.

1973 Scapin - Kevin Kline, Patti LuPone, David Ogden Stiers

1976 Fiddler on the Roof is revived at the Winter Garden Theatre in New York. Zero Mostel recreates his role as Tevye.

1978 Eugene O'Neill's A Touch of the Poet is revived at the Helen Hayes Theater with Jason Robards, Jr. and Geraldine Fitzgerald.

1979 The life of Piaf takes the stage at London's Aldwych Theatre. Pam Gems scripted this Royal Shakespeare production about the French chanteuse Edith Piaf. Jane Lapotaire stars. Gems would have another critical hit in 1997 with Stanley, starring Antony Sher at Circle in the Square.

ON THIS DAY IN:

1937 Composer Maurice Ravel died in Paris.

On Dec. 28, 1981, Elizabeth Jordan Carr, the first American test-tube baby, was born in Norfolk, Va.

1999 Clayton Moore, television's "Lone Ranger," died in West Hills, Calif., at age 85.

2004 Jerry Orbach dies after a valiant battle with prostate cancer. I miss him.... and loved his talent

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

Milla

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 12/28/05 at 9:40am

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[do_re_milla]

Posted: 12/28/05 at 3:34pm

bumpety bump

[gumbo2]

Posted: 12/28/05 at 5:04pm

Wow, Jerry Orbach died last year to the day? Crazy. I miss him. I still watch him on Law and Order.