Today's Birthdays 2/4

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 2/4/08 at 5:34pm

Richard Boleslavsky 02/04/1889 - Jan 17, 1937 dir. performer, Assistant director of the Moscow Art Theatre (1909-1915). Came to U.S. in 1920; Director of American Laboratory Theatre, author "Acting: The First Six Lessons" [should be required reading for all actors, in my top 5 acting technique books] - The Vagabond King; Falstaff (Charles Coburn, Iva Willis Coburn [Mrs. Charles Coburn]); Judas

Eddie Foy, Jr. 02/04/1905 - Jul 15, 1983 perf., brother of Mary Foy, son of Eddie Foy - origs: The Cat and the Fiddle; At Home Abroad (Bea Lillie, John Payne, Ethel Waters); The Pajama Game; Donnybrook!; film's Yankee Doodle Dandy, Bells Are Ringing, The Pajama Game, Gidget Goes Hawaiian, Four Jacks and a Jill

Conrad Bain 02/04/1923 performer - Sixth Finger in a Five Finger Glove; Candide (Barbara Cook); Advise and Consent; 1973 Uncle Vanya (Julie Christie, Lillian Gish); 1991 On Borrowed Time; tv's & film's Mork & Mindy, Postcards from the Edge, Bananas; The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

David Newman 02/04/1937 - June 27, 2003 Husband of Leslie Harris England (1958 - 2003) his death - "It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman" (Jack Cassidy, Linda Lavin); Oh! Calcutta!; The Life

Collin Wilcox 02/04/1937 perf. - The Day the Money Stopped (Richard Basehardt, Mildred Natwick, Kevin McCarthy, Richard Basehart); Look, We've Come Through (Burt Reynolds)

Marie Masters 02/04/1941 performer, asst. dir. - There's a Girl in My Soup [s/b]; The Women; 2006 Barefoot in the Park; 2006 The Threepenny Opera

Lisa Eichhorn 02/04/1952 perf. - The Speed of Darkness; Any Given Day (Sada Thompson, Justin Kirk, Andrea Marcovicci, Victor Slezak)

Marc Moritz 02/04/1956 perf. - Merrily We Roll Along

Jonathan Larson 02/04/1960 - Jan 25, 1996 Writer, Lyricist, Composer - Rent

Clint Black 02/04/1962 composer, performer; husband of Lisa Hartman (1991 - present) - Urban Cowboy (Matt Cavenaugh)

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

1938 Thornton Wilder turns the spotlight on the simple trials and tribulations of Our Town. Martha Scott and Frank Craven are among the cast at the Henry Miller Theatre. The production will run 42 weeks and go on to win the Pulitzer Prize.

1946 Playing the supposedly dumb blonde to the hilt, Judy Holliday stars in Born Yesterday. Garson Kanin penned the story, which also features Paul Douglas. It will play 1,642 performances.

1958 Tony Randall stars as a sailor with a woman in at least two ports in Oh Captain! This musical, with songs by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans, is directed by Jose Ferrer. It will run at the Alvin Theatre in New York for 192 performances. Would love to see this at Encores! or York!!

1999 Hang on Snoopy! At least till tonight, when you and the whole gang step out of the strip and into the Ambassador Theatre in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. Kristin Chenoweth, Anthony Rapp and B.D. Wong are among the cast of this revival of Clark Gesner's musical. Director Michael Mayer adapted the 32 year-old show; new songs were added by musical arranger Andrew Lippa.

2003 Opening night on Broadway for Richard Greenberg's baseball drama, Take Me Out. The story of a baseball star who comes out as gay will go on to win the 2003 Tony Award as Best Play.

ON THIS DAY IN:

1783 Britain declared a formal cessation of hostilities with its former colonies, the United States of America....until 1812.

1789 Electors unanimously chose George Washington to be the first president of the United States.

1983 - Singer Karen Carpenter died at her parent’s home in Los Angeles of heart failure caused by chronic anorexia nervosa. Her death, at the age of 32, brought about more public awareness of the disease, characterized by a loss of appetite brought on by mental illness.

1987 - The show-biz world was saddened when Liberace died of AIDS at his Palm Springs, CA estate. He was 67 and had been gravely ill for weeks. Lee, as he was known, was the master of Las Vegas. Hundreds of thousands flock to his museum there (operated by his brother, George) to see Liberace’s garish suits, trademark candelabra, and learn of the myths behind this hugely successful star of television, stage and concerts the world over.

2004 The Massachusetts high court declared that gays were entitled to nothing less than marriage and that Vermont-style civil unions would not suffice.

2005 Ossie Davis dies in Florida on film location. Husband and parter of Ruby Dee. Replaced Sidney Poitier on Broadway in "A Rasin in the Sun". Autobiography, "In This Life Together." His career as an actor began in 1939 with the Rose McClendon Players in Harlem, then the center of black culture in America. There, the young Davis met or mingled with some of the most influential figures of the time, including the preacher Father Divine, W.E.B. DuBois, A. Philip Randolph, Langston Hughes and Richard Wright. Both Davis & Dee had key roles in the television series "Roots: The Next Generation" (197 , "Martin Luther King: The Dream and the Drum" (1986) and "The Stand" (1994). Davis appeared in three Spike Lee films, including "School Daze," "Do the Right Thing" and "Jungle Fever." In 2004, he and Dee were among the artists selected to receive the Kennedy Center Honors. Davis directed several films, most notably "Cotton Comes to Harlem" (1970) and "Countdown at Kusini" (1976), in which he also appeared with Dee. Some films in which Davis appeared include "The Cardinal" (1963), "The Hill" (1965), "Grumpy Old Men" (1993), "The Client" (1994) and "I'm Not Rappaport" (1996), a reprise of his stage role 10 years earlier. On tv, he appeared in "The Emperor Jones" (1955), "Freedom Road" (1979), "Miss Evers' Boys" (1997) and "Twelve Angry Men" (1997). He was a cast member on "The Defenders" from 1963-65, and "Evening Shade" from 1990-94, among other shows.

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

Milla