Today's Birthdays 4/14
Today's Birthdays 4/14
#0Today's Birthdays 4/14
Posted: 4/13/04 at 11:22pm
Sir John Gielgud 04/14/1904 - May 21, 2000 Writer, Director, Performer, Producer; master actor who defined acting in the years between the world wars and thereafter. In addition to his memorable Hamlet and other classical roles, he created notable roles in works by Pinter, Albee and Rattigan. He also directed extensively. - 1936 Hamlet (Judith Anderson, Lillian Gish); 1947 The Importance of Being Earnest (Margaret Rutherford); Spring Meeting (Gladys Cooper); 1947 Love for Love (Cyril Ritchard, Sebastian Cabot); 1947 Medea (Judith Anderson, Richard Boone, Marian Seldes); 1947 Crime and Punishment (Lillian Gish, Marion Seldes, Sanford Meisner); The Lady's Not For Burning (Richard Burton) 1959 Much Ado About Nothing (Jean Marsh, Margaret Leighton, Hurd Hatfield, Nancy Marchand, Betsy Von Furstenberg, Donald Moffat); Five Finger Exercise; 1963 The School for Scandal (Ralph Richardson, Geraldine McEwan); 1964 Hamlet (Richard Burton, Alfred Drake, Hume Cronyn); Tiny Alice (Irene Worth); 1966 Ivanov (Vivien Leigh, Paula Laurence, Miller Lide); All Over (Colleen Dewhurst, Jessica Tandy); Private Lives (Maggie Smith, John Standing); 1976 No Man's Land; film's Arthur 1 & 2; A Man For All Seasons; Becket; Brideshead Revisited; Chariots Of Fire; Caligula; Chimes At Midnight; Falstaff; Gandhi; Prospero's Books; Wagner (Richard Burton, Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, Vanessa Redgrave); Priest Of Love (Ian McKellen, Ava Gardner); Providence; Aces High; Alice in Wonderland; Richard III; 1953 Julius Caesar; The Secret Agent
Rod Steiger 04/14/1925 - Jul 9, 2002 performer; husband of Sherry Nelson (1973 - 1979) divorced; Paula Ellis (1986 - 1997) divorced; 1 son, Michael, Joan Benedict (2000 - 2002) his death, Claire Bloom (1959 - 1969) divorced; 1 daughter, Anna Justine (b. 1960), Sally Gracie (1952 - 195
divorced - An Enemy of the People; Night Music; Seagulls Over Sorrento; Rashomon; Moby Dick (Oscar Homolka, Akim Tamiroff, Claire Bloom); Seagulls Over Sorrento (Leslie Nielsen, John Randolph); An Enemy of the People (Morris Carnovsky, Fredric March, Florence Eldridge); Night Music (Bette Grayson); tv's & film's In the Heat of the Night; Dr. Zhivago; Back From Eternity; Al Capone; American Gothic; Cry Terror; Dirty Hands; my fav Marty
Bradford Dillman 04/14/1930 performer - orig Long Day's Journey Into Night (Fredric March, Florence Eldridge, Katherine Ross, Jason Robards Jr.); film's The Way We Were; Compulsion; Francis Of Assisi; Planet of the Apes Series; Piranha; Sudden Impact
Joan Darling 04/14/1935 performer - A Minor Adjustment (William Redfield); Leda Had A Little Swan [never officially opened](Merwin Goldsmith, Paul Benedict, Seth Allen)
Julie Christie 04/14/1941 performer, quite a coincidence that Julie & Rod Steiger share the same birthday - 1973 Uncle Vanya (George C. Scott, Nicol Williamson, Lillian Gish, Conrad Bain, Barnard Hughes, standby Taina Elg); film's Far From the Madding Crowd; Afterglow; Darling, Demon Seed; Fahrenheit 451; Don't Look Now; 1996 Hamlet (Kenneth Branagh); Heat And Dust; 1978 Heaven Can Wait; McCabe & Mrs. Miller; Petulia (Geo. C. Scott, Richard Chamberlin); Shampoo; Young Cassidy; forever Laura in Dr. Zhivago
SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:
1930 Morris Carnovsky, Ruth Gordon, Franchot Tone, and Glenn Anders check into the Hotel Universe. Philip Barry's introspective drama will run 10 weeks at the Martin Beck Theatre.
1937 Need to make some money so you won't be sent to the county farm? Hey! Put on a show! So much for the plot involved in Babes In Arms. It's full of Rodgers and Hart songs and a cast that includes Mitzi Green, Dan Dailey and Alfred Drake. George Balanchine is on hand to choreograph.
1948 Faust, La Traviata, Rigoletto, Madame Butterfly, La Bohème, The Barber of Seville, Aida, Il Trovatore, La Tosca, Cavalleria Rusticana, Pagliacci all these productions played in repertory, productions by San Carlo Opera Company.
1960 The Elvis Presley phenomenon gets spoofed in the lighthearted musical Bye Bye Birdie, with a score by Charles Strouse and Lee Adams. Dick Van Dyke plays the put-upon manager of rocker Conrad Birdie, who is trying to get him to give "One Last Kiss" to a fan on the Ed Sullivan show before he's drafted. The show opens at the Martin Beck Theatre today, and runs 607 performances.
1975 The Constant Wife - Ingrid Bergman, dir. John Gielgud
1975 Bette Midler's Clams on the Half Shell Revue 04/14/1975
1977 Anna Christie - Liv Ulmann, Robert Donely, John Lithgow, dir. Jose Quintero
1988 Mail - Brian (Stokes) Mitchell, Michele Pawk, Mary Bond Davis, starring & music by Michael Rupert
1992 Good old reliable Nathan Detroit is back to his old tricks on Broadway as Frank Loesser's Guys and Dolls is revived at the Martin Beck Theatre. Nathan Lane stars, with Faith Prince as his perpetual fiancée, Peter Gallagher as the high-betting Sky Masterson, and Josie de Guzman as the missionary. The show will garner director Jerry Zaks, actress Prince and the revival itself Tony Awards.
2000 The New York Theatre Workshop production of Claudia Shear's Dirty Blonde begins previews at the Helen Hayes Theatre going on to open May 1. The original NYTW cast of Kevin Chamberlin, playwright Shear and Bob Stillman transfers intact to Broadway. James Lapine, who conceived the show with playwright Shear, helmed the story about two single New Yorkers who meet at Mae West's grave site.
ON THIS DAY IN:
1865 - John Wilkes Booth, a well-known actor, was permitted upstairs at Ford’s Theatre. Thus, he gained access to U.S. President Abraham Lincoln’s private theatre box as Lincoln watched the performance of Our American Cousin. It was just after 10 p.m. when Booth, a Confederate sympathizer, shot Lincoln in the head. After shooting the President, Booth leaped to the stage below, shouting, “Sic semper tyrannis!” (“Thus always to tyrants!”, the state motto of Virginia.) He broke his leg in the fall but managed to escape the theatre (which was in Washington, D.C.), mount a horse, and flee to Virginia. Booth was hunted down and shot as he hid in a barn near Port Royal, Virginia. Lincoln died at 7:22 a.m. the next day. Booth's brother Edwin refrains from acting for the next two years.
1894 - The kinetoscope was demonstrated by its inventor, Thomas Alva Edison, in New York City. A viewer that held 50 feet of film -- about 13 seconds worth -- showed images of Annie Oakley and Buffalo Bill. The demonstration was actually called the first peep show, as one had to peep into the device to see what was on the film. Movies were not projected on a screen at that time.
1902 - J.C. (James Cash) Penney opened his first store -- in Kemmerer Wyoming. In partnership with Thomas M. Callahan and William Guy Johnson, Penney named the store "Golden Rule". The dry goods and clothing store had a first-year profit of $8,514.36 on sales of $28,898.11.
1912 - “Up in the crows nest, Frederick Fleet was staring into the darkness. It was around 11:30 p.m. on a very odd calm moonless night when he noticed a black object immediately in their path, he knew it was ice!” The Royal Mail Steamship Titanic of the White Star Line struck an iceberg at approximately 11:40 p.m. The great ship, on its maiden voyage, sank just under three hours later. 1,517 passengers were lost at sea.
1969 What a night this was back in 1969! It was the annual Academy Awards presentation. It was the 11th nomination for Katharine Hepburn, an academy record! And, the Oscar goes to ... For the first time in the history of the Academy Awards, a tie resulted in two stars sharing the Best Actress Oscar. Barbra Streisand for her performance in Funny Girl had reached the top, only to share the honor with the ‘First Lady of the American Screen’, Katharine Hepburn for her starring role in The Lion in Winter.
Hepburn also broke the record that night as the only actress to win three Best Actress Oscars. Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner awarded the previous year and Morning Glory [1932-33] were the other films. She was also only the third person to win two years in a row. Hepburn added a twelfth nomination and a fourth Oscar in 1981 for her performance in On Golden Pond with co-star Henry Fonda. She earned three of these awards after her sixtieth birthday.
Other veteran actors received their first Oscars this night: Cliff Robertson for his Best Actor role in Charly; Jack Albertson for his Best Supporting Actor role in The Subject Was Roses and Ruth Gordon for her Best Supporting Actress role in Rosemary’s Baby. Even the Best Music/Song award was presented for the first time to Michel Legrand (music) and Alan and Marilyn Bergman (lyrics) for the song The Windmills of Your Mind from the The Thomas Crown Affair. Other great 1968 films that were Oscar-winners or nominees: 2001: A Space Odyssey; Chitty Chitty Bang Bang; For Love of Ivy; Planet of the Apes; Bullitt; The Odd Couple; Romeo and Juliet; The Producers; Rachel, Rachel.
1980 - Kramer vs. Norma, Apocalypse vs. Jazz. That’s how the honors were divided at the 52nd Annual Academy Awards ceremony at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. Johnny Carson was hosting quite a contest! But the Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role went to Melvyn Douglas for his performance in Being There. Was it going to be an upset? Being There was a long shot to win Best Picture and this was its first award all evening. All That Jazz had already won four of the golden statuettes and Apocalypse Now, two. Next, it was Meryl Streep who picked up the Best Supporting Actress Oscar and Dustin Hoffman, Best Actor, for their roles in Kramer vs. Kramer, making it a trio of Oscars for Kramer, so far. Then Norma Rae picked up two awards: Best Music/Song, It Goes like It Goes, David Shire (music), Norman Gimbel (lyrics) and Best Actress, Sally Field. But it was in the cards for Kramer vs. Kramer as it won for Best Director (Robert Benton), and then, Best Picture (Stanley R. Jaffe, producer). Going into the evening, All That Jazz and Kramer vs. Kramer each had nine Oscar nominations, Apocalypse Now had eight, and Norma Rae, four.
2002 Henry Goodman is fired from the Broadway musical The Producers, less than a month after taking over the coveted role of Max Bialystock from original star Nathan Lane. Director-choreographer Susan Stroman issues a statement saying, "I have the utmost respect for Henry Goodman. He is a wonderful actor and I would happily work with him again on another project. Henry has been very well received by audiences nightly, but the producers have decided to pursue a different quality for the role." He's replaced by longtime understudy Brad Oscar.
(sources: IBDB, NYT's ON THIS DAY, 440.com’s Those Were The Days, Playbill.com)
Milla
