Today's Birthdays 10/29
Today's Birthdays 10/29
#0Today's Birthdays 10/29
Posted: 10/29/03 at 1:19pm
Jean Giraudoux 10/29/1882 - Jan 31, 1944 Source Material, Writer - The Madwoman of Chaillot; Ondine; Intermezzo; Tiger at the Gates; Amphitryon 38; Dear World
Fanny Brice 10/29/1891 - May 29, 1951 Fanny Borach, better known as Fanny Brice, nother of Frances Arnstein, mother-in-law of Ray Stark, wife of Jules "Nicky" Arnstein (1919 - 1927) divorced, wife of Billy Rose (1929 - 193
divorced - star of the Ziegfeld Follies, whose shtick will consist mainly of making fun of her own looks. Her enduring "Baby Snooks" persona carries over to a radio career in the 1930s. Her signature tune will be the wistful "My Man." Her life will serve as the basis for the musical Funny Girl.
Akim Tamiroff 10/29/1899 - Sep 17, 1972 performer - The Life Line; Rashomon (Oscar Homolka, Rod Steiger, Claire Bloom; 1 of film's great character actors: For Whom the Bell Tolls, Anastasia, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Hotel Paradiso, Lord Jim, The Story of Louis Pasteur
Tom Clancy 10/29/1926 - Nov 9, 1990 performer/dir - 1957 St. Joan (Siobhán McKenna); origs A Touch of the poet; Juno (musical); Ulysses in Nighttown
Melba Moore 10/29/1945 performer - origs Hair; Purlie; Timbuktu!
Richard Dreyfuss 10/29/1947 performer - But, Seriously... (Dick Van Patten, Tom Posten); Total Abandon (John Heard [really like this actor]); Death and the Maiden; film's Academy Award-winning actor: The Goodbye Girl [1977]; Valley of the Dolls, Jaws, Mr. Holland’s Opus, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Lost in Yonkers, Nuts, American Graffiti, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, The Graduate, Postcards from the Edge, In Mama’s House, Karen, The Education of Max Bickford; TV narrator: American Chronicles
Joely Fisher 10/29/1967 performer, daughter of Connie Stevens & Eddie Fisher, niece of John Megna - replacements in revivals of Grease & Cabaret
Rufus Sewell 10/29/1967 performer - Translations (Dana Delany, Brian Dennehy, Michael Cumpsty)
Winona Ryder 10/29/1971 performer - Little Women, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Lucas, (my fav) The Age of Innocence
SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:
1894 Opening night for Reginald De Koven's popular operetta, Rob Roy.
1932 Mildred Natwick makes her Broadway debut in Fran McGrath's Carry Nation at the Biltmore Theatre.
1936 Jimmy Durante and Ethel Merman (or is that Ethel Merman and Jimmy Durante?) star in the Cole Porter musical Red, Hot and Blue!, memorable mainly for the PR battle in which both stars demand top billing. Management eventually compromises by criscrossing their names on the marquee of the Alvin Theatre. It runs 183 performances (with Bob Hope settling for third billing).
1941 Cole Porter's musical Let's Face It! opens tonight at the Imperial Theatre. It is the first chance that Danny Kaye has to prove himself as a leading man, because tonight is his first starring role on Broadway. His co-stars for the evening include Eve Arden, Vivian Vance and Nanette Fabray. Jose Ferrer takes over for Danny Kaye during the run of the show, which was 547 performances. The film version is released in 1943.
1952 Audiences are kept on the edge of their seats as a killer stalks an elderly bedridden woman in Dial 'M' for Murder, which opens tonight.
1958 Claudette Colbert and Charles Boyer star in Leslie Stevens' The Marriage-Go-Round, which opens tonight at the Plymouth Theatre. The subject of the play is sex and marriage. Julie Newmar is also in the cast.
1967 Although without the famous nude scene that will be inserted into the Broadway run, Hair opens tonight at the Astor Library, the new home for Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival. This is the first time the company have charged admission for one of their shows, although the ticket price is only $2.50. The show will transfer to Broadway in 1968, stopping off first at a discotheque on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The Broadway run will rack up 1,742 performances.
1977 After a calamitous tryout tour, the Kander & Ebb musical The Act opens at the Majestic Theatre. Liza Minnelli is in the lead role, which will win her the 1978 Tony Award as Best Actress in a Musical. The story of a nightclub singer recalling her rocky romantic and professional life will come to look more like autobiography as the years roll on. The show will run 233 performances.
ON THIS DAY IN:
On Oct. 29, 1929, Black Tuesday descended upon the New York Stock Exchange. Prices collapsed amid panic selling and thousands of investors were wiped out as America's Great Depression began. It had been preceded, by four days, with a speech by the President of the United States, Herbert Hoover, in which he said, “The fundamental business of the country ... is on a sound and prosperous basis.” "Wall Street Lays An Egg" VARIETY
1963 - Veteran actor Adolphe Menjou died at the age of 73.
(sources: IBDB, NYT's ON THIS DAY, 440.com’s Those Were The Days, Playbill.com)
Milla
