Today's Birthday 11/24

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 11/24/03 at 6:54pm

Bat Masterson 11/24/1853 - 10/25/1921 - Gambler, saloon keeper, lawman, journalist; subject of TV series in the 1960s, source mat'l

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec 11/24/1864 - 9/9/1901 French artist, source mat'l

Scott Joplin 11/24/1868 - 4/1/1917 American ragtime composer, source mat'l - King of ragtime music, composer, musician: guitar, piano, bugle: Original Rags, Maple Leaf Rag, The Ragtime Dance, The Entertainer, operas: The Guest of Honor, Treemonisha


Garson Kanin 11/24/1912 - 3/13/1999 Producer, Writer, Director, Performer, Other, Casting - Little Ol' Boy
(Burgess Meredith); The Body Beautiful (Arlene Francis); Brother Rat (Eddie Albert, Ezra Stone); The Diary of Anne Frank; Born Yesterday; orig Funny Girl; film's writer: A Gift of Time, Tracy & Hepburn; director: Adam’s Rib, Pat & Mike, Tom, Dick & Harry

1913 - Howard Duff
actor: Felony Squad, Mr. Adams and Eve, Flamingo Road, Knots Landing, Dante, Dallas, East of Eden, Kramer vs. Kramer, The Naked City, Oh God!, Book 2; died July 8, 1990

Geraldine Fitzgerald 11/23/1913 great-aunt of Tara FitzGerald, mother of Michael Lindsay-Hogg, performer - She's My Baby (Beatrice Lillie, Irene Dunne, William Frawley, Clifton Webb); Hide and Seek (Basil Rathbone, Walter Brooke); Mass Appeal (Michael O'Keefe); film's, etc. Arthur series, Easy Money, Harry and Tonto, The Last American Hero, Ten North Frederick, The Obsessed, Watch on the Rhine, Wuthering Heights, The Mill on the Floss, Department Store, Our Private World

Alfredo Kraus 11/24/1927 - 9/10/1999 opera singer: tenor: Lucia, Werther, Daughter of the Regiment (my fav)

Martin Charnin 11/24/1934 actor, lyricist and director a late-career collaborator of Richard Rodgers on the musicals Two by Two and I Remember Mama. His other works will include Annie, Upstairs at O'Neals, Hot Spot and The First. (He was also the last of about 4 or 5 lyricists who tried to collaborate w/Vernon Duke on Prisoner of Zenda.) He will begin his career as one of the original Jets in West Side Story.

David Manis 11/24/1959 performer - 1993 Abe Lincoln in Illinois; Arcadia (Blair Brown, Billy Crudup, Robert Sean Leonard); 2002 Morning's at Seven; 2003 Henry IV

Meredith Patterson 11/24/1975 performer - The Green Bird; 2001 42nd Street

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

1924 Opening night of Sidney Howard's drama They Knew What They Wanted, about an elderly winegrower who tries to fool a mail-order bride by sending her the photo of his handsome young foreman. It wins the Pulitzer Prize, runs 384 performances at the Garrick Theatre, and will later be adapted as the musical The Most Happy Fella in 1956.

1936 Opening night of Noel Coward's play Tonight at 8:30, consisting of three one-acts, The Astonished Heart, Hands Across the Sea and Red Peppers. Coward stars with Gertrude Lawrence. The production runs 118 performances at the National Theatre.

1938 Clifford Odets writes about a dentist in the throes of what will later be called a midlife crisis in the drama Rocket to the Moon. It runs 131 performances at the Belasco Theatre.

1942 Eleven years after creating the role, Paul Muni again is the Counsellor-at-Law. Elmer Rice wrote and stages this play, which will run more than 32 weeks.

1950 "Luck Be a Lady Tonight" as Frank Loesser's Guys and Dolls opens at the Forty-sixth Street Theatre. George S. Kaufman directs and Michael Kidd choreographs this Abe Burrows, Jo Swerling and Loesser musical based on Damon Runyan's stories. Sam Levene is Nathan Detroit, co-starring with Robert (father of Alan) Alda, Isabel Bigsley, Vivian Blaine and Stubby Kaye. The show gets rave reviews and runs for a total of 1,200 performances.

1951 Audrey Hepburn stars in Anita Loos' adaptation of Colette's Gigi, about the training of a beautiful young courtesan. The show will run 219 performances at the Fulton Theatre, and be adapted as a film musical of the same title in 1958, with Leslie Caron in Hepburn's role.

1975 Richard Peaslee writes the score to a musical adaptation of Boccaccio's Decameron, called, for some reason, Boccaccio. It runs just 7 performances at the Edison Theatre, despite the presence of Armand Assante as Masetto.

1986 Smile, a musical adaptation of the film about backstage emotions at a beauty pageant, opens at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. Partly owing to the presence of Marvin Hamlisch as composer and Howard Ashman as lyricist-librettist, the TV series "60 Minutes" chronicles its tryouts, previews and opening night. Unfortunately, the production is slammed by critics and closes after just 48 performances. Happy ending: Ashman likes leading lady Jodi Benson so much, he helps her get the role of Ariel the Mermaid in the Disney animated film blockbuster The Little Mermaid, for which he supplies lyrics.

1996 Opening night for the Broadway production of Juan Darien, with music by Elliot Goldenthal, which had previously been done Off-Off-Broadway and Off-Broadway. The production also marks the Broadway debut of director/designer Julie Taymor whose masks, puppets and innovative stage business are a sensation, even if the show itself runs just 49 performances at the Beaumont Theatre. In less than a year, Taymor will take Broadway by storm with her The Lion King, using many of the same techniques.

ON THIS DAY IN:

1961 Actress Ruth Chatterton dies at age 67. Her stage appearances include Daddy Long-Legs, and Mary Rose.

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

Milla