Today's Birthdays 1/28

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 1/28/06 at 7:20pm

(Sidonie-Gabrielle) Colette 01/28/1873 - Aug 3, 1954 writer, source mat'l - Gigi [play]; Cheri; A Second String; Gigi [musical](Alfred Drake, Daniel Massey, Agnes Moorehead, Maria Karniolva, Karin Wolfe); Colette Collage

Mary Boland 01/28/1880 - Jun 23, 1965 performer - Jubilee; 1942 The Rivals [I bet she was wonderful as Mrs. Malaprop!); Lullaby (Kay Medford, Jack Warden); films: 1 of my top 20 THE WOMEN (L'amour, l'amour....)

Dorothy Donnelly 01/28/1880 - Jan 3, 1928 Producer, Writer, Lyricist, Source Material, Director, Performer - origs Candida; Madame X; Fancy Free (Marilyn Miller); The Student Prince

Artur Rubinstein 1/28/1887 - 12/20/1982 Polish-American virtuoso pianist played solo for the Berlin Symphony at the age of 12; father of John Rubinstein; I'll never forget when AR came to speak at Juilliard to talk about his autobio.

Ernst Lubitsch 1/28/1892 - 11/30/1947 German/American film director, the "Lubitsch Touch" - Ninotchka; The Shop Around the Corner; To Be Or Not To Be; 1 Hour With You; The Merry Widow

Bob Hilliard 01/28/1918 - Feb 1, 1971 lyricist, composer - Angel in the Wings (Elaine Stritch); Hazel Flagg (Helen Gallagher); Elaine Stritch At Liberty

Leo Leyden 01/28/1929 performer - Darling of the Day (Pat Routledge); The Mundy Scheme (Jack Cassidy); The Rothschilds; Me and My Girl; Philadelphia, Here I Come!

Spiro Malas 01/28/1933 performer, opera singer - 1992 The Most Happy Fella

Alan Alda (Alphonso D'Abruzzo [Birthname]) 01/28/1936 performer, son of Robert Alda - 2005 Glengarry Glen Ross; Only in America; Purlie Victorious; Fair Game for Lovers (Forrest Tucker); Cafe Crown [musical] (Theodore Bikel, Sam Levene, Tommy Rall, Brenda Lewis, Ken Richards ; The Owl and the Pussycat; The Apple Tree (Larry Blyden, Barbara Harris, Mary Louise); Jakes Women; Art; QED; tv's & film's M*A*S*H, Paper Lion, The Four Seasons, Same Time Next Year, California Suite

Mikhail Baryshnikov 01/28/1948 performer, Bolshoi ballet dancer - Awakening (Gelsey Kirkland); Push Comes to Shove; Metamorphosis; film's The Turning Point. 1 of my most pleasant memories as a student, standing at the back of 1 of the elevators at Juilliard and Baryshnikov (in tights) gets on with a gaggle of girls waddling (ballet duck walk) behind him. I was so pleased when he turned his back & stood in front of me. (What a view, I almost gasped!)

Mark Santoro 01/28/1963 performer - 1974 Gypsy; Carrie; 1994 Damn Yankees; Also: "Sophisticated Ladies" (Las Vegas, '83); "The Tap Dance Kid" (1st Nat'l Tour, '85-6); "A Chorus Line" (Tour as Al, '92-3); "Busker Alley" (Tour, '95)

Luther Creek 1/28/1972 performer - replacements in: Urinetown, Jesus Christ Superstar, Footloose, Rent; tv's & film's As the World Turns; Across the Universe

Joey Fatone 01/28/1977 performer; Part of pop band 'N Sync - replacement in Little Shop of Horrors and Rent

Elijah Wood 1/28/1981 performer - film's Lord of the Rings Cycle; Flipper, North, Radio Flyer, Forever Young, Avalon, Back to the Future; Hooligans; Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

1965 Ulu Grosbard revives Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge at the Sheridan Square Playhouse. Robert Duvall plays the troubled Eddie Carbone and Jon Voight plays Rodolpho. It will run 780 performances.

1976 With the passage of time, Jason Robards has gone from Jamie to the patriarch of the Tyrone family, James. Directed by Robards, Long Day's Journey into Night will play for 11 performances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Zoe Caldwell co-stars as Mary Tyrone.

1979 Wings takes flight at the Lyceum Theatre. Written originally for radio, Arthur Kopit's saga of a stroke victim fighting her way back to competence stars Constance Cummings. John Madden stages the 117 performances

1981 The Five O'Clock Girl with Dee Hoty (debut)

1988 The South African musical by Mbongeni Ngema and Hugh Masekela, Sarafina, transfers from Lincoln Center to Broadway's Cort Theater. The cast is comprised of young South African singers. The show will receive five 1988 Tony Award nominations, including one for Best Musical.

ON THIS DAY IN:

1547 England's King Henry VIII died.

1973 - CBS-TV presented the first program of Barnaby Jones . Lee Meriwether (Miss America 1955) played the detective’s lovely daughter-in-law assistant. Buddy Ebsen played the detective, Jones. Ebsen, who started in show biz back in the 1920s, was also selected to play the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz, but had bowed out. And he shot the first film used in the animation tests for a Walt Disney character named Mortimer Mouse (aka Mickey Mouse). Ebsen is best known, however, for playing Jed Clampett on another CBS-TV series, The Beverly Hillbillies. “Weee doggies!”

1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff from Cape Canaveral, killing all seven crew members: flight commander Francis R. "Dick" Scobee; pilot Michael J. Smith; Ronald E. McNair; Ellison S. Onizuka; Judith A. Resnik; Gregory B. Jarvis; and schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe.

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

Milla