Today's Birthdays 8/25

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 8/25/07 at 12:24pm

Louis II ("Mad King Ludwig") 8/25/1845 - 6/13/1886 German king of Bavaria (1864-86) - Now there's a topic to base a musical on

Walter Burke 08/25/1908 - Aug 4, 1984 performer - orig. BILLY BUDD (Dennis King, Lee Marvin, Jeff Morrow); 1956 MAJOR BARBARA (Glynis Johns, Charles Laughton, Burgess Meredith, Cornelia Otis Skinner, Eli Wallach, John Astin. HOLY MOLY! WHAT A CAST!)

Philip Coolidge 08/25/1908 - May 23, 1967 performer - origs OUR TOWN (Martha Scott); THE MERCHANT OF YONKERS (Tom Ewell, by Thornton Wilder based on comedy by Johan Nestroy); KISMET; A VISIT TO A SMALL PLANET (Cyril Ritchard); RHINOCEROS (Jean Stapleton, Zero Mostel, Morris Carnovsky, Eli Wallach, Anne Jackson); CRUCIBLE (Arthur Kennedy, E.G. Marshall, Beatrice Straight); 1964 HAMLET (Richard Burton, John Cullum, Hume Cronyn, Alfred Drake, John Gielgud, Linda Marsh, Eileen Herlie)

Michael Rennie 8/25/1909 - 6/10/1971 performer - Mary, Mary; film's THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL; PHONE CALL FROM A STRANGER; The Robe; Hotel

Ruby Keeler 08/25/1910 - Feb 28, 1993 performer, wife of Al Jolson - BYE, BYE, BONNIE (William Frawley); 1973 NO, NO, NANETTE (Helen Gallagher, Jack Gilford, Patsy Kelly, Loni Zoe Ackerman, Mercedes Ellington, Bobby Van); film's 42ND STREET

Don DeFore 08/25/1913 - Dec 22, 1993 performer - WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? (Hugh Martin); THE MALE ANIMAL (Gene Tierney); tv's "Mr. B," in Shirley Boothe's sitcom "Hazel."

Bob Crosby 08/25/1913 - Mar 9, 1993 Composer, Lyricist, Bing Crosby's brother - DANCIN'; FOSSE

Van Johnson 08/25/1916 performer - NEW FACES OF 1936 (Imogene Coca); TOO MANY GIRLS (Desi Arnaz, Eddie Bracken); MATING DANCE (Paul Sorvino); film's Three Days to a Kill, Delta Force Commando 2, Yours, Mine and Ours, The Doomsday Flight , Brigadoon, The Caine Mutiny, Easy to Love, In the Good Old Summertime, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, Two Girls and a Sailor

Mel Ferrer (Melchor Ferrer) 08/25/1917 Director, Performer, Audrey Hepburn's ex - CUE FOR PASSION (Bert Conway, George Coulouris, Gale Sondergaard); STRANGE FRUIT (Vera Allen); 1946 CYRANO DE BERGERAC (Jose Ferrer, Frances Reid); ONDINE (Audrey Hepburn, Marian Seldes, Ann Meecham) film's Scaramouche, The Sun Also Rises, War and Peace, The Fall of the Roman Empire, Sex and the Single Girl; tv's FALCON CREST

Leonard Bernstein 08/25/1918 - Oct 14, 1990 Lyricist, Composer, Writer, Orchestrator, Performer; 1 of my uber favs - ON THE TOWN; PETER PAN; WONDERFUL TOWN; ALL IN 1; THE 1ST BORN (Katharin Cornelle, Anthony Quayle, Mildred Natwick, Kathleen Widdoes); CANDIDE; WEST SIDE STORY; 1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVE.; BARBARA COOK, A CONCERT FOR THE THEATER. film's ON THE TOWN; WEST SIDE STORY; tv's YOUNG PEOPLE'S CONCERTS introduced classical music to the masses, so sorry there's nothing like it now; I will never forget when he came to conduct the student orchestra at Juilliard. We were hanging from the rafters to see & hear this, an incredible experience.

Richard Greene 8/25/1918 - 6/1/1985 performer - tv's & film's Island of the Lost, The Castle of Fu Manchu, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Stanley and Livingstone; tv's title-role star of the long-running British TV series The Adventures of Robin Hood, which was syndicated world-wide. Loved this series!

Donald O’Connor 8/25/1925 - Sep 27, 2003 performer - Bring Back Birdie; 1983 Showboat (Ron Raines, Lonette McKee, Avril Gentles, Sheryl Woods); film's Singin’ in the Rain, Francis the Talking Mule series, The Donald O’Connor Show, Call Me Madam, Walking My Baby Back Home, There’s No Business Like Show Business, The Buster Keaton Story, Toys, Out to Sea

Sean Connery (Thomas Sean Connery)08/25/1930 producer, performer; husband of Micheline Roquebrune (1975 - present), Diane Cilento (1962 - 1973) divorced - ART (prod'd); times James Bond is 75; film's Academy Award-winning actor: The Untouchables [1987]; The Rock, First Knight, The Hunt for Red October, Highlander, Rising Sun, Outland, The Longest Day, Dragonheart, Entrapment; “Bond. James Bond.”: Dr. No, From Russia with Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, Diamonds are Forever

Page Johnson 08/25/1930 performer - 1951 ROMEO & JULIET (Olivia de Havilland); CAMINO REALE (Eli Wallach, Hurd Hatfield, Jo Van Fleet, Martin Balsam); THE LOVERS (Joanne Woodward, Pernell Roberts, Robert Lansing); tv's & film's Finnegan's Wake; Nobody's Fool; The Job

Graham Jarvis 08/25/1930 - Apr 16, 2003 performer - 1959 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (John Gielgud, Margaret Leightson, Hurd Hatfield); orig BEST MAN; 1965 TARTUFFE (John Phillip Law, Tony Lo Bianco, Laurence Luckinbill, Roy Scheider, Sada Thompson, Michael O'Sullivan, Larry Gates, Salome Jens)

Tom Skerritt 8/25/1933 performer - tv's & film's Emmy Award-winning performer: Picket Fences [1992-93]; Steel Magnolias, A River Runs Through It, M*A*S*H, The Turning Point, Top Gun, Alien; Huff

David Canary 08/25/1938 performer - THE HAPPIEST GIRL IN THE WORLD; GREAT DAY IN THE MORNING (Frances Sternhagen, Colleen Dewhurst, Lou Frizell); CLOTHES FOR A SUMMER HOTEL (Geraldine Page); tv's Chandler on ALL MY CHILDREN; Bonanza

Marshall Brickman 08/25/1941 father of Jessica Brickman, husband of Nina Brickman; writer - Jersey Boys; tv's & film's Sleeper; Anne in Blue; The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence; Annie Hall; Manhattan; For the Boys; Manhattan Murder Mystery

Anthony Heald 08/25/1944 performer - MARRIAGE OF FIGARO (Dana Ivy, Mary Elizabeth Mastrontonio, Christopher Reeve, Louis Zorich); 1987 ANYTHING GOES; A SMALL FAMILY BUSINESS (Brian Murray); LOVE! VALOUR! COMPASSION!; tv's & film's Boston Legal; The Practice; A Time To Kill; Postcards from the Edge; 1 Life to Live; Silkwood; The Pelican Brief; Another World

Ernest Abuba 08/25/1947 performer - orig PACIFIC OVERTURES; LOOSE ENDS (Kevin Kline, Steve Vinovich); ZOYA'S APARTMENT (Robert LuPone, Bronson Pinchot); SHIMADA (Ellen Burstyne, Ben Gazzara, Estelle Parsons); tv's & film's 1997 Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (Gary Paul Wright, Pamela Stewart, Britt Sady); Twelve Monkeys; King of NY; New York Undercover

John Savage 08/25/1949 performer; won the Drama Circle Award for his stage portrayal of Billy Bibbitt in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" in the early 70s; in his early years he organized the Manhattan's Children's Theatre Group which performed in public housing areas; was an assistant production manager for certain sequences of Spike Lee's film Malcolm X (1992) that was shot in South Africa where John was living at the time working with Nelson Mandela on the anti-apartheid movement. John had appeared in Lee's Do the Right Thing (1989) a few years back, and later would show up in Lee's Summer of Sam (1999). - ARI (Constance Towers, David Cryer); AMERICAN BUFFALO (Robert Duvalle, Kenneth McMillan); tv's & film's White Squall, Shattered Image, The Hunting, The Godfather, Part 3, Silent Witness, The Onion Fields, Hair, The Deer Hunter, The Killing Kind, Soldier’s Revenge; Everwood; Carnivàle; Dark Angel; The Violent Kind; Dreamkiller; Fallen

Tim Burton 8/25/1958 director - Planet of the Apes [2001], Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Batman Returns, Ed Wood, Mars Attacks!, Sleepy Hollow; Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; Sweeney Todd

Joanne Whalley 8/25/1964 performer; wife of Val Kilmer (March 1988 - February 1996) (divorced), mother of Jack & Mercedes; Did not tell her ex-husband Val Kilmer that she wanted a divorce. She waited until he had left to work on a film to file for divorce and he later found out about it watching CNN in a hotel room. He said it hurt him greatly. - tv's & film's The Singing Detective; Dance with a Stranger; What the Butler Saw; Willow; Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis; Reilly: The Ace of Spies; The Virgin Queen; Lifeline

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

1879 - New York’s Madison Square Garden displayed a real floating ship in a gigantic water tank as Gilbert & Sullivan’s operetta, H.M.S. Pinafore, was performed.

1980 Tonight is a Broadway-sized mix of tragedy and triumph as the Great White Way's new musical smash, 42nd Street, opens at the Winter Garden Theatre. 42nd Street, based on the 1930s Busby Berkeley film musical of the same name, stars Jerry Orbach, Tammy Grimes, Wanda Richart and Lee Roy Reams. At the curtain call of the opening night performance producer David Merrick announces that the musical's director choreographer, Gower Champion, died that afternoon. Among Champion's finest musical credits were the original Broadway productions of Bye Bye Birdie, Hello, Dolly!, and Sugar. At the time of his death, Champion was in a relationship with Richert, the much-younger newcomer who received a Tony nomination for her performance in 42nd Street.

ON THIS DAY IN:

1718 Hundreds of French colonists arrived in Louisiana, with some of them settling in present-day New Orleans.

1921 The United States signed a peace treaty with Germany. So much for that one.

1944 Paris (the City of Lights) was liberated by Allied forces after four years of Nazi occupation.

1945 Producer Oliver Morosco dies today when hit by a trolley on Hollywood Boulevard. The producer dies broke at the age of 69.

1949 - NBC radio debuted Father Knows Best. The Thursday night program aired for five years. Robert Young played the role of Jim Anderson, the ever-patient father. The rest of the family included wife Margaret, son Bud and lovely daughters Betty (the eldest) and Kathy. The family lived on Maple Street in Springfield. Remember Bud’s favorite phrase (he only said it about six dozen times per show)? “Holy Cow!” Father Knows Best made the transition to TV in 1954, with Robert Young as the only cast member to continue with the show.

1967 Paul Muni dies today, age 72 or thereabouts. After starting out as a young man in Yiddish Theatre, Muni got his big break playing a Jewish lawyer in 1931's Counselor-at-Law. His greatest stage triumph was in the Lawrence and Lee evolutionary court drama, Inherit the Wind. Muni, also a celebrated film actor, is remembered for such movies as "I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang," "The Good Earth," and "The Story of Louis Pasteur." He was the recipient of two Academy Awards.

1984 Author Truman Capote was found dead at age 59.

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

Milla