Today's Birthdays 3/27

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 3/27/08 at 2:59pm

Gloria Swanson 03/27/1899 - Apr 4, 1983 performer; Wife of Wallace Beery (1916 - 1919) divorced - A Goose for the Gander (Conrad Nagel); Bathsheba (James Mason, Hildy Parks); 1950 Twentieth Century; Nina; Butterflys Are Free [replacement]; film's Airport ’75, Sadie Thompson, Sunset Boulevard, Teddy at the Throttle; Queen Kelly; author: Swanson on Swanson

Richard Denning 3/27/1914 - 10/11/1998 performer - he has Broadway credits, but they'er not available; tv's & film's Mr. & Mrs. North, Hawaii Five-O, Alice Through the Looking Glass, An Affair to Remember, Black Beauty, Creature from the Black Lagoon;Beyond the Blue Horizon; Flying Doctor

Budd Schulberg 03/27/1914 Writer, Source Material - The Disenchanted (George Grizzard, Rosemary Harris, Jason Robards Jr., Jason Robards Sr.); What Makes Sammy Run?; On the Waterfront

Harold Nicholas 03/27/1921 - Jul 3, 2000 brother of Fayard Nicholas, husband of Dorothy Dandridge (1942 - 1949) divorced; performer - Ziegfeld Follies of 1936 (Fanny Brice, Bob Hope, Eve Arden, Josephine Baker, Judy Canova, Gertrude Niesen, Ben Yost); Babes in Arms; St. Louis Woman; Sammy (Sammy Davis, Jr.); film's The Pirate; The Big Broadcast of 1936; Sun Valley Seranade; Orchestra Wives

Steve McQueen 03/27/1930 - Nov 7, 1980 performer - A Hatful of Rain [replacement]; tv's & film's The Bounty Hunter; The Blob; The Magnificent 7; The War Lover; The Great Escape; Love With The Proper Stranger; The Cincinnati Kid; Sand Pebbles; The Thomas Crown Affair; Bullitt; The Reivers; The Getaway; The Towering Inferno

David Janssen 3/27/1931 - 2/13/1980 performer - tv's & film's The Fugitive, The Green Berets, Two Minute Warning, Francis Goes to West Point, Once is Not Enough

Arthur Mitchell 03/27/1934 Performer, Production Crew - 1952 Four Saints in Three Acts; House of Flowers; Shinbone Alley (Eddie Bracken, Eartha Kitt, Jacques D'amboise, Reri Grist); Noël Coward's Sweet Potato

Austin Pendleton 03/27/1940 performer, writer - orig Fiddler on the Roof; An American Millionaire (Paul Sorvino, Josh Mostel, Bob Dishy); Goodtime Charley; The Runner Stumbles; Doubles; 1997 The Diary of Anne Frank; o/b Orson's Shadow; tv's & film's: He appeared with Stephen Sondheim in "June Moon" (PBS, 1974) and played Ethel Merman's son in the CBS pilot "You're Gonna Love It Here" (CBS, 1977); a rare starring role, as a free-spirited PR man in "Big City Boys" (CBS, 197; Skidoo; What's Up Doc?; Catch-22; The Muppett Movie; My Cousin Vinny; Oz

Sam Ramey 3/27/1942 operatic bass-bariton - tv's Nabucco; Attila; Don Quichotte; Don Carlo; Hommage à Rossini; Mefistofele; Don Giovanni

Michael York 03/27/1942 performer - Out Cry; The Little Prince and the Aviator [never officially opened]; 1991 The Crucible (Jane Adams, John Fiedler, Martha Scott, Martin Sheen, Fritz Weaver, Carol Woods); film's Cabaret; Austin Powers series; Logan's Run; Murder On The Orient Express; Romeo And Juliet (1968; Accident; The 3 Musketeers; Gilmore Girls

Maria Ewing 3/27/1950 operatic mezzo-soprano; wife of Peter Hall (1982 - 1990) (divorced) 1 child, Rebecca - tv's & film's Le Nozze di Figaro; The Barber of Seville; Carmen; Salome

Jed Bernstein 03/27/1955 brother of Douglas Bernstein; Producer, Executive Director of The League of American Theatres and Producers, Inc. (1996 - 2006) - Passing Strange

Quentin Tarantino 03/27/1963 performer, dir. - Wait Until Dark (Marisa Tomei, Stephen Lang); tv's & film's ER; My Best Friend's Birthday; Academy Award-winning screenwriter: Pulp Fiction [1994]; writer, director: From Dusk Till Dawn, Four Rooms, Pulp Fiction, True Romance, Reservoir Dogs

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

1952 The Grass Harp - Sterling Holloway, Russell Collins, Mildred Natwick, Ruth Nelson

1977 Martin Balsam and Paul Sparer play cancer patients finding different ways to accept their fates in Cold Storage. This drama by Ronald Ribman will run for six weeks at the American Place Theatre in New York.

1983 Playwright Neil Simon presents the first of his BB trilogy featuring the astute character Eugene Jerome as Brighton Beach Memoirs opens at Broadway's Alvin Theatre. Matthew Broderick, who will reprise the character in the second play Biloxi Blues, stars as the keen protagonist.

1988 Joe Turner's Come and Gone opens its run at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre and stars Angela Bassett and Delroy Lindo. The play, about a family in 1911 Pittsburgh, runs to June 26.

2003 A Broadway adaptation of the film Urban Cowboy opens today, with score cobbled together from more than a dozen composers. After receiving harsh reviews, the show will struggle on for 60 performances at the Broadhurst Theatre.

2008 Gypsy with Patti LuPone, Boyd Gaines, Laura Benanti, Marilyn Caskey, Alison Fraser and Lenora Nemetz. GO PATTI! Saw it again last night. The whole show, including Rose's Turn unbelieveable! & Electra was hysterically funny. Watch for Tonys.

ON THIS DAY IN:

1955 - Steve McQueen made his network TV debut on Goodyear Playhouse. McQueen starred in The Chivington Raid. In 1958, McQueen was starred in his own TV series, Wanted Dead or Alive, on NBC.

1957 - Jerry Lewis (in Hollywood) and actress Celeste Holm (in New York City) hosted the 29th Annual Academy Awards at the RKO Pantages Theater, Los Angeles. Looking at the list of winners and nominees, it seems as if 1956 was the year for bigger-than-life extravaganzas, epics and star-studded casts from the Best Picture, Around the World in 80 Days (Michael Todd, producer), to Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments. Others of that genre included The Rainmaker; Richard III; The Bad Seed; King Vidor’s War and Peace; and High Society; Written on the Wind, The King and I and Anastasia. The Oscar for Best Director went to George Stevens for Giant. Best Actor was Yul Brynner for The King and I and the Best Actress prize was given to Ingrid Bergman for Anastasia. Anthony Quinn was Best Supporting Actor in for Lust for Life and Dorothy Malone was Best Supporting Actress in Written on the Wind. The Best Music/Song Oscar was awarded to Jay Livingston and Ray Evans for Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera) from The Man Who Knew Too Much.

1973 - It was Oscar night (for the 45th time) at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles. The show was hosted by Carol Burnett, Michael Caine, Charlton Heston and Rock Hudson. Most people, when offered an Academy Award, can’t get up to the stage fast enough to claim the little gold guy. But, Marlon Brando said, “You can keep it," when AMPAS offered him the Oscar for Best Actor for his performance as The Godfather. Brando refused to accept the award because he felt that the U.S. and Hollywood were discriminating against American Indians. The Godfather (Albert S. Ruddy, producer) also was awarded the the prize for Best Picture. That Oscar was accepted, as were several for Cabaret: Best Director (Bob Fosse), Best Actress (Liza Minnelli) and Best Supporting Actor (Joel Grey). Best Supporting Actress was Eileen Heckart for Butterflies are Free and the Best Music/Song prize went to Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn for The Morning After from The Poseidon Adventure.

1995 - OK, into the limousine, as we head for the 67th Annual Academy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles. David Letterman was the host at these awards for the motion pictures of 1994. The Best Picture was Forrest Gump (Wendy Finerman, Steve Starkey, Steve Tisch, producers). Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks won Oscars for Best Director and Best Actor, respectively, in ... you got it ... Forrest Gump. The Best Actress prize was claimed by Jessica Lange for Blue Sky. Best Supporting Actor was Martin Landau for Ed Wood and the Best Supporting Actress award went to Dianne Wiest for Bullets Over Broadway. The Best Music/Song Oscar went to Elton John (music) and Tim Rice (lyrics) for the fine job they did for the animated movie, The Lion King, with the song, Can You Feel the Love Tonight.

2002 Two comedy giants die today. Milton Berle, the performer who straddled vaudeville, Broadway, radio, nightclubs and movies before becoming the first star of the post-war industry known as television, dies at 93 in Los Angeles. Known as "Uncle Miltie," he appeared on Broadway in the Earl Carroll Vanities (1932) and as Windy Walker in Saluta! (1934), See My Lawyer (1939), Ziegfeld Follies (1936 & 1943), and produced Broadway's I'll Take the High Road and Seventeen. He appeared in Top Banana on a summer stock tour in 1963. He also appeared on Broadway in Herb Gardner's The Goodbye People.

Also today, Dudley Moore, the diminutive actor who reached international heights starring in film comedies, 10 and Arthur, but who was known to theatregoers in London and New York for the revues, Beyond the Fringe, and Good Evening, dies at age 66.

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

Milla