Today's Birthdays 3/9

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 3/10/09 at 12:03am

Modest Mussorgsky 3/9/1839 - 3/16/1881 Russian composer who wrote "Boris Godunov"

Eddie Foy 03/09/1856 - Feb 16, 1928 performer, comic, dancer: entertained on the musical stage and in vaudeville for four decades; father of The Seven Little Foys - Mr. Hamlet of Broadway; Up & Down Broadway (had a perf. named Irving Berlin in the cast)

Will Geer 03/09/1902 - Apr 28, 1978 performer - 1928 The Merry Wives of Windsor (Otis Skinner); origs: Let Freedom Ring (Tom Ewell); Of Mice and Men (Broderick Crawford, Claire Luce); The Cradle Will Rock; The More The Merrier; Flamingo Road; The Vamp; The Ponder Heart; 110 In The Shade; We, Comrades Three (Helen Hayes, Rosemary Harris); Scratch (Patrick Magee); tv's & film's Union Pacific, It’s a Small World, Broken Arrow, In Cold Blood, The Waltons

Samuel Barber 3/9/1910 - 1/23/1981 American composer; my fav: Vanessa (w/Eleanor Steber); Knoxville Summer of 1915

Irene Papas 03/09/1926 performer - That Summer - That Fall; 1973 Medea; 1980 The Bacchae; film's The Lion of the Desert; Anne of the Thousand Days; The Moon-Spinners; Tribute to a Bad Man

Taina Elg 03/09/1931 performer - 1998 Cabaret; Look to the Lilies; 1973 Uncle Vanya (Geo. C. Scott, Lillian Gish, Conrad Bain, Julie Christie); The Utter Glory of Morrissey Hall (Celeste Holm); orig Nine; saw her in the off bway Inge Festival a few yrs. ago, she's still got it; film's Les Girls; saw her as a child in the Bway Tour of Two By Two

Keely Smith (Dorothy Jacqueline Keely) 3/9/1932 in Norfolk, VA; Singer-actress; Louis Prima's 4th exwife; winner Outstanding Cabaret Female Vocalists in a Major Engagement in the Nightlife Awards; Throughout the 1950s, Louis and Keely were the undisputed King & Queen of Las Vegas; Actor Robert DeNiro and director Martin Scorcese have been long-time fans of Keely’s and over the years have placed her music in numerous films, including “The Deerhunter,” “Raging Bull,” “Analyze This,” “That Old Feeling,” “Big Night” and “Mad Dog and Glory.” Plenty of lifetime experiences to chronicle: winning one of the first-ever Grammy Awards in 1959, performing at President Kennedy’s inauguration, receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and friendships with everyone from The Rat Pack to Elvis Presley. I'll never forget her at the Nightlife Awards! - film's Sing Sing Sing, Thunder Road and Hey Boy! Hey Girl!; Ed Sullivan Show; The Dinah Shore Chevy Show; Toast of the Town; The Dean Martin Show; Conan O'Brien

Joyce Van Patten 03/09/1934 aunt of James Van Patten, sister of Dick Van Patten, wife of Martin Balsam (1959 - 1962) divorced, performer - Popsy; The Desk Set; A Hole in the Head; Spoon River Anthology; Murder at the Howard Johnson's; I Ought to be in Pictures (Ron Leibman); The Supporting Cast (Sandy Dennis, Betty Garrett, Jack Gilford, Hope Lange); Brighton Beach Memoirs; Rumors; Jake's Women; Taller Than a Dwarf; film's Monkey Shines, The Goodbye Guys, Bad News Bears, Breathing Lessons

Raul Julia 03/09/1940 - Oct 24, 1994 performer - The Cuban Thing; 2 Gentlemen fr Verona; Via Galactica; 1976 Threepenny Opera; 1977 The Cherry Orchard [My 2d Bway Show!] (Irene Worth, C. K. Alexander, Michael Cristofer, Meryl Streep, Cathryn Damon, Mary Beth Hurt, Dwight Marfield, Ben Masters, George Voskovec, Max Wright, Diane Lane, Christine Estabrook); Betrayal; orig Nine; 1992 Man of La Mancha (Sheena Easton?); film's Taquila Sunrise; The Addams Family, Kiss of the Spider Woman

Beau Bridges 03/09/1941 Brother of Jeff Bridges, son of Lloyd Bridges, performer - Where's Daddy?; Who's Who in Hell (Olympia Dukakis, Peter Ustinov); film's The Fabulous Baker Boys; Norma Rae

Lonny Price 03/09/1959 performer, director, writer - origs: The Survivor; Merrily We Roll Along; "MASTER HAROLD"...and the boys; Rags; Burn This; Sally Marr...and her escorts; A Class Act; Urban Cowboy; 2003 "MASTER HAROLD"...and the boys; 2007 110 in the Shade

Brian Lane Green 03/09/1962 performer - The Life [replacement]; Starmites; Big River [replacement

Juliette Binoche 03/09/1964 performer - 2000 Betrayal; film's The English Patient; Chocolat; The Unbearable Lightness of Being

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

1959 Juno, Marc Blitzstein's musical adaptation of Juno and the Paycock, opens at the Winter Garden Theatre with Shirley Booth and Melvyn Douglas. It flops after 16 performances.

1961 Dore Schary adapts and directs Morris West's novel, The Devil's Advocate. Leo Genn stars in this drama that will run 116 performances at the Billy Rose Theatre.

1978 Moliere in Spite of Himself plays at the Colonnades Theatre Lab in New York. This drama is adapted and staged by Michel Lessac and it will run for 100 performances.

1978 Encompass Theatre, an off-off Broadway group, launches a series of plays titled Hear Their Voices: Women Founders of the American Theatre, 1910-1945.

1986 At the New York Shakespeare Festival's production of Hamlet, Kevin Kline will inhabit the "distracted globe" of the Bard's immortal counterpart. The stageplay will open at Joseph Papp's Public Theatre and close May 11. I wish I'd seen this!

1989 Wendy Wasserstein's The Heidi Chronicles opens today at the Plymouth Theatre. The Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning drama stars Joan Allen and becomes something of a landmark in plays by and about modern American women.

1995 The Heiress with Cherry Jones, Phil Bosco, Patricia Conolly and Frances Sternhagen

2009 33 Variations with Jane Fonda, Zach Grenier, Samantha Mathis, Colin Hanks, Diane Walsh, Susan Kellermann, Erik Steele & Don Amendolia

ON THIS DAY IN:

1796 Napoleon Bonaparte, the future emperor of France, married Josephine de Beauharnais.

1916 Mexican raiders led by Pancho Villa attacked Columbus, N.M., killing more than a dozen people.

1996 Comedian George Burns died at age 100.

2002 Leonard Gershe, author of the play Butterflies Are Free, the 1969 Broadway comedy that launched the career of Blythe Danner, dies at 79.

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

Milla