Today's Birthdays 3/16

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 3/16/09 at 7:46pm

James Madison 3/16/1751 - 6/28/1836 4th president of the United States (1809-17); source mat'l - 1776

Conrad Nagel 03/16/1897 - 2/24/1970 performer - A Goose for the Gander (Gloria Swanson); 1951 Music in the Air; Goodbye, My Fancy (Sam Wannamaker, Madeline Carroll, Shirley Booth); Be Your Age (Hildy Parks, Lee Remick, Patricia Ripley); 4 Winds (Ludmilla Toretzka, Ann Todd); The Captains and the Kings (Joseph Campanella, Lee Grant, Peter Graves, Gavin MacLeod, Charles Ruggles); film's The Mysterious Lady, The Kiss, The Divorcee; film's The Woman in Brown (aka "Vicious Circle")

Henny Youngman 03/16/1906 - circa. Feb 23, 1998 performer - New Priorities of 1943 (Carol Bruce, Bert Wheeler); film's Joe & Dad, The Henny and Rocky Show; actor: Amazon Women on the Moon, National Lampoon Goes to the Movies, The Unkissed Bride, Goodfellas

Frances Fuller 03/16/1907 - Dec 18, 1980 Wife of Worthington Miner, performer, head of The American Academy of Dramatic Arts for many years - origs The Front Page; The Animal Kingdom; I Loved You Wednesday (Humphrey Bogart, Henry Fonda); Stage Door (Margot Stevenson, Margaret Sullavan,Mary Wickes); Excursion (Shirley Booth); Home Is the Hero (Peggy Ann Garner, Glenda Farrell, Christopher Plummer); 1963 The Lady of the Camellias (Jan Miner, Susan Strasberg, John Stride)

Robert Lewis 03/16/1909 - Nov 23, 1997 Producer, Director, Performer, founded the Actors Studio along with Cheryl Crawford, Elia Kazan - his 1st show was a musical: Flying High (Kate Smith, Bert Lahr, Russ Brown, prod'd by Geo. White); 1930 Romeo & Juliet (Burgess Meredith, Eva LeGalliene, Donald Cameron, Robert H. Gordon, J. Edward Bromberg); Waiting For Lefty; Jubilee (Adele Jurgens, Montgomery Clift); Paradise Lost [look at this cast, ambrosia!](Luther & Stella Adler, Elia Kazan, Morris Carnovsky, Russell Collins, Sanford Meisner AND Robert Lewis, written by Clifford Odets, staged by Harold Clurman); Johnny Johnson; Golden Boy; My Heart's in the Highlands (Sidney Lumet); Thunder Rock (Frances Farmer, Lee J. Cobb); Heavenly Express (Burl Ives, Harry Carey); Brigadoon; Regina (William Warfield, Russell Nype, Brenda Lewis); The Happy Time; An Enemy of the People (Rod Steiger, Fredric March, [Mrs. Fredric March]Florence Eldridge); The Grass Harp; The Teahouse of the August Moon; Witness for the Prosecution; The Hidden River (Roger De Koven, Robert Peston, Dennis King, Jack Bittner); Jamaica; Handful of Fire (James Daly, Joan Copeland, Roddy McDowall, Kay Medford); Kwamina; Foxy; Traveller Without Luggage (Mildred Dunnock, Ben Gazzara); On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (John Cullum [replaced Louis Jordan in Boston], Barbara Harris, Ken Richards; standbys Rita Gardner & Hal Linden); Harold & Maude

Josef Mengele 3/16/1911 - 2/7/1979 lest we forget: German Nazi doctor at Auschwitz extermination camp; source mat'l - film The Boys From Brazil

Leo McKern 03/16/1920 - Jul 23, 2002 performer - A Man for All Seasons (Paul Scofield, Albert Dekker, William Redfield, Keith Baxter); tv's & film's A Foreign Field, The Mouse that Roared, A Man for All Seasons, Help, Rumpole of the Bailey, Ladyhawke, The French Lieutenant’s Woman, The Blue Lagoon, Ryan’s Daughter

John Addison 03/16/1920 - Dec 7, 1998 performer - Cranks; The Entertainer; Luther

Jerry Lewis 03/16/1926 performer - Jerry Lewis at the Palace; 1994 Damn Yankees [replacement]; tv's & film's w/Dean Martin

Olga San Juan 03/16/1927 - 1/3/2009 performer; dubbed the "Puerto Rican Pepperpot" during her heyday; wife of Edmond O'Brien (1948 - 1976) divorced - Paint Your Wagon (John Randolph, Mary Burr, James Mitchell, James Barton); film's The Little Witch; Blue Skies; One Touch of Venus; The Countess of Monte Cristo; The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend

Sheila Bond 03/16/1928 performer - origs Street Scene; Make Mine Manhattan (Sid Caesar, Biff McGuire, Max Showalter); The Live Wire (Peggy Cass, Pat Harrington); Wish You Were Here; Lunatics and Lovers; Deadfall (Charles Derwent, Joanne Dru); tv's & film's The Marrying Kind (Judy Holliday, Aldo Ray); Playhouse 90

Victor Garber 03/16/1949 performer - 1977 Tartuffe; origs: Deathtrap; They're Playing Our Song; Sweeney Todd; Noises Off; Lend Me a Tenor; Two Shakespearean Actors (Tom Aldredge, Brian Bedford, Frances Conroy, Judy Kuhn, Eric Stoltz); 1994 Damn Yankees; Arcadia; Art; tv's & film's Alias; Godspell; The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd; Liberace: Behind the Music; Sleepless in Seattle; The First Wives Club; Legally Blonde; Tuck Everlasting; Alias; Eli Stone; The Last Templar

Kate Nelligan 03/16/1950 performer - Plenty (Ben Masters, Edward Hermann); 1984 A Moon for the Misbegotten; Serious Money (Alec Baldwin, Gregory Jbara); Spoils of War; An American Daughter; tv's & film's Up Close and Personal, Fatal Instinct, Eye of the Needle, Frankie and Johnny, The Prince of Tides, Dracula, The Count of Monte Cristo

Isabelle Huppert 3/16/1955 performer - Le Ceremonie, The Separation, Violette, Story of Women, Entre Nous, absolutely RIVOTTING in Adele H

Richard Holmes 03/16/1963 performer; Starred as Clifford in the national tour of Cabaret. He received his MFA in acting from New York University. - Timon of Athens (Michael Cumpsty, Brian Bedford, Jesse L. Martin); 1998 The Deep Blue Sea; 2001 Major Barbara; The Pillowman [u/s]

Alan Tudyk 03/16/1971 performer - Epic Proportions (Kristin Chenoweth, Jeremy Davidson) [I know, I know! I'm 1 of the few who loooooved this show!]; Spamalot [replacement]; 2007 Prelude to a Kiss; tv's & film's A Knight's Tale; CSI; Firefly; Ice Age 1 & 2;

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

1914 Female impersonator Julian Eltinge is lyricist and star of The Crinoline Girl. Otto Hauerbach provides the book and Percy Wenrich the score. She'll twirl at the Knickerbocker Theatre for 11 weeks. ATTENTION: ANYONE LOOKING FOR A GOOD SUBJECT TO WRITE A SHOW: CK OUT JULIAN ELTINGE!

1933 Right around the Three-Cornered Moon is a family who loses its money and doesn't know how to work. Ruth Gordon and Brian Donlevy are in the cast of this Gertrude Tokonogy comedy. It will run nearly 10 weeks at the Cort Theatre.

1967 That Summer - That Fall

1969 The Great White Way turns red, white and blue when 1776 opens at the 46th Street Theatre. The musical, with music and lyrics by Sherman Edwards and book by Peter Stone about the Declaration of Independence, stars Howard Da Silva, William Daniels, Ken Howard and, making her Broadway debut, Betty Buckley.

1997 Paula Vogel's How I Learned To Drive opens at Off-Broadway's Vineyard Theatre and stars Mary-Louise Parker and David Morse. The play will transfer to the Century Theatre and win the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama (as it was not eligible for the 1997 award owing to a scheduling technicality.) Despite the award, the show closed as scheduled, four days after winning, on April 19, 1998. Brilliant and highly disturbing play! MLP & DM were inspired!

ON THIS DAY IN:

1850 "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne was published.

On March 16, 1968, during the Vietnam War, the My Lai Massacre was carried out by United States troops under the command of Lt. William L. Calley Jr.

1985 - A Chorus Line played performance number 4,000 this night at New York’s famed Shubert Theatre. The show originally opened in July, 1975, and became the longest-running show to light up the Great White Way in September, 1983.

1998 Rwanda began mass trials for the country's 1994 genocide.

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

Milla