Today's Birthdays 3/21

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 3/22/09 at 2:01am

Johann S. Bach 3/21/1685 - 7/28/1750 German composer of the Baroque era - Gottes Zeit, Toccata and Fugue in d minor, Little Organ Book, Mass in B Minor, Magnificat, solo cello sonatas

Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. 03/21/1867 - July 22, 1932 Director, Theatre Owner/Operator, producer husband of Billie Burke (1913 - 1932) his death, Anna Held (1897 - 1913) divorced - Ziegfeld Follies: annual variety shows famous for the Ziegfeld Girls [1907-1930s]; Sally; Show Boat; He will go on to become one of the most powerful showmen ever. His Follies, filled with beautiful women and exciting variety acts, will become a 25-year tradition following the first Follies of 1907. He will introduce talent such as Fanny Brice, Bert Williams, Ed Wynn, W.C. Fields, Marion Davies, Eddie Cantor and Will Rogers.

Peter Brook 03/21/1925 Producer, Writer, Director - House of Flowers; Irma La Douce; A Midsummer Night's Dream; La Tragedie de Carmen; film's Lord of the Flies, King Lear

James Coco 03/21/1930 - Feb 25, 1987 performer - Hotel Paradiso; Everybody Loves Opal (Eileen Heckart, Stubby Kaye, Brenda Vaccaro, John Napier); The Astrakhan Coat; Here's Where I Belong (Graciela Daniele, Ken Kercheval, Heather MacRae); Last of the Red Hot Lovers; Wally's Cafe (Rita Moreno, Sally Struthers); film's The Chair, Ensign Pulver, Man of La Mancha

Timothy Dalton 3/21/1946 - 1 source says 1944, a Welshman; performer, 1 of Vanessa Redgrave's Ex's - tv's & film's Centennial, Agatha; Sextette; Licence to Kill, The Lion in Winter, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Flash Gordon, The Living Daylights, Licence to Kill; The Beautician and the Beast

Matthew Broderick 03/21/1962 performer; husband of Sarah Jessica Parker (May 19, 1997 - present) son of James Broderick - Brighton Beach Memoirs; Biloxi Blues; 1995 How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying; 1999 Night Must Fall; Taller Than a Dwarf; The Producers; 2005 The Odd Couple; film's War Games, The Freshman, Family Business, [my fav] Ladyhawke, Ferris Bueller?s Day Off

Rosie O'Donnell 03/21/1962 performer, producer - 1994 Grease; Seussical; Taboo; 2004 Fiddler on the Roof [replacement]; tv's The Rosie O'Donnell Show; The View

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

1927 Jeanne Eagels plays Simone, a married woman who hires Leslie Howard to be Her Cardboard Lover. This Jacques Deval comedy will run at the Empire Theatre in New York for 19 weeks.

1957 In Orpheus Descending, Cliff Robertson plays a drifter not welcome in a small southern town. Maureen Stapleton co stars in this Tennessee Williams drama. There will be 68 performances at the Martin Beck Theatre. Harold Clurman stages.

1968 Adding music to the bane of high school literature class, the Canterbury Tales spin at London's Phoenix Theatre. Nevill Coghill writes the book with Martin Starkie, Coghill also provides the lyrics for the music composed by Richard Hill and John Hawkins. There will be 2,082 performances.

1990 Kathleen Turner is the Cat and Charles Durning the Big Daddy in a revival of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre. Howard Davies directs the production, which runs 149 performances and closes Aug 1.

2001 A line of ticket buyers snakes down 44th Street as previews begin for Mel Brooks' musical adaptation of The Producers. A year later, the line is still there.

2001 Bat Boy, a musical adaptation of the tabloid newspaper legend, opens Off-Broadway today and earns surprisingly respectful reviews.

2002 The much-lauded 1998 Trevor Nunn-Susan Stroman Royal National Theatre production of Oklahoma! opens on Broadway, after overcoming years of union and other issues. Despite a $12 million advance, the show gets mixed reviews, loses the Best Revival Tony Award to Into the Woods, and goes on to a run of 11 months.

2003 Chita Rivera puts her stamp on a sixth decade when she plays Liliane LeFleur in a Broadway revival of Nine, co-starring Antonio Banderas, Jane Krakowski and many other female luminaries. The production, which starts previews today, will win the 2003 Tony Award as Best Musical.

ON THIS DAY IN:

On March 21, 1965, more than 3,000 civil rights demonstrators led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. began their march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala.

1956 - The 28th Academy Awards were celebrated at the RKO Pantages Theater, Los Angeles, California. Hosting the festivities were comedian/actor/singer/producer Jerry Lewis in Hollywood, plus actress Claudette Colbert and writer/producer/director Joseph L. Mankiewicz in New York City. Marty, produced by Harold Hecht, was a big winner: Best Picture; Best Director (Delbert Mann); Best Actor (Ernest Borgnine); and Best Writing/Screenplay (Paddy Chayefsky). Best Actress was Anna Magnani for The Rose Tattoo; Best Supporting Actor was Jack Lemmon for Mister Roberts; Best Supporting Actress was Jo Van Fleet for East of Eden; and Best Music/Song to Sammy Fain (music), Paul Francis Webster (lyrics) for Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing from Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing. 1955 was a great year for other great movies, too (some Oscar winners, some not): Picnic; Bad Day at Black Rock; The Man with the Golden Arm; Rebel Without a Cause; Pete Kelly?s Blues; The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell; The Seven Little Foys; Blackboard Jungle; To Catch a Thief; and Oklahoma!, The Bridges at Toko-Ri to name a few.

1963 - A year after opening in the Broadway show, I Can Get It for You Wholesale, Elliott Gould and Barbra Streisand tied the matrimonial knot.

1964 - Singer Judy Collins made her debut at Carnegie Hall in New York City and established herself ?in the front rank of American balladeers.? She would first hit the Top 40 in 1968 with Both Sides Now, a Joni Mitchell song. Her versions of Amazing Grace and Send In the Clowns also became classics.

1994 - Actress/Comedienne Whoopi Goldberg hosted the 66th Annual Academy Awards show at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. The film that was created so the world would never forget the Holocaust -- the inhumanity of mankind to other humans -- received the highest honors this evening. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) awarded Schindler?s List, nominated in no less than 12 categories, with seven Oscars: beginning with Best Writing/Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium (Stephen Zaillian); Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Allan Starski, Ewa Braun); Best Cinematography (Janusz Kaminski); Best Film Editing (Michael Kahn); Best Music/Original Score (John Williams); Best Director (Steven Spielberg); and culminating with Best Picture (Producers Steven Spielberg, Gerald R. Molen and Branko Lustig). Schindler?s List was not the only film to receive multiple golden statuettes. Philadelphia (nominated five times) scored two awards, Best Actor (Tom Hanks) and Best Music/Song, Streets of Philadelphia to Bruce Springsteen. The Piano (nominated in eight categories) won both Best Actress (Holly Hunter)and Best Supporting Actress (Anna Paquin), and Best Writing/Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen (Jane Campion); Tommy Lee Jones picked up the Best Supporting Actor award for The Fugitive, a film nominated in seven categories.

1999 - Everything was beautiful at the 71st Annual Academy Awards ceremony at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. There were beautiful people, gowns, and the beautiful words, ?The Oscar goes to...? Hosting the festivities which had moved from the traditional Monday night to Sunday evening, was comedienne Whoopi Goldberg, who modeled the beautiful, and sometimes bizarre, costumes from the movies nominated in the Best Costume Design category. (And the Oscar went to Sandy Powell for Shakespeare in Love.) A beautiful lady, Gwyneth Paltrow, emotionally accepted the Best Actress Oscar for her role in Shakespeare in Love. It was a beautiful night for the film with 13 nominations and seven wins including the upset win of Best Picture of the 1998 year; Best Supporting Actress (Dame Judi Dench); Best Writing/Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen (Marc Norman, Tom Stoppard); Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Martin Childs, Jill Quertier); and Best Music/Original Musical or Comedy Score (Stephen Warbeck). This was the first time in nine years that the film that won Best Picture did not win for Best Director. Steven Spielberg was the winning director for Saving Private Ryan (which also won four more of the golden statuettes). It was a beautiful moment when the Best Supporting Actor Oscar was awarded to James Coburn (Affliction), his first Academy Award nomination in over 70 films. But the most beautiful moment/s of the long (Oscar's longest to date) evening was when Sophia Loren said, ?and the Oscar goes to Roberto!? (Best Actor: La Vita è bella - Roberto Benigni). In plain English, Life is Beautiful. Roberto Benigni was the first actor in a foreign language film to receive an Oscar. Coincidentally, Ms. Loren had been the first actress to be so honored. Benigni had received an Oscar earlier in the evening for Best Foreign Film (Life is Beautiful) when he pirouetted on top of seat backs, hopping and dancing to the stage. Roberto Benigni truly made the evening bella, bella!

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

Milla