Slowhand

Birthdays:

• Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, nicknamed "Slowhand", Grammy Award-winning guitarist, singer and composer, garnering an unprecedented three inductions into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the illegitimate son of 16-year-old Patricia Molly Clapton and Edward Walter Fryer, a 24-year-old Canadian soldier; Fryer shipped off to war prior to Eric's birth, and then returned to Canada; grew up with his grandparents, believing they were his parents and that his mother was his older sister; years later, his mother married another Canadian soldier, moved to Canada, and left Eric with his grandparents, 1945


• Moshe ben Maimon, aka Moses Maimonides, aka Maimonides, rabbi, physician, and philosopher, March 30, 1135 – December 13, 1204


• Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, painter and printmaker, March 30, 1746 – April 16, 1828


• Vincent Willem van Gogh, Post-impressionist painter, March 30, 1853–July 29, 1890


• John Cassidy, aka Seán O'Casey, dramatist, committed nationalist and socialist, the first Irish playwright of note to write about the Dublin working classes, March 30, 1880 – September 18, 1964


• Ted Heath, bandleader and trombonist, March 30, 1902 – November 18, 1969


• Marc Fraser Davis, animator, March 30, 1913 – January 12, 2000


• Frank Paul LoVecchio, aka Frankie Laine, singer, 1913


• John Lee Williamson, aka Sonny Boy Williamson I, blues harmonica player, March 30, 1914 - June 1, 1948


• Turhan Gilbert Selahattin Sahultavy, aka Turhan Bey, actor, 1922


• Milton Acorn, poet, writer, and playwright, March 30, 1923 - August 20, 1986


• John Astin, actor, 1930


• Henry Warren Beaty, aka Warren Beatty, actor, producer, screenwriter, and director, 1937


• Graeme Edge, drummer, best known for his work with the Moody Blues, 1941


• Lili-Marlene Premilovich, aka Lene Lovich, singer, 1949


• Anthony Robert McMillan, aka Robbie Coltrane, OBE, actor, 1950


• Paul Reiser, stand-up comedian and actor, 1957


• Maurice LaMarche, voice actor, providing the voice of The Brain and numerous secondary characters on Futurama, among many others, 1958


• Tracy Chapman, singer-songwriter, 1964


• Geetali Norah Jones Shankar, aka Norah Jones, multi-Grammy Award winning pianist and singer-songwriter, 1979

RIP:

• George Bryan BEAU Brummell, celebrity and dandy, June 7, 1778 – March 30, 1840


• Maxfield Parrish, painter and illustrator, July 25, 1870 - March 30, 1966


• James Francis Cagney, Jr., actor, July 17, 1899 – March 30, 1986


• The Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, later Queen Elizabeth, was the Queen Consort of George VI of the United Kingdom from 1936 to 1952 and the mother of his successor, Queen Elizabeth II, the current British monarch. From 1952 to her death, she was officially styled Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, August 4, 1900 – March 30, 2002


• Michael Jeter, actor, August 26, 1952 – March 30, 2003


• Alfred ALISTAIR Cooke KBE, journalist and broadcaster, November 20, 1908 – March 30, 2004


• Rosemarie Timotea Aurro, aka Timi Yuro, soul and R&B singer, August 4, 1940 - March 30, 2004

Also:

• Thomas Cranmer becomes Archbishop of Canterbury, 1533


• Remington Rand delivers the first UNIVAC I computer to the United States Census Bureau, 1951


• The first subway in Canada opens after five years of construction, in Toronto, 1954