Today LXXXVIII

Birthdays:

• Shmuel Yosef [S.Y.] Agnon, writer, awarded the 1966 Nobel Prize in Literature jointly with poet Nelly Sachs, July 17, 1888 – February 17, 1970


• Erle Stanley Gardner, lawyer and author of detective stories, creator of Perry Mason, July 17, 1889 – March 11, 1970


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


• Art Linkletter, born Gordon Arthur Kelly, TV host and author, 1912


• Phyllis Ada Driver, aka Phyllis Diller, comedian, pianist, and painter, 1917


• Louis 'Lou' Boudreau, MLB shortstop, manager, and radio color commentator, 1948 AL MVP Award winner, 7-time All-Star, inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1970, July 17, 1917 - August 10, 2001


• Vince Guaraldi, jazz musician, pianist, and composer, known for composing music for the Peanuts animated cartoons, July 17, 1928 - February 6, 1976


• Carol Diahann Johnson, aka Diahann Carroll, actress and singer, 1935


• Johann Peter Schickele, composer, musical educator and parodist, known for his comedy music albums featuring music he wrote as P. D. Q. Bach, 1935


• Donald McNicol Sutherland OC, actor, 1935


• Spencer Davis, musician, founder of the Spencer Davis Group, 1939


• Ron Asheton, guitarist, bassist and co-songwriter with Iggy Pop for The Stooges, 1948


• Terence Michael Joseph "Geezer" Butler, musician, founding bassist for Black Sabbath, 1949


• Charley Steiner, sportscaster, 1949


• Lucie Desiree Arnaz, actress, the daughter of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz; in 1986, won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre; in 1993, won an Emmy Award for her documentary Lucy and Desi: A Home Movie, 1951


• Phoebe Laub, aka Phoebe Snow, singer-songwriter, 1952


• Nicolette Larson, singer, July 17, 1952 – December 16, 1997


• Joseph Michael [J. Michael] Straczynski, writer/producer of television series, novels, short stories, comic books, and radio dramas, playwright, journalist, and author of The Complete Book of Scriptwriting; was the creator, executive producer, and head writer for Babylon 5 and Crusade; awards include two Hugo Awards, the Ray Bradbury Award, a Saturn Award, the E Pluribus Unum Award from the American Cinema Foundation, the Eisner Award, the Inkpot Award, and three technical Emmy Awards, 1954


• Elizabeth Natalie "Bitty" Schram, actress, cried in front of manager Tom Hanks during a baseball game in A League of Their Own, played Sharona Fleming in Monk, 1968

RIP:

• Adam Smith, FRSE, political economist ["laissez-faire"] and moral philosopher, baptised June 5, 1723 – July 17, 1790


• Gaetano Maria, aka Aleardo Aleardi, poet, one of the Neo-romanticists, November 14, 1812 - July 17, 1878


• Jules Henri Poincaré, mathematician, theoretical physicist, and philosopher of science, his accomplishments are too numerous to record here, April 29, 1854 – July 17, 1912


• Eleanora Fagan Gough, aka Billie "Lady Day" Holiday, jazz singer, a beautiful and talented woman, who struggled against racism and sexism her entire career, and achieved fame despite a turbulent life, April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959


• Tyrus Raymond 'Ty' Cobb, MLB centre fielder; when he retired in 1928, he was the holder of ninety major league records; elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936, AL Batting Champion 1907 - 1909, 1911 - 1915, and 1917 - 1919, AL Triple Crown in 1909, AL MVP in 1911, December 18, 1886 – July 17, 1961


• John William Coltrane, jazz saxophonist and composer, his accomplishments are too numerous and his legacy too large to record here, September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967


• Jay Hanna "Dizzy" Dean, MLB pitcher, NL MVP in 1934, a season in which he had a 30–7 record with a 2.66 ERA, elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1953, sportscaster, January 16, 1910 – July 17, 1974


• Boris Nikolaevich Delaunay, mathematician, worked in the fields of modern algebra, the geometry of numbers, and mathematical crystallography, March 15, 1890 – July 17, 1980


• Bryan "Chas" Chandler, musician, record producer, and manager, played bass guitar for The Animals, managed Jimi Hendrix and recruited musicians to form the Jimi Hendrix Experience, whose first two albums he produced, December 18, 1938 – July 17, 1996


• David Christopher Kelly CMG, employee of the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence, expert in biological warfare, and a former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq; his talk with a journalist about the British government's dossier on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq caused a major political scandal, and he was found dead days after appearing before a Parliamentary committee; the Hutton Inquiry, a public inquiry into his death, ruled that he had committed suicide; although suicide was officially accepted as the cause of death, some medical experts have raised doubts, suggesting that the evidence does not back this up, May 17, 1944 – July 17, 2003


• Rosalyn Tureck, pianist and harpsichordist, particularly associated with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, December 14, 1914 - July 17, 2003


• Lorenzo Aitken, aka Laurel Aitken, one of the originators of Jamaican ska music in the late 1950's, April 22, 1927 – July 17, 2005