Today CXIV - Happy Birthday, Mark Knopfler

Birthdays:

• Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, composer and violinist, August 12, 1644 – May 3, 1704


• Maurice Greene, English composer and organist, August 12, 1696 - December 1, 1755


• Helena Petrovna Hahn Blavatsky, author and psychic, co-founder of the Theosophical Society, August 12, 1831 - May 8, 1891


• Jacinto Benavente y Martínez, dramatist, awarded the 1922 Nobel Prize for Literature, August 12, 1866 – July 14, 1954


• Mary Roberts Rinehart, author, wrote hundreds of short stories, poems, travelogues and special articles; her novel The Door was indirectly the source of the phrase "The butler did it," August 12, 1876 - September 22, 1958


• Christopher CHRISTY Mathewson, MLB pitcher for 17 years, won more than 20 games for twelve straight years, including winning 30 or more games from 1903 to 1905; in 1908 he won 37 games; in 1936, became one of the first five players admitted to the Baseball Hall of Fame, August 12, 1880 – October 7, 1925


• Cecil Blount DeMille, fiulmmaker, August 12, 1881 – January 21, 1959


• Jean Cabannes, physicist, specialising in optics; the lunar crater Cabannes is named after him, August 12, 1885 - October 31, 1959


• Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger, physicist, achieved fame for his contributions to quantum mechanics, especially the Schrödinger equation, for which he shared the 1933 Nobel Prize for Physics with Paul Dirac; Schrödinger crater on the far side of the Moon was posthumously named after him, August 12, 1887 – January 4, 1961


• Alfred Lunt, actor, winner of two Tony Awards and an Emmy Award; with his wife Lynn Fontanne, was half of the pre-eminent Broadway acting couple in American history, August 12, 1892 – August 3, 1977


• Edward Stacey TEDD Pierce III, animated cartoon writer, animator, spent most of his career as a writer for the Warner Bros. animation studio, August 12, 1906, – February 19, 1972


• Joe Besser, actor and comedian, one of the three stooges for three years after the death of Shemp Howard, regular on The Abbott and Costello Show and The Joey Bishop Show, August 12, 1907 – March 1, 1988


• Jane Waddington Wyatt, actress, whose most famous roles, among many, were as Sondra Bizet in Lost Horizon, as Margaret Anderson, the mother TV's Father Knows Best; and as Amanda Grayson, Mr. Spock's, 1910


• Derek Delevan Harris, aka John Derek, actor, director, and photographer, August 12, 1926 – May 22, 1998


• Porter Wagoner, country music singer, 1927


• Robert Ray BOB Buhl, MLB starting pitcher, from 1953 to 1967, 1960 All-Star, August 12, 1928 - February 16, 2001


• R. Daniel DAN Curtis, television and film director and producer, known for the TV series Dark Shadows, worked frequently with writer Richard Matheson, August 12, 1928 – March 27, 2006


• Alvis Edgar BUCK Owens, Jr., country music singer, guitarist, and bandleader, August 12, 1929 – March 25, 2006


• Jacques Tits, mathematician, working in group theory, among other areas, introduced the theory of buildings; received the Wolf Prize in 1993 and, in 1996, the Cantor Medal, 1930


• William Goldman, novelist, playwright, and screenwriter, received an Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and an Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay for All the President's Men, 1931


• George Hamilton, film and television actor, and film director, 1939


• Ann Matthews Martin, author of children's and young adult books, most notably the The Baby-Sitters Club series, 1955


• Mark Freuder Knopfler, OBE, guitarist, singer, and songwriter, lead guitarist and vocalist for Dire Straits, as well as solo performer and member of the Notting Hillbillies; has performed on work by other artists, such as Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton and the late Chet Atkins, and produced albums for other artists; has also scored the music to several films; Mark Knopfler can really play!!, 1949


• Patrick Bruce PAT Metheny, jazz guitarist, leader of the Pat Metheny Group, 1954


• Sam J. Jones, actor, remembered for his 1980 portrayal of Flash Gordon, 1954


• Bruce Greenwood, actor; he was excellent in Nowhere Man, 1956


• Matthew Paul MATT Clement, MLB starting pitcher, currently with the Boston Red Sox, 2005 All-Star, starting in place of injured Roy Halladay, 1974


• Dominique Ariane Swain, actress, 1980

RIP:

• Cleopatra VII Philopator, later Cleopatra Thea Neotera Philopator kai Philopatris, queen of Ptolemaic Egypt, January 69 BC – August 12, 30 BC


• Alfonso Ferrabosco, composer and madrigalist, baptized January 18, 1543 – August 12, 1588


• Giovanni Gabrieli, composer and organist, 1554 or 1557 – August 12, 1612


• Jacopo Peri, composer and singer of the transitional period between the Renaissance and Baroque styles, often called the inventor of opera, wrote the first work to be called an opera today, Dafne, and the first opera to have survived to the present day, Euridice, August 20, 1561 – August 12, 1633


• George Stephenson, mechanical engineer who designed the steam locomotive named Rocket, known as the Father of Railways; his rail gauge of 4 ft 8½ in, sometimes called Stephenson gauge, is the world's standard gauge, June 9, 1781 – August 12, 1848


• James Russell Lowell, Romantic poet, critic, satirist, writer, diplomat, and abolitionist, February 22, 1819 – August 12, 1891


• Wilhelm (later William) Steinitz, the first official World Chess Champion, May 17, 1836, – August 12, 1900


• Seán Ó Maolchalann, aka John Philip Holland, engineer, who developed the first submarine accepted by the U.S. Navy, and the first Royal Navy submarine, the Holland 1, February 24, 1841 – August 12, 1914


• Helene Anna Held, showgirl, actress, and dancer, associated with impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, her common-law husband, March 8, 1872 – August 12, 1918


• Leoš Janáček, composer, remembered for his operas, July 3, 1854 - August 12, 1928


• Friedrich Hermann Schottky, mathematician, worked on elliptic, abelian, and theta functions, and invented Schottky groups, July 24, 1851 - August 12, 1935


• Harry Brearley, inventor of stainless steel, February 18, 1871 – August 12, 1948


• Paul THOMAS Mann, novelist, social critic, philanthropist, and essayist, awarded the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature, principally in recognition of his 1901 epic Buddenbrooks, June 6, 1875 – August 12, 1955


• James Batcheller Sumner, chemist, shared the 1946 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with John Howard Northrop, November 19, 1887 – August 12, 1955


• Michael Joyce (MIKE O'Neill, MLB starting pitcher and left fielder from 1901 to 1907, one of four brothers who played in the Major Leagues, September 7, 1877 - August 12, 1959


• Ian Lancaster Fleming, author and journalist, who wrote the James Bond novels, and the children's story Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, May 28, 1908 – August 12, 1964


• Walter Rudolf Hess, M.D., physiologist, shared the 1949 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for mapping the areas of the brain involved in the control of internal organs, with Egas Moniz, March 17, 1881 – August 12, 1973


• Karl Waldemar Ziegler, chemist, shared the 1963 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, for work on high polymers, with Giulio Natta, November 26, 1898 – August 12, 1973


• Sir Ernst Boris Chain, biochemist, co-recipient of the 1945 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Howard Florey and Alexander Fleming, for his work on penicillin, June 19, 1906 – August 12, 1979


• Henry Jaynes Fonda, film actor, nominated for an Academy Award for 1940's The Grapes of Wrath; appeared in such films as The Ox-Bow Incident, Mister Roberts, 12 Angry Men, Once Upon a Time in the West, and Yours, Mine and Ours; received a Tony Award for Mister Roberts and a Tony nomination for his role in Clarence Darrow; finished his career with a performance in On Golden Pond, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor; honored with Lifetime Achievement Academy Awards, Golden Globes, and Tony Awards; father of Peter Fonda and Jane Fonda, May 16, 1905 – August 12, 1982


• Joseph Arrington, Jr., aka Joe Tex, soul singer, August 8, 1933 - 13 August 1982


• Hisashi Oshima, aka Kyu Sakamoto, singer and actor, famous in the West for the song known here as Sukiyaki, November 10, 1941 - August 12, 1985


• William Bradford Shockley, physicist and inventor of the transistor with co-inventors John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain, for which all three were awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics, February 13, 1910 – August 12, 1989


• John Milton Cage, experimental music composer, writer and visual artist, September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992


• Luther Allison, blues guitarist, August 17, 1939 – August 12, 1997


• Gretchen LORETTA Young, actress, made as many as seven or eight movies a year; won an Academy Award 1947 for her performance in The Farmer's Daughter; The Loretta Young Show ran on prime time TV for eight years , January 6, 1913 – August 12, 2000


• Enos Bradsher "Country" Slaughter, MLB right fielder, batted over .300 for 19 seasons; 10-time All-Star; played in five World Series; inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1985; his jersey number nine was retired by the St. Louis Cardinals in 1996, April 27, 1916 - August 12, 2002


• Sir Godfrey Newbold Hounsfield, electrical engineer, shared the 1979 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Allan McLeod Cormack for his part in developing the diagnostic technique of Computerized Axial Tomography; the Hounsfield scale, a quantitative measure of radiodensity used in evaluating CAT scans, is named after him, August 28, 1919 – August 12, 2004