Today CXXIII

Birthdays:

• Aubrey Vincent Beardsley, illustrator, author, caricaturist, and political cartoonist, the most controversial artist of the Art Nouveau era, renowned for his dark and perverse images and the grotesque erotica, which themes he explored in his later work; his most famous erotic illustrations were on themes of history and mythology, including his illustrations for Lysistrata and Salomé, August 21, 1872 – March 16, 1898


• William COUNT Basie, piano player and bandleader, August 21, 1904 – April 26, 1984


• Isadore FRIZ Freleng, animator, cartoonist, director, and producer, best known for his work on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons from Warner Bros., introducing and/or developing several of the studio's biggest stars, including Porky Pig, Tweety Bird, Sylvester the cat, Yosemite Sam, and Speedy Gonzales; won four Academy Awards, August 21, 1906 – May 26, 1995


• Mary Margaret [M. M.] Kaye, writer and illustrator, whose most famous book was The Far Pavilions, August 21, 1908 - January 29, 2004


• Hector TOE Blake, OC, NHL hockey player and coach, August 21, 1912 - May 17, 1995


• John Francis JACK Buck, sportscaster, best known for his work announcing the St. Louis Cardinals' games, August 21, 1924 – June 18, 2002


• Jack Weinstein, aka Jack Weinstein, movie and television actor, usually played comic roles; appeared in Wait Until Dark and The Cincinnati Kid, August 21, 1924 – May 3, 1996


• Arthur Stewart ART Farmer, jazz trumpeter, flugelhorn player, and bandleader, August 21, 1928 – October 4, 1999


• Margaret Rose Windsor Armstrong-Jones, The Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, CI, GCVO, younger daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, and sister of Queen Elizabeth II, August 21, 1930 – 9 February 9, 2002


• Melvin Van Peebles, actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, and composer, the father of actor and director Mario Van Peebles, 1932


• Dame Janet Baker CH DBE, mezzo-soprano opera, concert, and lieder singer, 1933


• Wilton Norman WILT Chamberlain, NBA basketball player, August 21, 1936 – October 12, 1999


• Kenneth Donald KENNY Rogers, country music singer, photographer, producer, songwriter, actor, and businessman; I remember him in The First Edition, singing Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In), 1938


• James Burton, guitarist, played on Dale Hawkins 1957 hit Suzie Q; played lead guitar for most of Rick Nelson's major hits between 1958 and 1965; played on TV's Shindig; guitarist and the band leader of Elvis Presley's band from 1969 until Presley's death in 1977; in 2001, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1939


• Clarence Williams III, actor, grandson of jazz pianist and composer, Clarence Williams, 1939


• Sharon Lee Myers, aka Jackie DeShannon, singer/songwriter; in February, 1964, was a supporting act for The Beatles on their first US tour, and formed a touring band with guitarist Ry Cooder; two of her songs were covered by The Searchers, 1944


• Peter Lindsay Weir, film director, 1944


• Frank Gerald JERRY DaVanon, MLB infielder, from 1969 to 1977, father of MLB outfielder Jeff DaVanon, 1945


• Eric Antonio Goles Chacc, mathematician, computer scientist, and educator, known for his work on cellular automata, 1951


• John Graham Mellor, aka Joe Strummer, co-founder, lyricist, rhythm guitarist, and lead singer of The Clash, August 21, 1952 – December 22, 2002


• August 21, 1952, Glenn Hughes, bassist and vocalist, fronted Finders Keepers and Trapeze before joining Deep Purple; also has a successful solo career, 1952


• Kim Victoria Cattrall, actress, 1956


• Joyce Evelyn McPherson, aka Trinity Loren, actress, model, and stripper, August 21, 1964 - October 24, 1998


• John Karl Wetteland, former MLB closing pitcher, 1996, 1998, and 1999 AL All-Star; 1996 World Series MVP and AL Rolaids Relief Man Award, 1966


• Carrie-Anne Moss, actress, known for The Matrix trilogy, 1967


• Jason Scott Marquis, MLB pitcher, currently with the St. Louis Cardinals; his career record is 42-36 with a 4.15 ERA; in 2005, he had 27 hits, posting a .310 batting average, 1978

RIP:

• Jacques Mauduit, composer of the late Renaissance, September 16, 1557 – August 21, 1627


• Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, physicist and inventor whose work was part of the 19th century revolution in thermodynamics, March 26, 1753 - August 21, 1814


• Lev Davidovich Bronstein, aka Leon Davidovich Trotsky, Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxist theorist, assassinated with an ice axe to the skull by a Stalinist agent, November 7, 1879 – August 21, 1940


• Henrik Pontoppidan, realist writer, who shared the 1917 Nobel Prize for Literature with Karl Gjellerup, July 24, 1857 – August 21, 1943


• Leonard Constant Lambert, composer and conductor, August 23, 1905 – August 21, 1951


• Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, aka Chandra, physicist, astrophysicist and mathematician, shared the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics with William Alfred Fowler for his studies on the physical processes important to the structure and evolution of stars, October 19, 1910 – August 21, 1995


• Marcus Schmuck, mountaineer, April 18, 1925 - August 21, 2005


• Robert Arthur Moog, Ph.D., pioneer of electronic music, best known as the inventor of the Moog synthesizer, May 23, 1934 – August 21, 2005


• Martin Dillon, musician, operatic tenor, and professor of music, June 17, 1957 - August 21, 2005