Today CXXV - RIP Maynard Ferguson

Birthdays:

• Charles Martel [Charles the Hammer], duke of the Franks. grandfather of Charlemagne, August 23, 686 – October 22, 741


• Moritz Benedikt Cantor, Ph.D., historian of mathematics, August 23, 1829 – April 10, 1920


• Arnold Toynbee, economic historian, August 23, 1852 – March 9, 1883


• Moritz Moszkowski, composer and pianist, August 23, 1854 - March 4, 1925


• William Henry Eccles, physicist and a pioneer in the development of radio communication, August 23, 1875 - April 29, 1966


• William Jacob WILL Cuppy, humorist and journalist known for his satirical books about nature and historical figures, August 23, 1884 – September 19, 1949


• Ernst Krenek, composer and author, explored atonality and other modern styles, and wrote a number of books on music, August 23, 1900 – December 22, 1991


• William Primrose, violist and teacher, August 23, 1904 - May 1, 1982


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


• Eugene Curran GENE Kelly, dancer, actor, singer, director, producer, and choreographer, starred in many motion pictures, including An American in Paris and Singin' in the Rain; first American to choreograph and stage a ballet in the Paris Opera; awarded a special Academy Award in 1951, the Légion d'honneur by the French government in 1960, the Life Achievement Award from American Film Institute in 1985, and the National Medal of Arts in 1994, August 23, 1912 – February 2, 1996


• Tex Williams, country musician, helped move rural and acoustic country music to dance-oriented Western swing, August 23, 1917 - October 11, 1985


• Kenneth Joseph Arrow, economist, winner of the 1972 Nobel Prize in Economics; one of the founders of post World War II neo-classical economics, whose most significant works are his contributions to social choice theory, and his work on general equilibrium analysis, 1921


• George Clyde Kell, former MLB third baseman, who played from 1943 to 1957; batted over .300 nine times and topped the league's third basemen in assists and total chances four times and in fielding percentage seven times; AL Batting Champion 1949, hitting .343, with the fewest strikeouts for a batting champion [13]; 10-time All-Star, from 1947 to 1954, and 1956 to 1957; hit for the cycle on June 2, 1950; inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1983, 1922


• Edgar Frank TED Codd, computer scientist who made seminal contributions to the theory of relational databases, creating the relational model for database management while working for IBM; coined the term OLAP, and wrote the twelve laws of online analytical processing; contributed to the area of cellular automata; received a Turing Award in 1981, August 23, 1923 – April 18, 2003


• Ferenc Hoffmann, aka Ephraim Kishon, satirist, dramatist, screenwriter, and film director; studied sculpture and painting, and published humorous essays and wrote for the stage, August 23, 1924 – January 29, 2005


• Robert Merton Solow, economist and educator, known for his work on the theory of economic growth; awarded the American Economic Association's John Bates Clark Medal in 1961, the 1987 Nobel Prize in Economics, and, in 1999, the National Medal of Science, 1924


• Dick Bruna, writer, artist, and graphic designer, whose best known creation is Miffy; wrote and drew other series of children's books; illustrated and designed the covers of the books of many well-known authors, such as Simenon's Maigret, 1927


• Vera Ralston, aka Vera Miles, actress, 1929


• Dr. Hamilton Othanel Smith, M.D., microbiologist, awarded the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1978 for discovering type II restriction enzymes with Werner Arber and Daniel Nathans as co-recipients, 1931


• Mark Russell, comedian, pianist, singer, and political commentator, 1932


• Robert Floyd Curl, Jr., Ph.D., chemist and educator, awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of fullerene, with the late Richard Smalley and Harold Kroto, 1933


• Barbara Jean Moorhead, aka Barbara Eden, film and television actress and singer, best known for her starring role in I Dream of Jeannie, 1934


• Keith John Moon, drummer for The Who, August 23, 1946 – September 7, 1978


• Shelley Lee Long, actress, known for her role as Diane Chambers on Cheers, for which she won an Emmy Award; in my opinion, the show became boring after she left, and I stopped watching it, 1949


• Julio César Robles Franco, MLB player, currently with the New York Mets, made his debut on April 23, 1982 as a shortstop; three-time All-Star from 1989 to 1991; 1990 All-Star Game MVP; 1991 AL Batting Champion; all-time hits leader among Dominican-born players; has a career batting average of .300; the oldest regular position player in Major League history, 1958


• River Jude Phoenix, film actor, died of a drug overdose at age 23, August 23, 1970 – October 31, 1993

RIP:

• Charles Augustin Coulomb, physicist, discovered an inverse relationship of the force between charges and the square of its distance, later named Coulomb's Law; the unit of charge, the coulomb, is named after him, June 14, 1736 – August 23, 1806


• Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Piero Filiberto Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antoguolla, aka Rudolph Valentino, actor, May 6, 1895 – August 23, 1926


• Albert Roussel, composer, whose interest in music was secondary to his interest in mathematics, early in life, and in addition he prepared for a career in the navy; in 1894, he began to study music seriously, continuing his studies until 1907 - one of his teachers was Vincent D'Indy; while studying, he taught - his students included Erik Satie and Edgard Varèse; after World War I, he devoted most of his time to composition; he was also interested in jazz, and wrote a piano-vocal composition entitled Jazz dans la nuit; his works include numerous ballets, four symphonies, orchestral suites, a piano concerto, a concertino for cello and orchestra, incidental music for the theatre, and much chamber music, solo piano music, and songs, April 5, 1869 - August 23, 1937


• Reginald Tate, film and television actor, the original Professor Bernard Quatermass in 1953's The Quatermass Experiment, December 13, 1896 – August 23, 1955


• Oscar Hammerstein II, writer/lyricist, producer, and director of musicals, teamed with Richard Rodgers in 1943, a partnership which produced Broadway musicals such as Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, Me & Juliet, Pipe Dream, Flower Drum Song, and The Sound of Music; he also produced the book and lyrics for Carmen Jones, an adaptation of the opera Carmen with an all-black cast, July 12, 1895 – August 23, 1960


• Edmund Richard HOOT Gibson, rodeo champion, and a pioneer cowboy film actor, film director, and producer, August 6, 1892 – August 23, 1962


• Glen Gray Knoblaugh, aka Glen Gray, jazz saxophonist and band leader, June 7, 1906 - August 23, 1963


• Francis Xavier Bushman, actor, the first major male movie star, debbuting in 1911 in the silent film His Friend's Wife; played Messala in the 1925 film Ben-Hur, January 10, 1883 – August 23, 1966


• Stanford Moore, biochemist, shared the 1972 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Christian Boehmer Anfinsen, Jr. and William Howard Stein, for their work on ribonuclease, September 4, 1913 – August 23, 1982


• David Rose, songwriter, composer, arranger, and orchestra leader, whose most famous compositions were The Stripper, Holiday for Strings, and Calypso Melody; wrote music for Bonanza and Little House on the Prairie; was musical director for the Red Skelton Show during its 21-year-run [Red Skelton once recited the poem "David Rose sat on a tack; David Rose"]; won four Emmy Awards, June 15, 1910 – August 23, 1990


• John Cowdery Kendrew, biochemist and crystallographer, shared the 1962 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Max Perutz for determining the first atomic structures of proteins using X-ray crystallography, March 24, 1917 – August 23, 1997


• James White, author of science fiction novellas, short stories. and novels, April 7, 1928 - August 23, 1999


• Peter Maas, journalist and author, the biographer of Frank Serpico, and author of Underboss, The Valachi Papers, Manhunt, and In a Child's Name, June 27, 1929 – August 23, 2001


• James HOYT Wilhelm, MLB relief pitcher, threw a no-hitter in 1958; inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1985, July 26, 1922 - August 23, 2002


• Bobby Lee Bonds, MLB right fielder from 1968 to 1981; the first player to have more than two seasons [he had five] of 30 home runs and 30 stolen bases, and the first to accomplish the feat in both leagues; the second player to hit 300 career home runs and steal 300 bases, after Willie Mays; three-time Gold Glove Award winner in 1971, 1973, and 1974; three-time All-Star in 1971, 1973 [MVP], and 1975; named the 1973 NL Player of the Year by The Sporting News; hitting instructor for the Cleveland Indians from 1984 to 1987; Giants' coach in 1993; as a player, coach, scout, and front-office employee, he was with the Giants franchise for 23 seasons, father of Barry Bonds, March 15, 1946 – August 23, 2003


• George Fisher, aka Brock Peters, actor, best known for the role in To Kill a Mockingbird of Tom Robinson, the black man unjustly convicted of raping a white girl; other roles include Sergeant Brown in the film Carmen Jones, Crown in the film Porgy and Bess, Stephen Kumalo in the stage and film versions of Lost in the Stars, Fleet Admiral Cartwright in Star Trek IV and Star Trek VI, and Joseph Sisko in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, July 2, 1927 – August 23, 2005


• Maynard Ferguson, trumpet player and bandleader, came to prominence playing in Stan Kenton's orchestra, before forming his own band in 1957; known for being able to play accurately in a remarkably high register, and for his bands, which act as stepping stones for up-and-coming talent, May 4, 1928 - August 23, 2006