Today CXXXIII - Happy Birthday, Theodore

Today is Theodore's birthday! I love you, Theodore!

Birthdays:

• Amilcare Ponchielli, composer, mainly of operas, and educator, among whose students were Giacomo Puccini and Pietro Mascagni; the only one of his operas regularly performed today is La Gioconda, August 31, 1834 – January 17, 1886


• DuBose Heyward, author of the 1924 novel Porgy and, with his wife, co-author of the non-musical play adapted from the novel, August 31, 1885 – June 16, 1940


• Ernest Frederick McIntyre Bickel, aka Fredric March, actor, won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice; in 1932, for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and in 1946, for The Best Years of Our Lives, August 31, 1897 – April 14, 1975


• Arthur Morton Godfrey, broadcaster, entertainer, and radio and TV host, August 31, 1903 – March 16, 1983


• William Shawn, magazine editor, edited The New Yorker from 1952 until 1987, August 31, 1907 – December 8, 1992


• William Saroyan, author, playwright, and songwriter, August 31, 1908 - May 18, 1981


• Sir Alfred Charles Bernard Lovell, radio astronomer, until 1981, director of the Jodrell Bank Observatory, 1913


• Richard Basehart, actor, starred in TV's Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, August 31, 1914 - September 17, 1984


• Daniel Schorr, journalist and author, now a senior news analyst for National Public Radio, won Emmy Awards in 1972, 1973 and 1974, and, in 2002, the Edward R. Murrow Award for Lifetime Achievement in Broadcasting, 1916


• Alan Jay Lerner, Broadway lyricist and librettist, and author, famous for his collaboration with composer Frederic Loewe, August 31, 1918 – June 14, 1986


• Leonard Hacker, aka Buddy Hackett, comedian and actor; in 1978, he gave a dramatic performance as Lou Costello in the TV movie Bud And Lou, with Harvey Korman as Bud Abbott, August 31, 1924 – June 30, 2003


• James Coburn, movie actor, co-starred with in The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape; in 1966, starred in Our Man Flint and its sequel; won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1998 for Affliction, August 31, 1928, Laurel, Nebraska – November 18, 2002


• Jean Arthur Béliveau, CC , CQ , D.h.c., former NHL ice hockey player, 1931


• Frank Robinson, former MLB outfielder during a 21-season career, and current manager of the Washington Nationals, the first player to win League MVP honors in both the National and American Leagues; became the first permanent black manager in Major League history in 1975; named Rookie of the Year in 1956; on June 26, 1970, hit back-to-back grand slams in the fifth and sixth innings; World Series Most Valuable Player in 1966, the same year that he won the AL Triple Crown; All-Star Game Most Valuable Player in 1971; inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982; awarded the American League Manager of the Year Award in 1989; in 2005, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, 1935


• Eldridge Cleaver, civil rights leader and activist, member of the Black Panther Party, August 31, 1935 – May 1, 1998


• Jerry Allison, musician, the drummer for The Crickets; Buddy Holly's song Peggy Sue was named after his then girlfriend and eventual wife, 1939


• Roger Dean, artist and album cover designer, a graduate of the Royal College of Art in London, designed his first album cover for Yes [Fragile) in 1971, and the classic Yes logo, 1944


• George Ivan VAN Morrison, musician, singer, and songwriter, plays several instruments, including the guitar, harmonica, keyboards, and saxophone, 1945


• Itzhak Perlman, virtuoso violinist and teacher, made his debut at Carnegie Hall in 1963, has won several Grammy Awards, 1945


• Richard Tiffany Gere, actor; as a Buddhist and an active supporter of the Dalai Lama. he has been a persistent advocate for human rights in Tibet, 1949


• Hugh David Politzer Ph.D., theoretical physicist and educator, shared the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics with David Gross and Frank Wilczek for their discovery of asymptotic freedom in quantum chromodynamics, the theory of the strong nuclear interaction, 1949


• Regina Ann GINA Schock, drummer for The Go-Go's, 1957


• Glenn Martin Tilbrook, lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter for Squeeze, 1957


• Richard Earl REB Beach, Jr., guitarist, formerly with Winger and Dokken, and currently a member of Whitesnake, 1963


• Hideo Nomo, MLB right-handed pitcher, not currently on a major legaue roster; was on the silver medal winning Japanese baseball team at the 1988 Olympics; the Kintetsu Buffaloes drafted him in 1989; made his MLB debut with the L.A. Dodgers in 1995, starting the All-Star Game, striking out 3 of the 6 batters he faced, and winning the National League Rookie of the Year, 1968


• Deborah Ann DEBBIE Gibson, singer-songwriter, 1970


• Christopher CHRIS Tucker, actor and comedian, 1972


• Clayton Allen CLAY Hensley, MLB relief pitcher for the San Diego Padres, 1979

RIP:

• Ole Worm, aka Olaus Wormius, was a Danish physician and antiquary, May 13, 1588 – August 31, 1654


• John Bunyan, writer and preacher, author of The Pilgrim's Progress, November 28, 1628 – August 31, 1688


• Gottfried or Godfrey Finger, Baroque composer, mainly for the viol and opera, 1660? - August 31, 1730


• François-André Danican Philidor, chess player and composer, regarded as the best chess player of his age; the book he wrote on the subject was viewed as a standard manual for at least a century; the Philidor Defense is named for him, September 7, 1726 - August 31, 1795


• Charles Pierre Baudelaire, poet, critic, and translator, April 9, 1821 – August 31, 1867


• Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt, physiologist and psychologist, generally acknowledged as a founder of experimental psychology and cognitive psychology; also a pioneer in social psychology, August 16, 1832–August 31, 1920


• Georges Braque, painter and sculptor, and one of the inventors of Cubism, May 13, 1882 – August 31, 1963


• Rocco Francis Marchegiano, aka Rocky Marciano, boxer, the World Heavyweight Boxing Champion from September 23, 1952 to November 30, 1956; had a professional record of 49 - 0 with forty-three knockouts, September 1, 1923 – August 31, 1969


• John Ford, film director, famous for such westerns as Stagecoach and The Searchers, and for adaptations of such classic American novels as The Grapes of Wrath; won a record four Academy Awards for Best Director [1935, 1940, 1941, and 1952]; opponent of McCarthyism, February 1, 1894 – August 31, 1973


• Harriet Helen Gould Beck, aka Billy Beck, aka Sally Rand, exotic dancer and actress, January 2, 1904 – August 31, 1979


• Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet, M/D., Ph.D., virologist, known for his contributions to immunology; shared the 1960 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Peter Medawar for their research on acquired immune tolerance, providing the experimental basis for inducing immune tolerance, thereby allowing the transplantation of organs, September 3, 1899 - August 31, 1985


• Henry Spencer Moore OM CH, artist and sculptor, best known for his large, abstract bronzes which can be seen in many places around the world as public works of art, July 30, 1898 – August 31, 1986


• Lady Diana Frances Spencer Mountbatten-Windsor, Princess of Wales, July 1, 1961 – August 31, 1997


• Lionel Leo Hampton, bandleader, jazz percussionist, piano player, and vibraphone virtuoso, began his career as a drummer; ranks among the greatest names in jazz history; worked with a who's who of jazz musicians, from Benny Goodman to Charlie Parker to Quincy Jones; credited with popularizing the vibraphone as a jazz instrument; the University of Idaho's music college was renamed the Lionel Hampton School of Music, the first and only university music college to be named after a jazz musician, April 20, 1908 – August 31, 2002


• George Porter, Baron Porter of Luddenham, OM, FRS, chemist, shared the 1967 Nobel Prize in Chemistry; President of the Royal Society from 1985 to 1990; Director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain from 1966 to 1986; Chancellor of the University of Leicester from 1984 to 1995, December 6, 1920 – August 31, 2002


• Colin David Tooley, aka Carl Wayne, singer and actor, the lead vocalist of The Move, August 18, 1943 - August 31, 2004


• Józef Rotblat, aka Professor Sir Joseph Rotblat KCMG FRS, physicist, received the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize; knighted in 1998; a Fellow of the Royal Society; winner of the Albert Einstein Peace Prize in 1992, November 4, 1908 – August 31, 2005


• Michael Sheard, film and television actor, made appearances in six stories in the Doctor Who TV series, with the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Seventh Doctors, June 18, 1938 – August 31, 2005