Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Today CLIII

Birthdays:

  • Ernesto Teodoro Moneta, pacifist, shared the 1907 Nobel Peace Prize with Louis Renault, September 20, 1833 – February 10, 1918

  • Sir James Dewar, chemist and physicist, developed a chemical formula for benzene; he performed extensive work in spectroscopy for more than 25 years; in 1891, he discovered a process to produce liquid oxygen in industrial quantities; he developed an insulating bottle, still called the Dewar flask, to study low temperature gas phenomena; he is credited as the inventor of the vacuum flask; with Sir Frederick Augustus Abel, he developed the explosive known as cordite, September 20, 1842 – March 27, 1923

  • Herbert Putnam, Litt.D., LL.D., Librarian of Congress from 1899–1939, September 20, 1861 – August 14, 1955

  • John SIDNEY Olcott, film producer, director, actor, and screenwriter, September 20, 1873 - December 16, 1949

  • Upton Beall Sinclair, author, who wrote over 90 books in many genres, often advocating socialist views; he gained particular fame for his novel, The Jungle, which dealt with conditions in the U.S. meat packing industry, causing a public uproar that led to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906; he ran for governor of California in 1934 - Robert A. Heinlein was deeply involved in Sinclair's campaign - losing to Frank F. Merriam, after which he returned to writing, September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968

  • Fernando Casado D'Arambillet, aka Fernando Rey, film actor, whose work with Luis Buñuel during the 1960's and 1970's made him internationally famous, September 20, 1917 - March 9, 1994

  • J Troplong JAY Ward, creator and producer of animated television cartoons, known for producing animated series based on characters such as Crusader Rabbit, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Dudley Do-Right, Peabody and Sherman, Hoppity Hooper, George of the Jungle, Tom Slick and Super Chicken; two words: "Moose and Squirrel," September 20, 1920 – October 12, 1989

  • William Kapell, pianist, September 20, 1922 – October 29, 1953

  • Myrtle Audrey Arinsberg, aka Gogi Grant, singer, whose 1956 hit The Wayward Wind reached Billboard magazine's number one spot; that year, she was voted most popular female vocalist by Billboard magazine, 1924

  • Sir John Dankworth, CBE, jazz composer, orchestrator, and performer, had violin and piano lessons before settling on the clarinet at the age of 16, and later adding the alto saxophone to his repertoire; he still performs today, including appearances and recordings with his wife, singer Dame Cleo Laine, 1927

  • Joyce Brothers, Ph.D., family psychologist and advice columnist, having published a daily syndicated newspaper column since 1960; she gained fame in 1955 by winning on The $64,000 Question, in the subject area of boxing, 1928

  • Anne Meara, comedienne and actress; she and husband Jerry Stiller were members of the The Compass Players, which later became Second City; as Stiller and Meara, they became regulars on The Ed Sullivan Show and other TV programs; she co-starred on Archie Bunker's Place as Veronica Rooney for the show's first three seasons, from 1979 to 1982; she apperaed as the grandmother on ALF and as Veronica on The King of Queens, 1929

  • Sofia Villani Scicolone, aka Sophia Loren, model and beauty queen, and film and stage actress, began her film career at age 16 with bit parts in mostly minor Italian films; in the 1950's, she became an international film star with a five-picture contract with Paramount Studios; among her films at this time were Desire Under the Elms, Houseboat, and Heller in Pink Tights; in 1960, her performance in Vittorio De Sica's Two Women earned many awards including the Cannes, Venice, and Berlin Film Festivals' prizes, and an Academy Award for Best Actress; other notable film roles were: Jimena in El Cid, Lucilla in The Fall of the Roman Empire, and Aldonza/Dulcinea in Man of La Mancha; in 1991, she received an honorary Academy Award for her contribution to world cinema, 1934

  • Dale Chihuly, glass sculptor, 1941

  • George Raymond Richard Martin, writer of science fiction and fantasy, journalism teacher, and chess tournament director, wrote short fiction in the early 1970's, winning several awards before he began writing novels late in the decade; a number of his earlier works are science fiction occurring in a loosely-defined future history; in the 1980's, he began working in television and as an editor; on TV, he worked on the new Twilight Zone; as an editor, he oversaw the lengthy Wild Cards cycle; in 1996, he returned to writing novel-length stories, beginning his lengthy cycle A Song of Ice and Fire, the fourth book of which A Feast for Crows, became The New York Times #1 Bestseller in November, 2005, and was nominated for both a Quill Award, and the British Fantasy Award; awards include: the 1975 Hugo Award for Best Novella for A Song for Lya, the 1980 Hugo Award for Best Novelette and Nebula Award for Best Novelette for Sandkings, the 1980 Hugo Award for Best Short Story for The Way of Cross and Dragon, the 1986 Nebula Award for Best Novelette for Portraits of His Children, the 1988 Bram Stoker Award for Long Fiction for The Pear-Shaped Man, the 1989 World Fantasy Award for Best Novella for The Skin Trade, and the 1997 Hugo Award for Best Novella for Blood of the Dragon, 1948

  • Charles Salvatore CHUCK Panozzo, bass player, and co-founder of Styx, 1948

  • John Anthony Panozzo, drummer and co-founder of Styx, September 20, 1948 - July 16, 1996

  • Guy Damien Lafleur, OC, CQ, former NHL hockey player, 1951

  • Gary Cole, actor, 1956

  • Charles Stuart Kaufman, screenwriter, 1958

  • Maggie Cheung Man-yuk, actress, 1964

  • Robert Rusler, film and television actor, whose first film was Weird Science, 1965

  • Nuno Duarte Gil Mendes Bettencourt, rock guitarist, 1966

  • Kristen Johnston, stage, film, and television actress, famous for her Emmy Award-winning role in the TV series 3rd Rock from the Sun, 1967

  • Gunnar Eric Nelson, musician, the son of the late Ricky Nelson, a member of the metal band Nelson since 1990, 1967
  • .
  • Matthew Gray Nelson, musician, the son of the late Ricky Nelson, a member of the metal band Nelson since 1990, 1967

  • Leah Pinsent, television and film actress, 1968

  • Asia Anna Maria Argento, television and film actress and director, 1975

  • Namie Amuro, pop singer, 1977

  • Jason Raymond Bay, MLB left field for the Pittsburgh Pirates, NL Rookie of the Year and The Sporting News NL Rookie of the Year in 2004; NL All-Star in 2005 and 2006; represented Canada at the 2006 World Baseball Classic, 1978

  • Sara Hodedtov, aka Sarit Hadad, singer, plays piano, organ, guitar, accordion, and darbuka, 1978

  • Thomas John [T. J.] Tucker, MLB relief pitcher, 1978

  • Spencer Locke, actress, 1991


RIP:

  • Gilles de Binchois, composer, one of the earliest members of the Burgundian School, c. 1400 – September 20, 1460

  • Lodovico Agostini, composer, singer, priest, and scholar of the late Renaissance, 1534 – September 20, 1590

  • Claudio Saracini, composer, lutenist and singer of the early Baroque era, famous composer of monody, July 1, 1586 – September 20, 1630

  • Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm, philologist, jurist, and mythologist, one of the Brothers Grimm, is best known as a recorder of fairy tales, January 4, 1785 — Berlin, September 20, 1863

  • Wovoka, aka Jack Wilson, was the Northern Paiute religious leader who founded the Ghost Dance movement, c. 1856 - September 20, 1932

  • Fiorello Enrico [Henry] LaGuardia, mayor of New York from 1934 to 1945l; LaGuardia Airport was named after him; the Laguardia Commission was the first in-depth study into the effects of smoking marijuana - it systematically debunked claims made by the U.S. Treasury Department that smoking marijuana would result in insanity - the report was prepared by the New York Academy of Medicine, on behalf of a commission appointed in 1939 by Mayor LaGuardia, December 11, 1882 – September 20, 1947

  • Jean Sibelius, composer of classical music, December 8, 1865 – September 20, 1957

  • Giorgos Seferiadis, aka Seferis, poet and diplomat, pursued a career in the Greek foreign service, culminating in his appointment as Ambassador to the UK, a post which he held from 1957 to 1962; awarded the 1963 Nobel Prize for Literature, February 19, 1900 – September 20, 1971

  • James Joseph JIM Croce, singer-songwriter, January 10, 1943 – September 20, 1973

  • Alexis Léger, aka Saint-John Perse, poet and diplomat, awarded the 1960 Nobel Prize for Literature, May 31, 1887 – September 20, 1975

  • Jule Styne, songwriter; Mike Todd commissioned him to write a song for a musical act which he was creating, the first of over 1,500 published songs Styne would compose in his career; he began a collaboration with lyricist Sammy Cahn, with whom he wrote many songs for the movies, including It's Been a Long, Long Time, Five Minutes More, and the Oscar-winning Three Coins in the Fountain; in 1947, he wrote his first score for a Broadway musical, High Button Shoes, with Cahn, and over the next several decades wrote the scores for many Broadway shows; his collaborators included Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Stephen Sondheim, and Bob Merrill; he was elected to the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972 and the Theatre Hall of Fame in 1981; in 1990, he was a recipient of the Kennedy Centre Honours, December 31, 1905 – September 20, 1994

  • Paul Erdös Ph.D., mathematician who worked on problems in combinatorics, graph theory, number theory, classical analysis, approximation theory, set theory, and probability theory, March 26, 1913 – September 20, 1996

  • Gherman Stepanovich Titov, cosmonaut, the second person to orbit the Earth, September 11, 1935 – September 20, 2000

  • Szymon Wiesenthal, aka Simon Wiesenthal, KBE, architectural engineer who became a Nazi hunter after surviving the Holocaust; following four and a half years in the concentration camps of Janowska, Plaszow, and Mauthausen during World War II, he dedicated most of his life to tracking down, hunting, and gathering information on fugitive Nazis, so that they could be brought to justice for war crimes and crimes against humanity; the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Los Angeles is named in his honour, December 31, 1908 – Vienna, September 20, 2005

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