Today CLIX

Birthdays:

• John Chapman, aka Johnny Appleseed, nurseryman and missionary, introduced the apple to large parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois by planting small nurseries, September 26, 1774 – March 18, 1845


• Winsor McCay, artist and pioneer in the art of comic strips and animation; known for the newspaper comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland, and the animated cartoon Gertie the Dinosaur, September 26, 1867 – July 26, 1934


• Edmund Kellaway, aka Edmund Gwenn, theatre and film actor, appeared in more than eighty films during his career, including the 1940 version of Pride and Prejudice; he is remembered for his role as Kris Kringle in Miracle on 34th Street, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, September 26, 1875 – September 6 1959


• Alfred Denis Cortot, pianist and conductor, September 26, 1877 – June 15, 1962


• Archibald Vivian Hill CH CBE FRS, physiologist, one of the founders of biophysics and operations research; with Otto Meyerhof, he shared the 1922 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his explanation of the production of mechanical work in muscles, September 26, 1886 – June 3, 1977


• Thomas Stearns [T.S.] Eliot, OM, poet, dramatist, and literary critic, author of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and The Waste Land, among other works of twentieth century Modernist poetry; awarded the 1948 Nobel Prize for Literature, September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1965


• Martin Heidegger, philosopher, September 26, 1889 – May 26, 1976


• Charles Münch, conductor and violinist, September 26, 1891 – November 6, 1968


• George Ranft, aka George Raft, film actor, known for his portrayals of gangsters in crime dramas in the 1930's and 1940's, September 26, 1895 – November 24, 1980


• Jacob Gershowitz, aka George Gershwin, classical, jazz, and Broadway composer, September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937


• Emilio "Millito" Navarro, the first Puerto Rican to play baseball in the Negro Leagues, playing for two years with the Cuban Stars, with a career batting average of .337; after playing with the Negro Leagues, Navarro traveled and played for teams in the Dominican Republic and in Venezuela; he was one of the founders of the Puerto Rican baseball team Leones de Ponce (Ponce Lions), with whom he played, coached, and did a little bit of everything - he dedicated 20 years to the team, 1905


• Jack LaLanne, fitness, exercise and nutritional expert, celebrity, lecturer, and motivational speaker, 1914


• David Réal Caouette, Member of Parliament and leader of the Social Credit Party of Canada, September 26, 1917 - December 16, 1976


• Martin David Robinson, aka Marty Robbins, country & western singer, songwriter, and guitarist, September 26, 1925, Glendale, Arizona - December 8, 1982


• Gayle Peck, aka Julie London, singer and actress, September 26, 1926 – October 18, 2000


• Patrick O'Neal, television, stage, and film actor, and restaurateur; during World War II, he directed short training films while in the Air Force; after the war, he moved to New York and studied at the Actor's Studio and Neighborhood Playhouse; in the 1960's, he received critical praise for his leading role on Broadway in Night of the Iguana, September 26, 1927 – September 9, 1994


• Fritz Wunderlich, tenor, September 26, 1930 - September 17, 1966


• Richard Herd, character actor in television and film, known for his role as John, the Visitors' Supreme Commander, in the mini-series V and its sequel V: The Final Battle, and as Admiral Owen Paris, the father of Tom Paris, on Star Trek: Voyager, among other roles, 1932


• Dorothy Smith, aka Donna Douglas, actress, chosen over 500 other actresses to play Elly May Clampett on The Beverly Hillbillies, on which she starred for all nine seasons, 1933


• Salvatore Accardo, violinist and conductor, 1941


• Bryan Ferry, singer, musician and songwriter, known as the lead vocalist and principal songwriter with Roxy Music, and for his solo career, 1945


• Lynn Rene Anderson, country musician, best known for her Grammy-winning hit I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, 1947


• Olivia Newton-John AO OBE, singer and actress, the granddaughter of Max Born, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, and daughter of Brin Newton-John, an MI5 officer attached to the Enigma machine project at Bletchley Park, and the officer who took Rudolf Hess into custody when Hess parachuted into Scotland in 1941, 1948


• Stuart MacIntosh, aka Stuart Tosh, drummer, songwriter, and vocalist, who recorded and toured with a number of well-known bands during the 1970's and 1980's, including the Alan Parsons Project [1975 to 1977], 1951


• Kevin Curtis Kennedy, former minor league catcher who played in the Baltimore Orioles and Los Angeles Dodgers farm systems, and former MLB manager with the Texas Rangers, 1993 and 1994, and Boston Red Sox, 1995 and 1996; currently, a television host for Fox Sports' baseball coverage, 1954


• Linda Carroll Hamilton, movie and television actress, known for her performances as Sarah Connor in the first two Terminator films, and her starring role in the TV series Beauty and the Beast, 1956


• Richard Leo RICH Gedman, former MLB catcher from 1980 to 1992; The Sporting News' AL Rookie of the Year in 1981; two-time All-Star in 1985 and 1986; on September 18, 1985, he hit for the cycle and drove in seven runs, becoming the 16th Red Sox player and only the sixth catcher since 1900 to hit for the cycle; he set two AL records for putouts in a game, 20, and in consecutive games, 36, on April 29th and 30th, 1959


• Melissa Sue Anderson, actress, known for her role as Mary Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie, from 1974 until 1982; she won an Emmy Award for her performance in 1979 in Which Mother Is Mine?, 1962


• Jillian Warry, aka Jillian Barberie, actress and television hostess, 1966


• Richard SHANNON Hoon, former lead singer for Blind Melon, September 26, 1967 – October 21, 1995


• Chris Small, former professional snooker player, winner of the 2002 LG Cup, 1973


• Kaylynn, stripper and actress, 1977


• Serena Jameka Williams, professional tennis player, 1981


• Ashley Margaret Anne Leggat, actress, 1986

RIP:

• August Ferdinand Möbius, mathematician and theoretical astronomer, best known for his discovery of the Möbius strip, November 17, 1790 - September 26, 1868


• Hermann Günther Grassmann, polymath: linguist, mathematician, physicist, neohumanist, scholar, and publisher, April 15, 1809, Stettin – September 26, 1877


• Levi Strauss, clothing manufacturer, February 26, 1829–September 26, 1902


• Bessie Smith, blues singer, April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937


• Béla Viktor János Bartók, composer, pianist, and collector of Eastern European and Middle Eastern folk music, one of the founders of the field of ethnomusicology, March 25, 1881 – September 26, 1945


• Charles James Correll, radio comedian, best known for his work on the Amos 'n' Andy show, February 2, 1890 – September 26, 1972


• Anna Magnani, actress, won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1955 for The Rose Tattoo, one of several awards that she won for the role, March 7, 1908 - September 26, 1973


• Lavoslav (Leopold) Ružička, chemist, shared the 1939 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Adolf Butenandt, September 13, 1887 – September 26, 1976


• Karl Manne Georg Siegbahn, physicist, awarded the 1924 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discoveries and research in the field of X-ray spectroscopy, December 3, 1886 - September 26, 1978


• Billy Vaughn, singer, multi-instrumentalist, and orchestra leader, April 12, 1919 - September 26, 1991


• Lillie Mae Jones, aka Betty Carter, jazz singer, May 16, 1930 – September 26, 1998


• Richard Mulligan, television and film actor, whose career spanned 34 years, known for his role as Burt Campbell on the sitcom Soap, for which he won an Emmy Award for Best Actor, and in the role of Dr. Harry Weston on Empty Nest, for which he won a second Emmy, November 13, 1932 - September 26, 2000


• Baden Powell de Aquino, bossa nova guitarist, August 6, 1937 - September 26, 2000


• Robert Allen Palmer, singer, January 19, 1949 – September 26, 2003


• Shawn Lane, guitarist and composer, joined Black Oak Arkansas when he was just fourteen, March 21, 1963 – September 26, 2003