Today CXL

Birthdays:

• Elizabeth I, Queen of England and Queen of Ireland from November 17, 1558, until her death; alos known as The Virgin Queen, because she never married, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, and immortalized by Spenser as the Faerie Queene, she was the fifth and final monarch of the Tudor dynasty, September 7, 1533 – March 24, 1603


• 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


• Ferdinand Ritter von Hebra, physician and dermatologist, the founder of the New Vienna School of Dermatology, a group of physicians who set the basis for modern dermatology, September 7, 1816 - August 5, 1880


• Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz, organic chemist and educator, studied various carbon compounds, especially benzene, proposing in 1865 a carbon ring for its structure; in 1857, he had proposed that carbon was tetravalent, September 7, 1829 – July 13, 1896


• Anna Mary Robertson, aka Grandma Moses, folk artist and painter, September 7, 1860 – December 13, 1961


• Michael Joyce MIKE O'Neill, MLB starting pitcher and occasional left fielder from 1901 to 1907, one of four brothers who played in the major leagues, September 7, 1877 - August 12, 1959


• Dr. Albert Plesman, pioneer in aviation and co-founder of KLM, September 7, 1889 – December 31, 1953


• Janet Miriam Holland TAYLOR Caldwell, novelist, author of popular fiction, including Dynasty of Death, This Very Earth, and The Eagles Gather, among many others, September 7, 1900–August 30, 1985


• Michael Ellis DeBakey, cardiovascular surgeon and researcher, performed the first successful carotid endarterectomy in 1953; the first to successfully implant an artificial heart, in 1963; in 1987, President Ronald Reagan awarded him the National Medal of Science, 1908


• Elias Kazanjoglou, aka Elia Kazan, film and theatre director and producer, whose theatre credits included directing Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Arthur Miller's All My Sons and Death of a Salesman; as a film director, he won two Academy Awards for Best Director for Gentleman's Agreement and On the Waterfront; as a result of his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee during the postwar Red Scare, in which he "named names," he found himself hated by the left, and mistrusted by many on the right; in 1999, he received an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement - the audience displayed mixed reactions to his receiving the award, September 7, 1909 – September 28, 2003


• David Packard, electrical engineer, cofounder of Hewlett-Packard (HP); in 1939, he and William Hewlett established their firm in Packard's garage; HP, where Packard proved to be an expert administrator and Hewlett provided many technical innovations, grew into the world's largest producer of electronic testing and measurement devices, September 7, 1912 – March 26, 1996


• Sir John ANTHONY Quayle, actor and director; joined the Old Vic in 1932, after appearing in music hall; directed at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre from 1948 to 1956, and appeared in Shakespearian and contemporary plays; film roles included parts in Tarzan's Greatest Adventure, The Guns of Navarone, Lawrence of Arabia, and Anne of the Thousand Days, September 7, 1913 – October 20, 1989


• James Alfred Van Allen Ph.D., physicist and space scientist; the Van Allen radiation belts were named after him, following the 1958 satellite missions, Explorer I and Explorer III, in which he had argued that a Geiger counter should be used to detect charged particles; among other awards, won yhe Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1978, the National Medal of Science in 1987, and the National Air and Space Museum Trophy in 2006, September 7, 1914 – August 9, 2006


• Sir John Warcup KAPPA Cornforth, chemist, shared the 1975 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Vladimir Prelog for his work on the stereochemistry of enzyme-catalyzed reactions; had a profound influence on the work on penicillin during the war - he helped to write The Chemistry of Penicillin; was knighted in 1977; awarded the Royal Medal in 1976 and the Copley Medal in 1982; is a member of the Royal Society, 1917


• Alexander Emil AL Caiola, guitarist who plays jazz, country, rock, western, and pop music, both as a studio musician and stage performer; has recorded over fifty albums, 1920


• Arthur Ferrante, pianist, met Louis Teicher while studying at the Juilliard School of Music; they began performing together as a piano duo while they were still in school; in 1947, they launched a full-time concert act [Ferrante and Teicher], at first playing nightclubs, then moving to playing classical music with orchestral backing; a switch to popular standards made them mainstays in the pops-orchestra field, 1921


• Peter Sydney Lawford, film and TV actor, and member of Frank Sinatra's "Rat Pack;" appeared in many movies and TV shows; starred in TV series Dear Phoebe in the mid-50's; married Patricia Kennedy, who eventually divorced him in 1966 due to his alcoholism and infidelity, September 7, 1923 – December 24, 1984


• Madeleine Winefride Isabelle Dring, composer and actress; composition teachers included Ralph Vaughan Williams; also studied mime and drama; her two loves of theatre and music coexisted happily, since many of her compositions were for the stage, upon which she often sang and played piano, September 7, 1923 – March 26, 1977


• Theodore Walter (SONNY Rollins, jazz tenor saxophonist, began his career at the age of 11, and played with Monk before the age of 20; started as a pianist, then changed to alto saxophone, switching to tenor in 1946; first recorded in 1949; he remains a major jazz figure to this day, still touring and recording today; was presented with a Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2004, 1930


• Charles Hardin Holley, aka Buddy Holly, singer, songwriter, and of Rock and Roll pioneer, formed his band, The Crickets, in the 50's, and began making records; his music was sophisticated for its day, including the use of instruments considered novel for rock and roll; after the release of several, highly successful songs, in March 1958, he and the Crickets toured the United Kingdom - in the audience were teenagers John Lennon and Paul McCartney, who later cited Holly as a primary influence; died in the crash of a light plane taking him to a concert in North Dakota, September 7, 1936 – February 3, 1959


• John Phillip Law, film actor, best known for his role as the blind angel Pygar in Barbarella, 1937


• Samuel Howard SAM Sloan, author, chess player, and tournament organizer, 1944


• Willie Murphy Crawford, MLB outfielder, who played from 1964 to 1977, an excellent defensive fielder with a strong arm, September 7, 1946 – August 27, 2004


• Gloria Fowles, aka Gloria Gaynor, singer, best-known for the disco hits I Will Survive and Never Can Say Goodbye, the first song to top Billboard magazine's dance chart; on September 19, 2005, she was inducted in the Artist Inductees category of the Dance Music Hall of Fame, and I Will Survive was inducted under the Records Inductees category, 1949


• Julie Deborah Kavner, actress and voice actor, best known for her role as Brenda Morgenstern on Rhoda, and as the voice of Marge Simpson on The Simpsons; after Rhoda ended, she starred in the 1992 Nora Ephron comedy drama This Is My Life to lukewarm reviews; in The Simpsons, she provides the voices for Marge Simpson, Patty Bouvier, Selma Bouvier, Jacqueline Bouvier, and Gladys Bouvier; appeared in several Woody Allen films, including Hannah and Her Sisters, Radio Days, and Deconstructing Harry; voice Timon's mother in The Lion King 3; played a nurse in the film Awakenings and Adam Sandler's mother in Click, 1950


• Christine Ellen Hynde, rock musician, best known as the leader of The Pretenders, in which she is a singer, songwriter, and guitarist, and the only member for the entire existence of the band, 1951


• Benjamin Montmorency Tench III, keyboardist, session musican, and songwriter, best known as a founding member of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, 1953


• Corbin Bernsen, actor, most widely known for his work on television, whose greatest fame came from his role on L.A. Law; also starred in the film Major League and its sequels; son of actress Jeanne Cooper and husband of Amanda Pays, 1954


• Mira Furlan, actress and singer, best known for her role as Ambassador Delenn on Babylon 5, 1955


• Efim Isaakovich Zelmanov, mathematician, known for his work on combinatorial problems in nonassociative algebra and group theory, was awarded a Fields Medal in 1994, 1955


• Diane Eve Warren, songwriter; to date, her songs have received six Academy Award nominations, four Golden Globe nominations, and seven Grammy Award nominations, 1956


• Darren Bragg, former MLB outfielder, who played for 11 seasons, 1969


• Jason Derik Isringhausen, MLB relief pitcher, currently the closer for the St. Louis Cardinals and , as of June 13, 2006, their all-time saves leader; for his career, is 40-43 with a 3.59 ERA and 247 saves; in his brief career as a starter, he threw three complete games and one shutout, 1972


• Shannon Elizabeth Fadal, aka Shannon Elizabeth, actress and former fashion model, came to prominence in the 1999 comedy film American Pie; appeared in a recurring role on That 70's Show, 1973


• Mark William Prior, MLB right-handed starting pitcher for the Chicago Cubs, selected to the 2003 All-Star Team, but unable to pitch because of an injury, 1980


• Evan Rachel Wood, film, television, and theater actress, and singer, 1987

RIP:

• María África Gracia Antonia Vidal de Santos Silas, aka Maria Montez, model and actress, whose screen image was crafted as that of a hot-blooded Latin seductress, playing characters dressed in exotic costumes and sparking jewels, usually in adventure films as the beautiful damsel in distress; appeared in 26 films, June 6, 1912 – September 7, 1951


• Harry Conway BUD Fisher, cartoonist, created the Mutt and Jeff comic strip, April 3, 1885 - September 7, 1954


• Kirsten Målfrid Flagstad, dramatic soprano, July 12, 1895 – December 7, 1962


• Baroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke [née Dinesen], aka Isak Dinesen, author, who wrote works in both Danish and in English; best known in English, for Out of Africa, and for a film based on one of her stories, Babette's Feast, April 17, 1885 – September 7, 1962


• Spring Byington, actress, began acting on the stage in Denver, Colorado at the age of 14; made her Broadway debut in 1924 in Beggar on Horseback, and became a regular on Broadway throughout the 1920's and 30s', including roles in Once in a Lifetime, When Ladies Meet, and Jig Saw; debuted in movies in Little Women as Marmee in 1933; nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for You Can't Take it With You in 1938; in 1954, she was cast as the mother-in-law in sitcom December Bride; in 1961, she appeared in the Western series Laramie; her last role was as Larry Hagman's mother on I Dream of Jeannie, October 17, 1886 - September 7, 1971


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


• Kenton Lloyd KEN Boyer, MLB third baseman and manager, played primarily for the St. Louis Cardinals; 1964 NL MVP; five-time Gold Glove Award winner from 1958 to 1961 and 1963; seven-time All-Star in 1956 and from 1959 to 1964; led NL third basemen in double plays five times; hit for the cycle twice (September 14, 1961; June 16, 1964); hit inside-the-park home runs in three consecutive weeks (May 30 and June 7-14, 1959); player of the month for September, 1960; won the 1964 Lou Gehrig Memorial Award; manager of the St. Louis Cardinals Manager from 1978 to 1980, May 20, 1931 – September 7, 1982


• Joseph Edward JOE Cronin, MLB shortstop from 1926 to 1945, and manager from 1933 to 1947; seven-time All-Star; general manager of the Boston Red Sox from 1947 to 1958; in January, 1959, Cronin became the first former player to be elected president of the American League, which position he held until early 1973; inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1956, October 12, 1906 – September 7, 1984


• Rodney Robert Porter Ph.D., biochemist, shared the 1972 Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology with Gerald M. Edelman for determining the exact chemical structure of an antibody, October 8, 1917 – September 7, 1985


• Edwin Mattison McMillan, physicist, the first to produce a transuranium element; in 1940, he created neptunium, a decay product of uranium-239, using the cyclotron at Berkeley; in World War II, he was involved in research on radar, sonar, and nuclear weapons; in 1945, he developed ideas for the improvement of the cyclotron, leading to the development of the synchrotron; shared the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Glenn T. Seaborg for the creation of the first transuranium elements, September 18, 1907 – September 7, 1991


• Charles Edmund DuMaresq de Clavelle, aka James Clavell, novelist, screenwriter, and World War II POW, famous for such books as Shogun and Tai-Pan, and such films as The Great Escape and To Sir, with Love, October 10, 1924 – September 7, 1994


• Stewart Terence Herbert Young, film director, best known for directing Dr. No, From Russia with Love, and Thunderball, June 20, 1915 – September 7, 1994


• Erma Vernice Franklin, soul, rhythm and blues, and pop singer, whose best known record is the original [pre-Janice Joplin] version of Piece of My Heart; in the 1970's, she left the music business, apart from engagements with her sister Aretha, March 13, 1938 – September 7, 2002


• Warren William Zevon, rock and roll musician and songwriter, noted for his offbeat, sardonic view of life which was reflected in his dark, sometimes humorous songs, January 24, 1947 – September 7, 2003


• Robert Richard Boyd, first baseman in the Negro Leagues and Major League Baseball, compiled a .293 batting average with 19 home runs and 175 RBI in 693 games, and a 1.465 walk-to-strikeout ratio (167-to-114); at first base, he committed only 36 errors in 4159 chances for a .991 fielding average, October 1, 1919 – September 7, 2004


• B. Hope Garber, actress and singer, hosted a television show called At Home with Hope Garber; mother of actor Victor Garber, February 18, 1924 - September 7, 2005