Today CXLIII

Birthdays:

• Nicholas Lanier(e), composer, singer, lutenist, and painter, baptized September 10, 1588 - February 24, 1666


• Henry Purcell, Baroque composer, incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements, but devised a peculiarly English style of Baroque music, September 10, 1659 – November 21, 1695


• Niccolò Jommelli, composer, wrote cantatas, oratorios, and other sacred works, but the most important part of his output were his operas, particularly his opere serie of which he composed around sixty, September 10, 1714 – August 25, 1774


• Charles Sanders Peirce, polymath, educated as a chemist and employed as a scientist for 30 years; remembered for his contributions to logic, mathematics, philosophy, and the theory of signs, September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914


• Arthur Holly Compton, physicist, shared the 1927 Nobel Prize in Physics with Charles Thomson Rees Wilson; Chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis from 1946 to 1953, September 10, 1892 – March 15, 1962


• Juanita Horton, aka Bessie Love, silent film and film actress; career started when D.W. Griffith gave her a small part in Intolerance in 1916, September 10, 1898 - April 26, 1986


• Waldo Lonsbury Semon, inventor who invented vinyl; held 116 patents, and was inducted into the Invention Hall of Fame in 1995, September 10, 1898 - May 26, 1999


• Robert Wise, film producer and director, who achieved critical success as a director in many different film genres: from horror to noir to war films to Science Fiction, to musical and drama; began his movie career at RKO as a sound and music editor, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Film Editing for Citizen Kane in 1941; in 1961, he won the Academy Award for Best Director for West Side Story, and again in 1965 for The Sound of Music; in the 1970's, he directed such films as The Andromeda Strain, The Hindenburg, Audrey Rose, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture; in 1989 he directed Rooftops, his last theatrical feature film, September 10, 1914 – September 14, 2005


• Edmond O'Brien, actor, won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Barefoot Contessa in 1954, September 10, 1915 – May 9, 1985


• Theodore Bernard TED Kluszewski, MLB first baseman between 1947 and 1961;
  four-time All-Star from 1953 to 1956; led league in home runs with 49 in 1954; led league in RBI with 141 in 1954; led first basemen in fielding percentage from 1951 to 1955, September 10, 1924 - March 29, 1988


• Jean Vanier, CC, GOQ, Ph.D., humanitarian, the founder of L'Arche, an international organization that creates communities where people with developmental disabilities and those who assist them share life together, 1928


• Arnold Daniel Palmer, golfer, the first star of the sport's television age, which began in the 1950's, 1929


• Charles Kuralt, journalist, winner of three Peabody awards and ten Emmy awards, September 10, 1934 – July 4, 1997


• Roger Eugene Maris, MLB outfielder, remembered for breaking Babe Ruth's 34-year-old single-season home run record in 1961 on the last day of the season; AL Most Valuable Player in 1960 and 1961; All-Star from 1959 to 1962; 1960 Gold Glove winner; I think that he should be in the Hall of Fame, September 10, 1934 – December 14, 1985


• Christopher Jarvis Haley Hogwood, conductor, harpsichordist and educator, 1941


• Daniel Anthony Hutton, singer, one of the three lead vocalists in Three Dog Night, 1942


• José Montserrate Feliciano García, singer and guitarist, 1945


• Judith Amanda JUDY Geeson, actress, whose first major film appearance was in 1967 in To Sir, With Love, 1948


• William James BILL O'Reilly, Jr., commentator, author, journalist, syndicated columnist, and television personality, best known as the host of the cable news program The O'Reilly Factor, 1949


• Anthony Joseph JOE Perry, lead guitarist for Aerosmith, 1950


• Amy Irving, actress, received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the film Yentl, and an Obie Award for her stage performance in The Road to Mecca, 1953


• Carol Decker, recording artist, best known as the singer and front woman for T'Pau, 1957


• Chris Columbus, filmmaker - director and producer, started as a screenwriter, and made his directorial debut with Adventures in Babysitting; also directed Home Alone, the first two Harry Potter films, Bicentennial Man, and Rent, 1958


• Siobhan Maire Deidre Fahey, musician, producer, singer-songwriter, guitarist, and keyboard player, a founding member of Bananarama and Shakespears Sister, 1958


• David Lowery, guitarist, vocalist and songwriter, the founder of Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker, 1960


• Randall David RANDY Johnson, MLB left-handed starting pitcher for the New York Yankees, nicknamed The Big Unit for his 6 foot 10 inch height; has won the Cy Young Award five times, 1963


• Robin Goodridge, musician, drummer for Bush; after Bush split, joined Elyss, 1965

RIP:

• Luzzasco Luzzaschi, composer, organist, and teacher of the late Renaissance; best known as a madrigalist, he was the teacher of Girolamo Frescobaldi, c. 1545 – September 10, 1607


• Baldassare Ferri, castrato singer, December 9, 1610 - September 10, 1680


• Émilie du Châtelet, mathematician, physicist, and author, researched the science of fire - publishing in 1737 a paper which foresaw what is today known as infra-red radiation - and the nature of light, December 17, 1706 – September 10, 1749


• Mary Wollstonecraft, writer, philosopher, and early feminist, the mother of Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, April 27, 1759 – September 10, 1797


• Simon Sechter, music theorist, teacher, organist, conductor, and composer, October 11, 1788 - September 10, 1867


• Dmitri Fyodorovich Egorov, mathematician, studied potential surfaces and triply orthogonal systems, and made significant contributions to the broader areas of differential geometry and integral equations, December 22, 1869 – September 10, 1931


• Leo Carrillo, actor and conservationist, great-grandson of the first provisional governor of California, son of the first mayor of Santa Monica, remembered as Pancho on the Cisco Kid TV series, August 6, 1880 - September 10, 1961


• Emil Julius Gumbel, mathematician, pacifist, and anti-Nazi campaigner, founded the mathematical field of extreme value theory, July 18, 1891 - September 10, 1966


• Anna Maria Pierangeli, aka Pier Angeli, actress, June 19, 1932 – September 10, 1971


• Sir George Paget Thomson FRS, physicist who discovered the wave properties of the electron by electron diffraction; shared the 1937 Nobel Prize for Physics with Clinton Joseph Davisson who had made the same discovery independently, May 3, 1892 – September 10, 1975


• Dalton Trumbo, screenwriter and novelist, one of the Hollywood Ten, a group of film professionals who refused to testify before the 1947 House Un-American Activities Committee about alleged communist involvement; he always maintained that those who testified under pressure from HUAC and the studios were equally victims of the Red Scare, an unpopular opinion, December 9, 1905 – September 10, 1976


• Felix Bloch, physicist; he and Edward Mills Purcell were awarded the 1952 Nobel Prize in Physics for their development of new methods for nuclear magnetic precision measurements, October 23, 1905 – September 10, 1983


• Joanne Letitia LaCock, aka Joanne Dru, film actress, January 31, 1922 – September 10, 1996


• Carl Forgione, actor, best known for his television appearances, appeared in two Doctor Who serials: Planet of the Spiders in 1974 and Ghost Light in 1989; also appeared in Blake's 7, Star Cops, and Coronation Street, 1944 - 10 September 1998


• Alfredo Kraus, tenor, whose best known role was the title role in Massenet's Werther, 24 November 1927 – 10 September 1999


• Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, blues musician, a multi-instrumentalist, who played guitar, fiddle, mandolin, viola, harmonica, and drums; recorded 30 records, and won a Grammy Award for Traditional Blues in 1983 for his album Alright Again!, April 18, 1924 - September 10, 2005


• Patricia Jane PATTY Berg, golfer, a founding member and then leading player on the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) Tour; attended the University of Minnesota where she was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority; took up golf in 1931 and began her amateur career in 1934, winning her first title that year; after winning twenty-nine amateur titles, she turned professional in 1940; in 1963, she won the Bob Jones Award; the LPGA established the Patty Berg Award in 1978, February 13, 1918-- September 10, 2006