Today CXLVI

Birthdays:

• Laura Secord, Canadian heroine of the War of 1812, September 13, 1775 – October 17, 1868


• Clara Josephine Wieck Schumann, one of the leading pianists of the Romantic era as well as a composer, wife of composer Robert Schumann, September 13, 1819 – May 20, 1896


• Walter Reed, M.D., American Army surgeon who led the team which confirmed the theory that yellow fever is transmitted by mosquitoes rather than direct contact; on May 1, 1909, Walter Reed General Hospital in Washington, D.C., named in his honor, was opened, September 13, 1851 - November 23, 1902


• Milton S. Hershey, businessman and philanthropist, famous for founding the Hershey Chocolate Company and Hershey, Pennsylvania, September 13, 1857 – October 13, 1945


• Arthur Henderson, politician and union leader, chaired the Geneva Disarmament Conference and was awarded the 1934 Nobel Peace Prize, September 13, 1863 – October 20, 1935


• Constantin Carathéodory, mathematician, made contributions to the theory of functions of a real variable, the calculus of variations, and measure theory, September 13, 1873 – February 2, 1950


• Arnold Franz Walter Schoenberg, composer, painter, music theorist, and teacher of composition, among the first composers to embrace atonal motivic development, innovator of the twelve-tone technique, September 13, 1874 – July 13, 1951


• Sherwood Anderson, writer, mainly of short stories, known for the collection Winesburg, Ohio, September 13, 1876 – March 8, 1941


• Sir Robert Robinson, chemist, awarded the 1947 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research on plant dyestuffs and alkaloids; was President of the Royal Society from 1945 to 1950, September 13, 1886 – February 8, 1975


• Lawrence James LARRY Shields, early jazz clarinetist, started playing clarinet when he was 14; played with Papa Jack Laine's bands; was one of the early New Orleans musicians to go to Chicago, heading north in 1915 to join Bert Kelly's band; joined the Original Dixieland Jass Band in late 1916; the following year, the band made the first jazz phonograph records, propelling Shield's playing to national prominence, September 13, 1893 - November 21, 1953


• John Boynton [J. B.] Priestley, OM, writer, playwright, and broadcaster, September 13, 1894 - August 14, 1984


• Lily Claudette Chauchoin, aka Claudette Colbert, actress, won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1934 for It Happened One Night, September 13, 1903 - July 30, 1996


• William Smith Monroe, musician, see September 9, September 13, 1911 – September 9, 1996


• Roald Dahl, novelist and short story author, known as a writer for both children and adults; among his most popular books are Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach, September 13, 1916 – November 23, 1990


• Dick Haymes, singer, September 13, 1918 - March 29, 1980


• Robert Ward, composer and educator, whose most recent composition is the Savannah symphony which was premiered in the spring of 2004, 1917


• Charles Brown, blues singer and pianist, originally a member of The Blazers, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; received the W. C. Handy Award, September 13, 1922 – January 21, 1999


• Maurice Jarre, composer of film scores; famous for his scores for Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, and A Passage to India, for which he won Academy Awards; he wrote mainly for orchestras, but began to favor to synthesized music in the 1980s, 1924


• Scott Brady, film actor, September 13, 1924 – April 16, 1985


• Melvin Howard Tormé, jazz singer, wrote a number of jazz standards, and wrote many of the arrangements for the songs he sang; awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999, September 13, 1925 – June 5, 1999


• Nicolai Ghiaurov, bass opera singer, September 13, 1929 – June 2, 2004


• Millicent Fogel, aka Barbara Bain, actress, known for her roles in TV's Mission Impossible and Space: 1999, 1931


• Richard Kiel, 7' 1 3/4" actor, known for his role as Jaws in The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker, 1939


• Óscar Rafael de Jesús Arias Sánchez, current President of Costa Rica; awarded the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the civil unrest in several Central American countries, 1940


• Winifred Jacqueline Fraser-Bisset, aka Jacqueline Bisset, actress, 1944


• Peter Paul PETE Cetera, singer, songwriter, and bass player, best known for work with Chicago, 1944


• Nell Ruth Hardy, aka Nell Carter, singer and film, stage, and television actress, September 13, 1948 – January 23, 2003


• Linda Wong, actress, September 13, 1951 - December 17, 1987


• Jean Smart, film and television actress, starred in Designing Women, 1951


• Randy Jones, the cowboy in the Village People, 1952


• Raymond O'Connor, character actor, 1952


• Donald Fagenson, aka Don Was, musician and record producer, 1952


• Joe Morris, jazz guitarist, 1955


• Zak Starkey, drummer for The Who and Oasis, son of Ringo Starr and Maureen Cox, 1965


• Maria Furtwängler-Burda, physician and television actress, grandniece and step-granddaughter of Wilhelm Furtwängler, 1966


• Bernabé BERNIE Williams Figueroa, MLB switch-hitting outfielder and DH for the New York Yankees, with whom he has played his entire career, and guitar-playing jazz recording artist; a five-time All-Star, from 1997 to 2001; the 1996 ALCS MVP ; a four-time Gold Glove Winner, from 1997 to 2000; the 1998 AL Batting Champion, with a .339 average; his major album debut, The Journey Within, was released in 2003 - in addition to playing lead and rhythm guitar, he composed seven songs for the album, 1968


• Stella Nina McCartney Willis, fashion designer and animal rights activist, daughter of Paul and Linda McCartney, 1971


• Bennett Joseph BEN Savage, actor, younger brother of Fred Savage, 1980

RIP:

• Durante degli Alighieri, aka Dante Alighieri, poet, whose greatest work was la Divina Commedia (The Divine Comedy), c. June 1, 1265 – September 13/14, 1321


• General James Wolfe, general, remembered for his role in establishing British rule in Canada; fought the French on the Plains of Abraham; the French were defeated, but Wolfe was shot in the chest, and died just as the battle was won, January 2, 1727 – September 13, 1759


• Friedrich Kiel, composer and music teacher, whose compositions include a piano concerto, two piano quintets, three piano quartets, at least two string quartets, several piano trios, sonatas for violin, for viola and for cello, motets, oratorios, and a Missa Solemnis and a Requiem, among more than seventy works in total, October 8, 1821 – September 13, 1885


• Emmanuel Alexis Chabrier, composer of orchestral and piano works, and operas, known for España, January 18, 1841 – September 13, 1894


• Schack August Steenberg Krogh, professor of zoophysiology, awarded the 1920 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of the mechanism of regulation of the capillaries in skeletal muscle; brought insulin to Denmark shortly after its discovery, November 15, 1874 – September 13, 1949


• Betty Field, film and stage actress, began her acting career on the London stage in She Loves Me, February 8, 1913 - September 13, 1973


• Antoni Stanislaw Boleslawowicz, aka Leopold Stokowski, conductor, Music Director, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, from 1909 to 1912, Music Director, Philadelphia Orchestra, from 1912 to 1938, Music Director, Houston Symphony Orchestra, from 1955 to 1961, conductor of the NBC Symphony Orchestra, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, and the Symphony of the Air, founder of the New York City Symphony Orchestra and the American Symphony Orchestra; arranged the music for and appeared in Disney’s Fantasia; often criticized for tinkering with the orchestration of famous works, April 18, 1882 - September 13, 1977


• Mervyn LeRoy, film director, producer, and sometime actor, received an honorary Oscar in 1946 for The House I Live In, and the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1976, October 15, 1900 - September 13, 1987


• Joseph Pasternak, film director, retired in 1968, having produced more than ninety feature-length films as well as three Academy Award shows, September 19, 1901 – September 13, 1991


• Harry Lumley, NHL goaltender, November 11, 1926 – September 13, 1998


• Dorothy Hackett McGuire, actress, June 14, 1916 – September 13, 2001


• Luis Ernesto Miramontes Cárdenas, chemist, co-inventor of the first oral contraceptive, March 16, 1925, in Tepic, Nayarit – September 13, 2004