Today CXLVII

Birthdays:

• Johann Michael Haydn, composer, younger brother of Franz Joseph Haydn, Kapellmeister at Großwardein and, later, at Salzburg, holding the Salzburg position for forty-three years, during which time he wrote over 360 compositions for the church and much instrumental music; friend of Mozart, and teacher of Carl Maria von Weber, September 14, 1737 – August 10, 1806


• Luigi Cherubini, composer, whose most significant works are his operas and sacred music, September 14, 1760 – March 15, 1842


• Nikolai Vasilievich Bugaev, mathematician and chess player, wrote his Master's thesis on the convergence of infinite series; his most original work centered around the development of formal analogies between arithmetic and analytic operations, September 14, 1837 - June 11, 1903


• Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, physiologist, psychologist, and physician, awarded the 1904 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for research pertaining to the digestive system, widely known for first describing the phenomenon now known as classical conditioning, September 14, 1849 – February 27, 1936


• Edgar Algernon Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood CH, lawyer, politician, and diplomat, one of the architects of the League of Nations, and a defender of it, awarded the 1937 Nobel Peace Prize, September 14, 1864 – November 24, 1958


• Charles Augustus KID Nichols, MLB pitcher, amassed 361 wins over his 15 year career, with a 2.95 ERA; had a string of ten consecutive seasons with 20 wins or more, including a major league record seven 30 win seasons, 1891 - 1894 and 1896 - 1898), and a career high of 35 in 1892; inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1949, September 14, 1869 - April 11, 1953


• Margaret Higgins Sanger, birth control activist, advocate of certain aspects of eugenics, and the founder of the American Birth Control League, which later became Planned Parenthood, September 14, 1879 – September 6, 1966


• Ivan Matveevich Vinogradov, mathematician, one of the creators of modern analytic number theory, September 14, 1891–March 20, 1983


• Harold Brent [Hal B.] Wallis, motion picture producer, became involved in the production end of the movie business, and eventually become head of production at Warner Bros.; in a career that spanning more than fifty years, he was involved with the production of more than 400 feature-length movies; received sixteen Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, winning for Casablanca; twice honored with The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, September 14, 1898 – October 5, 1986


• John Edward JACK Hawkins, stage and film actor, made his London stage debut aged 12, and was appearing on Broadway in Journey's End by the age of 18; after The Second World War, he built a successful career in film, September 14, 1910 - July 18, 1973


• Jack Carlton Moore, aka Clayton Moore, actor, best known for playing The Lone Ranger; was a circus acrobat as a boy, and later a model; in 1949, was he cast as the lead in the Lone Ranger TV series; in 1959, he embarked on forty years of personal appearances, TV guest spots, and commercials as the Lone Ranger, September 14, 1914 – December 28, 1999


• Margaret O'Regan, aka Kay Medford, character actress, the original "Mama" in Bye, Bye Birdie, starring opposite Dick van Dyke on Broadway; also appeared on Broadway in Carousel, Paint Your Wagon, and Funny Girl, September 14, 1914 – April 10, 1980


• Lawrence Robert Klein, economist, awarded the 1980 Nobel Prize in Economics, 1920


• Alberto P. Calderón Ph.D., mathematician, best known for his work on the theory of partial differential equations and singular integral operators, September 14, 1920 – April 16, 1998


• Harve Presnell, actor and singer, sang the baritone role in Eugene Ormandy's 1962 recording of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana; had a role in The Unsinkable Molly Brown on stage and screen; from around 1975, was a stage actor until the late 1990s, touring as Daddy Warbucks in Annie, among other productions; portrayed Mr. Parker on The Pretender, 1933


• Kate Millett, feminist writer and activist, known for her 1970 book Sexual Politics, 1934


• Walter Marvin Koenig, actor, writer, teacher, and director, whose film, stage, and TV roles span a fifty year period, best known for his roles as Pavel Chekov on Star Trek, and as Alfred Bester on Babylon 5, 1936


• Ferid Murad, physician and pharmacologist, shared the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Robert F. Furchgott and Louis J. Ignarro, 1936


• Nicol Williamson, actor, whose first major success came in 1964 in Inadmissible Evidence, for which he won a Tony Award when it transferred to Broadway in 1965; in 1968, he starred in the film version; his Hamlet for Tony Richardson at The Roundhouse was a sensation, and was later transferred to New York, and made into a film, 1938


• Jorge ALBERTO Naranjo Del Pino, arranger, composer, drummer, educator and columnist, 1941


• Davenie Johanna JOEY Heatherton, actress, dancer and singer, was a semi-regular on The Perry Como Show, between 1960 and 1962; perform numerous times on The Dean Martin Show and , along with Frank Sinatra, Jr., co-hosted Martin's summer substitute musical comedy show Dean Martin Presents the Golddiggers; made multiple appearances on the many other variety shows of 1960's television, such as The Andy Williams Show and The Ed Sullivan Show; was a long-time member of Bob Hope's USO troupe, 1944


• Jon "Bowzer" Bauman, musician, member of Sha Na Na, 1947


• Nigel John Dermot SAM Neill, OBE, film and television actor, and owner of the Two Paddocks winery, starred as paleontologist Alan Grant in Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III, 1947


• Steven Earl STEVE Gaines, musician, guitarist and songwriter for Lynyrd Skynyrd, September 14, 1949 – October 20, 1977


• Ed King, musician, guitarist for Strawberry Alarm Clock and Lynyrd Skynyrd, 1949


• Paul Kossoff, musician, guitarist for Free, 1950


• Timothy Charles Wallach, former MLB third baseman, played from 1980 to 1996, spending the majority of his career with the Montreal Expos; won three Gold Glove and two Silver Slugger awards, 1957


• David Michael Bell, MLB third baseman for the Milwaukee Brewers, the brother of Mike Bell, the son of Buddy Bell, and the grandson of Gus Bell hit the first-ever inside-the-park home run in Jacobs Field on April 15, 1998, 1972


• Chadwick Lee CHAD Bradford, MLB relief pitcher for the New York Mets, 1974

RIP:

• James Fenimore Cooper, author, September 15, 1789 – September 14, 1851


• William Seward Burroughs I, inventor and businessman, invented the adding machine, January 28, 1855 - September 14, 1898


• Dora Angela Duncan, aka Isadora Duncan, dancer, May 26, 1877 - September 14, 1927


• Irving Grant Thalberg, film producer, May 30, 1899 – September 14, 1936


• Gertrude Edelstein, aka Gertrude Berg, a pioneer of classic American radio, one of the first women to create, write, produce, and star in a long-running hit, when she premiered The Rise of the Goldbergs, known later as simply The Goldbergs, in 1929, October 3, 1899 - September 14, 1966


• Furry Lewis, blues guitarist, known for his soft voice and quick slide work, one of the first of the old-time blues musicians of the 1920's to be brought out of retirement by the folk blues revival of the 1960's; opened twice for the Rolling Stones, played on Johnny Carson's Tonight show, and had a part in a Burt Reynolds movie, March 6, 1899 - September 14, 1981


• Grace Patricia Kelly, Her Serene Highness The Princess of Monaco, actress and Princess of Monaco; became a fashion model and appeared in her first film, Fourteen Hours, when she was 22; appeared in High Noon and Mogambo, which earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress; made three films with Alfred Hitchcock: Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, and To Catch a Thief; in 1955, she was awarded the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Country Girl; married Rainier III, Prince of Monaco, on April 19, 1956, November 12, 1929 – September 14, 1982


• Christian Ferras, violinist, June 17, 1933 - September 14, 1982


• Laura Gainor, aka Janet Gaynor, actress, whose performances in Seventh Heaven, Sunrise and Street Angel earned her the first Academy Award for Best Actress in 1928, October 6, 1906 – September 14, 1984


• Dámaso Pérez Prado, bandleader and composer, studied classical piano in his early childhood, and later played organ and piano in local clubs, specialiing in mambos, an upbeat adaptation of the Cuban danzón; also appeared in films in the United States and Europe as well as in Mexican cinema; today, the mambo, reinvigorated under the name salsa, is still the signature dance of Latin popular music, and Pérez Prado, Jr., continues to direct the Pérez Prado Orchestra in Mexico City, December 11, 1916 - September 14, 1989


• Paul Joseph James Martin, PC, CC, QC, often referred to as Paul Martin, Sr, Canadian politician, June 23, 1903 – September 14, 1992


• Juliet Prowse, dancer and actress, played the part of Claudine in the 1960 film Can-Can; appeared in G.I. Blues; was the first guest on The Muppet Show; had her own sitcom, 1965's Mona McCluskey, for one season, September 25, 1936 – September 14, 1996


• Charles Crichton, film director, best known for his comedies, August 6, 1910 - September 14, 1999


• Beulah BEAH Richards, actress, with a long career on stage, screen and television, poet, playwright, and author, nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Sidney Poitier's mother in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner,
  July 12, 1920 – September 14, 2000


• William Berenberg, M.D., physician, Harvard professor, and pioneer in the treatment and rehabilitation of cerebral palsy, October 29, 1915 - September 14, 2005


• 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