Today CXLVIII

Birthdays:

• Marco Polo, trader and explorer who, with his father Niccolò and his uncle Maffeo, was one of the first Westerners to travel the Silk Road to China, September 15, 1254 - January 8, 1324


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


• Jenő Hubay, violinist, composer, and music teacher, September 15, 1858 - March 12, 1937


• Bruno Walter Schlesinger, aka Bruno Walter, conductor, General Music Director, Bavarian State Opera from 1913 to 1922, Principal Conductor, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra from 1929 to 1933, and Musical Director, New York Philharmonic from 1947 to 1949, September 15, 1876 – February 17, 1962


• Ettore Arco Isidoro Bugatti, automobile designer and manufacturer, September 15, 1881 - August 21, 1947


• Esteban Terradas i Illa, mathematician, scientist, engineer, and educator, researched and taught widely in the fields of mathematics and the physical sciences; he was also active as a consultant in the telephone and railway industries; held two doctorates, in mathematics and physics, as well as two degrees in engineering; taught mathematical analysis and mathematical physics, and acoustics, optics, electricity, magnetism, and classical mechanics, September 15, 1883 - May 9, 1950


• Robert Charles Benchley, humorist, newspaper columnist, film actor, and drama literary editor, September 15, 1889 – November 21, 1945


• Agatha Mary Clarissa, aka Lady Mallowan, DBE, crime fiction writer, known for her 80 mystery novels, featuring detectives Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple, September 15, 1890 – January 12, 1976


• Frank Martin, composer, September 15, 1890 – November 21, 1974


• Jean Renoir, film director, actor, and author, the second son of painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir; as a film director and actor, he made over forty films from the silent era to the end of the 1960's; as an author, he wrote the definitive biography of his father, Renoir My Father, in 1962, September 15, 1894 – February 12, 1979


• Oskar Klein, theoretical physicist, credited with inventing the idea that extra dimensions may be physically real, but curled up and very small, an idea essential to string theory; awarded the Max Planck medal in 1959, September 15, 1894 - February 5, 1977


• Roy Claxton Acuff, country musician, became a regular on the Grand Ole Opry in 1938, September 15, 1903 – November 23, 1992


• Jacques Becker, screenwriter and film director, worked as an assistant to director Jean Renoir during the 1930's, September 15, 1906 - February 21, 1960


• Vina FAY Wray, actress, famous for her role as Ann Darrow in King Kong, appeared in over a hundred other films, September 15, 1907 – August 8, 2004


• Marianna Dorothy Agnes Letitia McNulty, aka Penny Singleton, actress and voice actor, best known for her role in the series of motion pictures and subsequent radio comedy based on the comic strip Blondie; was the voice of Jane Jetson in the animated series The Jetsons, from 1962 to 1963 and 1985 to 1988, and assorted specials, records, and Jetsons: The Movie, September 15, 1908 – November 12, 2003


• Mary Margaret Lockwood Day, aka Margaret Lockwood, CBE, actress, made her stage debut at the age of 12, and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, September 15, 1916 - 15 July 1990


• John Cooper, Jr., aka Jackie Cooper, actor, TV director, and TV producer, one of the few child actors able to achieve an adult career in show business; first appeared in a 1929 Our Gang comedy; he continued to appear in Our Gang for two more years, becoming its main character; in 1931, he starred in Skippy, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, the youngest actor ever [age 10] to be so nominated; he starred in two television series, The People's Choice and Hennesey; his television acting convinced him that he could become a director, and he became one of the busier television directors, for which he won Emmy Awards; appeared as Daily Planet editor Perry White in the 1970's Superman movies, 1922


• Anton Heiller, organist, harpsichordist, composer, and conductor, September 15, 1923 — Vienna, March 25, 1979


• Robert Waltrip BOBBY Short, cabaret singer, known for his interpretation of songs by composers such as Rodgers and Hart, and George and Ira Gershwin, and of black composers such as Eubie Blake, and Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn; he began performing as a busker after leaving home at the age of eleven for Chicago; he started working in clubs in the 1940's, and in 1968 settled at the Café Carlyle in New York City, where he became an institution, September 15, 1924 – March 21, 2005


• Jean-Pierre Serre, mathematician, active in algebraic geometry, number theory and topology; he has received numerous awards and honors for his mathematical research and exposition, including the Fields Medal in 1954, 1926


• Julian Edwin "Cannonball" Adderley, jazz alto saxophonist, brother of cornetist Nat Adderley, leader of The Cannonball Adderley Quintet and Sextet, began doubling on soprano saxophone in the late 1960's, September 15, 1928 - August 8, 1975


• Murray Gell-Mann, physicist, received the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the theory of elementary particles, 1929


• Enrique Tomas Delgado, Jr., aka Henry Darrow, actor, known for his role of Manolito in western series The High Chaparral, 1933


• Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, conductor, studied violin, piano, and composition; Principal Conductor, Orquesta Nacional de España from 1962 to 1978; Music Director, Montreal Symphony Orchestra from 1975 to 1976; Principal Conductor, Vienna Symphony Orchestra from 1991 to 1996; Principal Conductor, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1994 to 2000; Principal Conductor, Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra from 2004 to the present; currently the Chief Conductor of the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, 1933


• Robert Emerson Lucas, Jr., Ph.D., economist, awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize in Economics, 1937


• Gaylord Jackson Perry, former MLB right-handed pitcher, notorious for throwing spitballs, he won 314 games over a 22-year career starting in 1962; five-time All-Star; the first pitcher to win the Cy Young Award in both leagues; inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1991, 1938


• Merlin Jay Olsen, former NFL player, and actor, 1940


• Jessye Norman, soprano opera singer; a true dramatic soprano with a majestic stage presence, she is associated in particular with the roles of Aïda, Cassandra, Alceste, and Leonora, 1945


• Tommy Lee Jones, actor and director, won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1993 for The Fugitive, 1946


• William OLIVER Stone, film director and screenwriter, has won three Academy Awards: Best Adapted Screenplay in 1978 for Midnight Express, and Best Director for Platoon in 1986, and for Born on the Fourth of July in 1989, 1946


• Maggie Reilly vocalist, best known for her collaborations with Mike Oldfield between 1980 and 1984, 1956


• Amy Davidson, actress, best known for her role as Kerry Hennessy in 8 Simple Rules, 1979

RIP:

• Carl Theodorus Pachelbel, aka Charles Theodore Pachelbel, composer, organist, and harpsichordist of the late Baroque era, the son of Johann Pachelbel, November 24, 1690 – September 15, 1750


• Pierre Marie François de Sales Baillot, violinist and composer, October 1, 1771 – September 15, 1842


• Rudolf Christoph Eucken, philosopher and writer, awarded the 1908 Nobel Prize for Literature, January 5, 1846 - September 15, 1926


• Milton Sills, stage and film actor, January 12, 1882 - September 15, 1930


• Theodore STEVE Brown, jazz musician, played both string bass and tuba professionally; first played with his brother Tom's band in New Orleans; went north to Chicago in 1915 with brother in the first wave of jazz musicians to go there; he was a member of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings in the early 1920's; in 1924, he joined Jean Goldkette's Orchestra, with whom he remained until 1927, when he joined the top-paying band in the U.S., Paul Whiteman's Orchestra; about 1930, he settled in Detroit, Michigan, for the rest of his life, leading his own band, and playing with traditional jazz and Dixieland bands there into the 1950's, 1890 - September 15, 1965


• Wilhelm Emil WILLY Messerschmitt, aircraft designer and manufacturer, June 26, 1898 – September 15, 1978


• William John BILL Evans, jazz pianist, played boogie woogie in various New York clubs, in the late 1940's; in the early 1960's, he led a trio with bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian; the premature death of LaFaro had a deep effect on him; in 1963, he recorded Conversations With Myself, an album on which he employed "over-dubbing", layering up to three individual tracks of piano for each song; the album won him his first Grammy Award, for Best Instrumental Jazz Performance - Soloist or Small Group; in 1966, Evans discovered bass player Eddie Gomez who, in what turned out to be an eleven-year stay, sparked new developments in both Evans' playing and trio conception, August 16, 1929 – September 15, 1980


• Charles Melvin COOTIE Williams, jazz and rhythm and blues trumpeter, rose to prominence as a member of Duke Ellington's orchestra, with which he performed from 1929 to 1940, when he joined Benny Goodman's orchestra; in 1941, he formed his own orchestra;
  he began to play more rhythm and blues in the late 1940's; in 1962, he rejoined Ellington and stayed with the orchestra until 1974, July 24, 1910 - September 15, 1985


• Robert Penn Warren, poet and novelist, most famous for his novel All the King's Men; won two Pulitzer Prizes for his poetry, April 24, 1905 – September 15, 1989


• John Hoyt, film and television actor, worked as a history instructor, acting teacher, and nightclub comedian before becoming an actor; played Dr. Philip Boyce on Star Trek's first pilot episode The Cage, October 5, 1904 – September 15, 1991


• Ethan Nathan Allen, MLB centre fielder from 1926 to 1938; invented the board game All Star Baseball, which entered production in the early 1940's and remains available, with few changes, today, January 1, 1904 - September 15, 1993


• Jack Brymer, clarinetist, teacher, and author. became principal clarinetist of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1947, a post he held until 1963; after he left the RPO, he spent periods as principal in the BBC Symphony Orchestra, 1963 to 1972, and the London Symphony Orchestra, 1972 to 1986; he made a number of commercial recordings, including three of Mozart's clarinet concerto; he founded and led the London Wind Soloists, with whom he recorded the complete set of Mozart's music for wind bands; he also made some recordings on other instruments, such as the saxophone; a significant feature of his style of playing was his use of vibrato, one of the first woodwind players to use this systematically, 27 January 1915 - 15 September 2003


• John Cummings, aka Johnny Ramone, guitarist for The Ramones, October 8, 1948 – September 15, 2004


• Oriana Fallaci, journalist, author, and political interviewer, June 29, 1929 – September 15, 2006