Today CXXXVI

Birthdays:

• Adriano Banchieri, composer, music theorist, organist, and poet of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras, September 3, 1568 – 1634


• Pietro Antonio Locatelli, composer and violinist, student of Arcangelo Corelli, whose most work is the Arte del violino, opus 3, a collection of twelve violin concertos; also wrote violin sonatas, a cello sonata, trio sonatas, concerti grossi, and a set of flute sonatas, September 3, 1695 – March 30, 1764


• Paul Kane, painter, famous for his paintings of First Nations peoples in the Canadian West, and other Native Americans in the Oregon Country, September 3, 1810 – February 20, 1871


• Friderik FRITZ Pregl, chemist, awarded the 1923 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for making important contributions to quantitative organic microanalysis, September 3, 1869 – December 13, 1930


• Frank Joseph Christian, early jazz trumpeter, started working with bandleader Papa Jack Laine about 1908; formed the Original New Orleans Jazz Band with whom he recorded on cornet in 1918 and 1919; was originally the leader of the band, but later turned leadership over to the band's pianist, Jimmie Durante, September 3, 1887 - November 27, 1973


• Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet, M/D., Ph.D., virologist, known for his contributions to immunology; shared the 1960 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Peter Medawar for their research on acquired immune tolerance, providing the experimental basis for inducing immune tolerance, thereby allowing the transplantation of organs, September 3, 1899 - August 31, 1985


• Eduard van Beinum, conductor, Chief Conductor, Concertgebouw Orchestra from 1945 to 1959; Principal Conductor, London Philharmonic Orchestra from 1947 to 1950;
  Music Director, Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1956 to 1959, September 3, 1901 - April 13, 1959


• Carl David Anderson Ph.D., experimental physicist, best known for his discovery of the positron, an achievement for which he shared the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physics with Victor Hess; also in 1936, he and his first graduate student, Seth Neddermeyer, discovered the muon, September 3, 1905 – January 11, 1991


• Catherine Conn, aka Kitty Carlisle Hart, singer, actress, and spokeswoman for the arts, best known as a regular panelist on To Tell the Truth, appearing on each version from 1956 to 2002; early movies included Murder at the Vanities, A Night at the Opera, and two films with Bing Crosby; still tours and performs, her act consisting of anecdotes about the many great men in American musical theatre history that she has known, interspersed with a few of the songs that made each one famous, 1910


• Alan Walbridge Ladd, film actor, first became a star in his role as a hitman with a conscience in This Gun for Hire; became most famous for his starring role in the 1953 western Shane; in 1954, starred with Peter Cushing and Patrick Troughton in The Black Knight; also worked in radio, September 3, 1913 – January 29, 1964


• Edward Raymond (EDDIE Stanky, MLB second baseman and manager, played from 1943 to 1953; famous for his ability to draw walks - drew 100 walks in 6 seasons, twice posting 140; managed the St. Louis Cardinals from 1952 to 1955 season, the Chicago White Sox from 1966 to 1968, and the Texas Rangers in 1977, September 3, 1916 - June 16, 1999


• Robert Thurston Dart, musicologist, conductor, educator, and keyboard player, on harpsichord, clavichord, and organ, September 3, 1921 – March 6, 1971


• Addison Morton MORT Walker, best known for creating Beetle Bailey in 1950 and Hi and Lois in 1954; in 1974 founded the Museum of Cartoon Art; in 1989, was inducted into the Museum of Cartoon Art Hall of Fame; received the Reuben Award in 1953 for Beetle Bailey, the National Cartoonist Society Humor Strip Award in 1966 and 1969, the Gold T-Square Award in 1999, the Elzie Segar Award in 1977 and 1999, and numerous other awards; wrote The Lexicon of Comicana in 1980, 1923


• Irene Lelekou, aka Irene Papas, actress, has starred in over seventy films in a career spanning more than fifty years, 1926


• Cherry Barbara Grimm, aka Cherry Wilder, science fiction and fantasy writer, September 3, 1930 – March 14, 2002


• Frederick Christian, aka Freddie King, blues guitarist and singer, best known for his recordings Hide Away, Have You Ever Loved A Woman, and Going Down; played with a plastic thumb pick and a metal index-finger pick, September 3, 1934 – December 28, 1976


• Verla EILEEN Regina Brennan, character actress of films, television, and theatre; starred in Murder by Death and The Cheap Detective; received an Oscar nomination for her role in Private Benjamin, which she reprised in the television adaptation, for which she won an Emmy; in recent years, as guest starred in television series, including recurring roles in 7th Heaven and Will & Grace, 1938


• Ryoji Noyori, chemist, shared the 2001 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with William S. Knowles and K. Barry Sharpless, 1938


• Alan Charles AL Jardine, musician, songwriter, and producer, a founding member of the Beach Boys, their occasional lead vocalist, and one of their guitarists, left the touring version of the Beach Boys in 1998, but remains a member of the Beach Boys corporation Brother Records, 1942


• Valerie Ritchie Perrine, actress and model, began her career as a Las Vegas showgirl; appeared in Slaughterhouse-Five, Superman, Superman II, W. C. Fields and Me, and The Electric Horseman, 1943


• Doug Pinnick, musician, the bassist and lead vocalist for King's X, 1950


• Jean-Pierre Jeunet, film director, 1953


• Stephen Phillip STEVE Jones, guitarist for The Sex Pistols, 1955


• Merritt Butrick, actor, best known for his role as James T. Kirk's son David Marcus in the movies Star Trek II and Star Trek III, September 3, 1959 – March 17, 1989


• Laura Allen, aka Amber Lynn, actress, model, and exotic dancer, 1963


• Carlos Irwin Estevez, aka Charles Irwin Sheen, film and TV actor, son of Martin Sheen, has publicly questioned the "official story" concerning the September 11, 2001 attacks, 1965


• Jennie Lynn Finch, softball player, one of the pitchers on the team that won the gold medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics; currently pitches for the Chicago Bandits of the National Pro Fastpitch Softball League, 1980

RIP:

• Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev, novelist, short story writer, and playwright, wrote Fathers and Sons; Asteroid 3323 Turgenev is named after him, November 9, 1818 – September 3, 1883


• James Harrison, newspaper printer, journalist, politician, and pioneer in the field of mechanical refrigeration, 1816 - September 3, 1893


• Lucien Denis Gabriel Albéric Magnard, composer, June 9, 1865 - September 3, 1914


• Edward Estlin [E. E.] Cummings, poet, painter, essayist, and playwright, best known for his poems and their unorthodox usage of capitalization, layout, punctuation, and syntax;
  received numerous awards in recognition of his work; his paintings were placed in a number of shows during his lifetime, October 14, 1894 – September 3, 1962


• James Howard Dunn, film actor, won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1945 for A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, November 2, 1905 - September 3, 1967


• Vincent Thomas VINCE Lombardi, football coach, June 11, 1913 – September 3, 1970


• Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson, musician, the leader, singer, and songwriter for Canned Heat, with whom he played guitar and harmonica, and wrote most of the songs; performed at The Monterey Pop Festival and at Woodstock, July 4, 1943 – September 3, 1970


• Harry Partch, composer and musician, one of the first twentieth-century composers to work extensively with microtonal scales, June 24, 1901 – September 3, 1974


• Renault Renaldo Duncan, aka Duncan Renaldo, actor, one of the several actors who portrayed the Cisco Kid in Western movies; in 1950, he starred in the Cisco Kid television series that ran until 1956, April 23, 1904 - September 3, 1980


• Morton Feldman, composer and educator, best known for his instrumental pieces which are frequently written for unusual groups of instruments, feature isolated, carefully chosen, predominantly quiet sounds, and are often very long, January 12, 1926 – September 3, 1987


• Francesco Rosario FRANK Capra, film director, began his career in silent films; directed or co-directed eight war documentaries during WWII; directed It's a Wonderful Life and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington; won the Academy Award for Best Director three times; in 1934 for It Happened One Night, in 1936 for Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, and in 1938 for You Can't Take It with You, May 18, 1897 – September 3, 1991


• Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Australian Aboriginal artist from the Utopia community in the Northern Territory, 1910 - September 3, 1996


• Pauline Kael, film critic, wrote for The New Yorker magazine, June 19, 1919 – September 3, 2001


• Thuy Trang, actress, in 1993, won the role of Trini Kwan, the Yellow Ranger, in the TV series Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers; died in a car accident, December 14, 1973 - September 3, 2001