Today CLXXIX

Birthdays:

• Noah Webster, lexicographer, textbook author, spelling reformer, political writer, and editor, October 16, 1758 – May 28, 1843


• Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, playwright, novelist, poet, short story writer, and Freemason; known for his barbed and clever wit, he was one of the most successful playwrights of late Victorian London, and one of the greatest celebrities of his day, October 16, 1854 – November 30, 1900


• Sir Joseph Austen Chamberlain, KG, statesman, shared the 1925 Nobel Peace Prize with Charles Gates Dawes, October 16, 1863 – March 17, 1937


• David Ben-Gurion, politician, the first [and third] Prime Minister of Israel, October 16, 1886 – December 1, 1973,


• Eugene Gladstone O'Neill, playwright, won several Pulitzer Prizes; awarded the 1936 Nobel Prize for Literature, October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953


• Alicia ALICE Pearce, actress, played Gladys Kravitz on Bewitched, for which role she was awarded an Emmy Award posthumously, October 16, 1917 - March 3, 1966


• Kathleen Winsor, author, best known for the novel Forever Amber, October 16, 1919 - May 26, 2003


• Walter William MAX Bygraves OBE, singer-songwriter, 1911


• Bert Kaempfert, orchestra leader and songwriter, October 16, 1923 - June 21, 1980


• Monetta Eloyse LINDA Darnell, model and film actress, October 16, 1923 – April 10, 1965


• Angela Brigid Lansbury CBE, four-time Tony-winning, three-time Oscar-nominated, and eighteen-time Emmy Award-nominated actress, who played Jessica Fletcher on TV's Murder, She Wrote, 1925


• Günter Wilhelm Grass, author, awarded the 1999 Nobel Prize for Literature, 1927


• James Timothy TIM McCarver, former MLB catcher and current broadcaster for FOX Sports, 1941


• Charles Frederick FRED Turner, musician, bassist and vocalist for Bachman-Turner Overdrive, 1943


• Suzanne Marie Mahoney, aka Suzanne Somers, actress, 1946


• Terry Griffiths, retired snooker player, a former World Champion, 1947


• Robert Hall BOB Weir, singer, songwriter, and guitarist, a founding member of the Grateful Dead, 1947


• David Zucker, film director, 1947


• Leo Mazzone, former minor league pitcher, currently the pitching coach for the Baltimore Orioles, 1948


• Cordell BOOGIE Mosson, musician, member of the P-Funk Army and Funkadelic, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997 as a member of Parliament-Funkadelic, 1952


• Timothy Francis TIM Robbins, actor, screenwriter, director, producer, and musician, won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2003 for Mystic River, 1958


• Erkki-Sven Tüür, composer, 1959


• Brian David Harper, former MLB catcher, in a 16-year career from 1979 to 1995, 1959


• Randy Vasquez, actor, played Gunnery Sergeant Victor Galindez on JAG, 1961


• Dmitri Hvorostovsky, baritone opera singer, 1962


• Wendy Wilson, musician, a member of pop trio Wilson Phillips, the daughter of Brian Wilson, 1969


• Roy A. Hargrove, jazz trumpeter, won a Grammy Award in 1998 for the album Habana, 1969


• Kellie Noelle Martin, television actress, 1975


• John Clayton Mayer, singer-songwriter and guitarist, 1977


• Melissa Lauren, actress, 1984

RIP:

• Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, composer, organist, and pedagogue, at the end of the Renaissance and beginning of the Baroque eras, 1562–October 16, 1621


• Joseph Solomon Delmedigo, author, physician, mathematician, and music theorist, June 16, 1591 – October 16, 1655


• Silvius Leopold Weiss, composer and lutenist, 1687 - October 16, 1750


• Josephe Jeanne Marie Antoinette von Habsburg-Lorraine, Queen of France, November 2, 1755 – October 16, 1793


• General George Catlett Marshall, GCB, US Army, military leader, Secretary of State, and Secretary of Defense, remembered for his leadership in the Allied victory in World War II and for his work establishing the post-war reconstruction effort for Europe - the Marshall Plan; he was awarded the 1953 Nobel Peace Prize, December 31, 1880 – October 16, 1959


• Ellis Raymond Kinder, MLB right-handed pitcher from 1946 to 1957; in his 12-year career, he compiled a 102-71 record with 749 strikeouts, a 3.43 ERA, 56 complete games, 10 shutouts, 102 saves, and 1479 innings pitched in 484 games, July 26, 1914 - October 16, 1968


• Leo G. Carroll, character actor, known for his roles in several Hitchcock films, and on TV as Cosmo Topper on Topper, and as Alexander Waverly on The Man from U.N.C.L.E., October 25, 1892–October 16, 1972


• Gene Krupa, jazz and big band drummer, January 15, 1909 – October 16, 1973


• Daniel James DAN Dailey, Jr., actor and dancer, December 14, 1913 – October 16, 1978


• Moshe Dayan, DSO, military leader and politician, the fourth Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, May 20, 1915 – October 16, 1981


• Mario del Monaco, tenor, July 27, 1915 - October 16, 1982


• Jakov Gotovac, composer and conductor of classical music, October 11, 1895 – October 16, 1982


• Arthur Grumiaux, violinist and pianist, March 21, 1921 – October 16, 1986


• Cornelius Louis CORNEL Wilde, actor and fencer, October 13, 1915 – October 16, 1989


• Arthur ART Blakey, jazz drummer and bandleader, one of the inventors of the modern, bebop style of drumming; over more than 30 years his band the Jazz Messengers included many young musicians who went on to become prominent names in jazz, October 11, 1919 – October 16, 1990


• Marjory Ford, aka Shirley Booth, stage, film, and television actress, received her first Tony Award, for Best Supporting or Featured Actress in 1948 as Grace Woods in Goodbye, My Fancy; her second Tony was for Best Actress in a Play, in 1950 as Lola Delaney in Come Back, Little Sheba; in 1953, she received the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role as Lola Delaney in the movie version of Come Back, Little Sheba, the first actress ever to win both a Tony and an Oscar for the same role; her third Tony was for Best Actress in a Play for her performance in The Time of the Cuckoo; in 1957, she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work on the stage in Chicago; in 1961, she began starring as housemaid, Hazel Burke in the TV sitcom Hazel, for which won two Emmys, in 1962 and 1963, August 30, 1898 – October 16, 1992


• Jason Bernard, movie and television actor, May 17, 1938 - October 16, 1996


• James Albert Michener, author, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1948 and
  the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977, February 3, 1907 - October 16, 1997


• Audra Lindley, actress; on Broadway, she appeared in On Golden Pond, Playhouse 90, Long Day's Journey into Night, and Horse Heavens, among other plays; played Helen Roper on TV's Three's Company and The Ropers, September 24, 1918 – October 16, 1997


• Jonathan Bruce Postel, Ph.D., computer scientist, contributed to the development of the Internet, particularly in the area of standards; The Internet Society's Postel Award is named in his honor, as is the Postel Center at the Information Sciences Institute, August 6, 1943 - October 16, 1998


• Jean Parker Shepherd, raconteur, radio and TV personality, writer, and actor, July 26, 1921 - October 16, 1999


• Pierre Emil George Salinger, White House Press Secretary to U.S. Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, June 14, 1925 – October 16, 2004


• Elmer LEN Dresslar, Jr., voice actor and vocalist, best known as the voice of the Jolly Green Giant in commercials , 1925 – October 16, 2005


• Lister Sheddon Sinclair, OC, MA, LL.D., broadcaster, playwright, actor, network executive, and polymath, January 9, 1921 - October 16, 2006