Today CLXXVI

Birthdays:

• George Edward RUBE Waddell, MLB left-handed pitcher, in a thirteen-year career, October 13, 1876 - April 1, 1914


• Yves Allégret, film director in the film noir genre, October 13, 1907 - January 31, 1987


• Arthur Tatum, Jr., jazz pianist, known for his virtuosic playing and creative improvisation, October 13, 1909 – November 5, 1956


• Herbert Lawrence Block, aka Herblock, editorial cartoonist, October 13, 1909 – October 7, 2001


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


• Laraine Johnson, aka Laraine Day, actress, 1917


• Franklin BURR Tillstrom, puppeteer, the creator of Kukla, Fran and Ollie, October 13, 1917 - December 6, 1985


• Ivo Livi, aka Yves Montand, actor, October 13, 1921 – November 9, 1991


• Leonard Alfred Schneider, aka Lenny Bruce, stand-up comedian, writer, social critic and satirist, October 13, 1925 – August 3, 1966


• Gustav Frands Wilzeck Winckler, singer, composer, and music publisher, October 13, 1925-January 20, 1979


• Raymond Matthews RAY Brown, jazz double bassist, October 13, 1926 – July 2, 2002


• Lee Konitz, jazz composer and saxophone player, 1927


• Edwin Lee EDDIE Mathews, MLB third baseman, elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1978, October 13, 1931 – February 18, 2001


• Ioanna NANA Mouskouri, singer, 1934


• Farrell PHAROAH Sanders, jazz saxophonist, 1940


• Paul Frederic Simon, singer-songwriter and guitarist, 1941


• Pamela Tiffin, film actress, 1942


• Robert William Lamm, keyboardist, singer and songwriter, a founding member of Chicago, and solo artist, 1944


• John Edward Colley, aka John Ford Coley, singer, pianist, guitarist, actor, and author, half of the musical duo England Dan & John Ford Coley, 1948


• Dan Wayland Seals, musician, 1948


• George Frazier, former MLB pitcher, played from 1978 to 1987, primarily as a set-up reliever, 1954


• Chris Carter, screenwriter and producer, the creator of The X-Files, 1956


• Jair-Rôhm Parker Wells, free jazz bassist and composer, 1958


• Olive MARIE Osmond, entertainer, 1959


• Douglas CHRISTOPHER Judge, actor; one of his first roles was in a 1990 episode of MacGyver; he is best known for playing Teal'c on Stargate: SG-1, 1967


• Scott Cooper, former MLB third baseman, a two-time All-Star; he hit for the cycle on April 12, 1994, 1967


• Mel Jackson, actor, producer, artist, and R&B musician, 1970


• Sacha Baron Cohen, comedian, known for his characters, Ali G, Borat, and Brüno, 1971


• Tom Anderson, entrepreneur, president and co-founder of MySpace, 1975


• Ashanti Shequoyia Douglas, singer, songwriter, record producer, dancer, poet, actress, and fashion designer, 1980

RIP:

• Karl Gjellerup, poet and novelist, shared the 1917 Nobel Prize in Literature, with Henrik Pontoppidan, June 2, 1857 - October 13, 1919


• Elzie Crisler [E. C.] Segar, drummer and cartoonist, the creator of Popeye, a character who first appeared in his newspaper comic strip Thimble Theater in 1929, December 8, 1894 – October 13, 1938


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


• Webb Parmelee Hollenbeck, aka Clifton Webb, actor, dancer, and singer, November 19, 1889 – October 13, 1966


• Bea Benaderet, actress, remembered for her starring role in the 1960' sitcom Petticoat Junction, and as Blanche Morton, next door neighbor to George Burns and Gracie Allen, on both radio and television, April 4, 1906 — October 13, 1968


• Edward Vincent ED Sullivan, entertainment writer and television host; he was originally a newspaper sportswriter and theatre columnist for the New York Daily News, where his column concentrated on Broadway shows and gossip; he also did show business news broadcasts on radio; in 1948, CBS hired him to do a weekly Sunday night TV variety show, Toast of the Town, which later became The Ed Sullivan Show; he had a knack for identifying and promoting top talent and paid a great deal of money to secure that talent for his show; he paid for the funeral of dancer Bill 'Bojangles' Robinson out of his own pocket; he also defied pressure to exclude black musicians from appearing on his show, September 28, 1901 – October 13, 1974


• Rebecca Helferich Clarke Friskin, classical composer and violist, known for her chamber music featuring the viola, August 27, 1886 – October 13, 1979


• Walter Houser Brattain, physicist; at Bell Labs, he and John Bardeen invented the transistor; the two of them and William Shockley shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for their invention, February 10, 1902 – October 13, 1987


• Phan Dinh Khai, aka Le Duc Tho, revolutionary, general, diplomat, and politician; he and Henry Kissinger were jointly awarded the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize, but Le refused to accept the prize, on the stated grounds that his country was not yet at peace, October 14, 1911 – October 13, 1990


• Bertram Neville Brockhouse, CC, Ph.D, D.Sc, FRSC, physicist, shared the 1994 Nobel Prize in Physics with Clifford Shull for developing neutron scattering techniques for studying condensed matter, July 15, 1918 – October 13, 2003


• Vivian Juanita Malone Jones, civil rights activist, one of the first two black Americans to enroll at the University of Alabama in 1963, made famous when Alabama Governor George Wallace tried to block them from entering the university; she became the first black person to graduate from the University of Alabama, July 15, 1942 - October 13, 2005