Today CXC - R.I.P. Joe Niekro

Birthdays:

• Niccolò Paganini, violinist, violist, guitarist and composer, widely regarded as the first ever virtuoso violinist, October 27, 1782 – May 27, 1840


• Isaac Merritt Singer, inventor, actor, and entrepreneur, who made important improvements in the design of the sewing machine, and founded the Singer Sewing Machine Company, October 26, 1811 – July 23, 1875


• Klas Pontus Arnoldson, author, journalist, politician, and pacifist, who shared the 1908 Nobel Peace Prize with Fredrik Bajer, October 27, 1844 – February 20, 1916


• Theodore TEDDY Roosevelt, Jr., the 26th president of the United States, awarded the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the peace in the Russo-Japanese War; his lasting popular legacy is the Teddy Bear, named after him following an incident on a hunting trip in 1902, when he refused to kill a captured black bear simply for the sake of making a kill, October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919


• Emily Price Post, author, who promoted proper etiquette; she wrote in various styles, including humorous travel books, early in her career; in 1922, her book Etiquette was a best seller, and updated versions continued to be popular for decades, October 27, 1873 - September 25, 1960


• Jack Carson, actor, who went to Hollywood in 1937, where he found work as an extra, soon becoming a popular character actor, playing mostly in comedies, musicals, and Westerns; in 1941, he went to Warner Brothers, where he appeared in a number of films with James Cagney and Jane Wyman, while doing some radio comedies on the side; in the 1950's, he did some television work, including The Twilight Zone and Alcoa Theatre, October 27, 1910 – January 3, 1963


• William Anderson, aka Leif Erickson, actor, October 27, 1911 – January 29, 1986


• Dylan Marlais Thomas, poet and writer; in 2004, the Dylan Thomas Prize, was created in his honour, October 27, 1914 – November 9, 1953


• Oliver Reginald Tambo, anti-apartheid politician and a central figure in the African National Congress (ANC), October 27, 1917 - April 24, 1993


• Muriel TERESA Wright, actress, won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1942 for her role in Mrs. Miniver, October 27, 1918 – March 6, 2005


• Nanette Ruby Bernadette Fabares, aka Nanette Fabray, actress and advocate for the hearing-impaired, winner of three Emmy Awards, and a Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical in 1949 for Love Life, 1920


• Ralph McPherran Kiner, former MLB left fielder and current announcer; from 1947 to 1951, he topped 40 HR and 100 RBI each season - his string of seasons leading the league in home runs reached seven in 1952, when he hit 37, the last of a record six consecutive seasons in which he led Major League Baseball in home runs; he was an All-Star in six straight seasons, 1948 to 1953; he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame; the Pittsburgh Pirates retired his uniform number 4 in 1987, 1922


• Roy Lichtenstein, pop artist, whose work borrowed heavily from popular advertising and comic book styles, October 27, 1923 – September 29, 1997


• Ruby Ann Wallace, aka Ruby Dee, actress and activist, who gained national recognition for her role in the 1950 film, The Jackie Robinson Story; her acting career has crossed all major forms of media over a span of 8 decades, including films such as A Raisin in the Sun and Edge of the City; she has been nominated for eight Emmy Awards, winning twice for her role in 1990's Decoration Day and for her guest appearance in the China Beach episode Skylark; she and her late husband, actor Ossie Davis, were well-known civil rights activists; she is a member of such organizations as CORE and the NAACP; she and Davis wrote a joint autobiography titled With Ossie and Ruby, in which they discussed their political activism, 1924


• Albert H Medwin, electrical engineer and inventor, who holds several US patents, including ones in the field of electronic encoders; he was involved in the early development of integrated circuits and, in 1960's, he led the engineering group that developed the world's first low power CMOS chips, 1925


• Sylvia Plath, poet, novelist, short story writer, and essayist, known for her poetry and for The Bell Jar, her semi-autobiographical novel detailing her struggle with clinical depression, October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963


• Floyd Cramer, pianist, who was one of the architects of the Nashville Sound; in 2003, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, October 27, 1933 – December 31, 1997


• John Marwood Cleese, comedian and actor, one of the members of Monty Python, and co-writer of Fawlty Towers, in which he played Basil Fawlty - only twelve episodes of the show were produced; he appeared in a cameo in the 1979 Doctor Who episode City of Death, as an art lover in the Louvre mistaking the TARDIS as one of the exhibits - he watches The Doctor and Romana enter the TARDIS and dematerialize, all the while in constant admiration of the 'exhibit;' in 1988, he wrote and starred in A Fish Called Wanda, which became the most successful British film ever - he was nominated for an Academy Award for his script; with Robin Skynner, he wrote two books on relationships: Families and How to Survive Them and Life and How to Survive it; in 1996, he declined the British honour of Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE); in 1999, he appeared in the James Bond movie The World Is Not Enough as Q's assistant; in 2002, when he reprised his role in Die Another Day, the character was promoted, making him the new Q of MI6; he is currently an Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University, and has been appointed a Provost's Visiting Professor through 2009; in 2003, he appeared as Lyle Finster on Will & Grace; in 2004, he was credited as co-writer of a DC Comics graphic novel entitled Superman: True Brit, which suggests what might have happened had Superman's rocket ship landed in Britain, not America, 1939


• Caroline CARRIE Snodgress, actress, whose film debut was an uncredited appearance in Easy Rider in 1969 and a credited appearance in 1970 in Rabbit, Run; her next film, Diary of a Mad Housewife, garnered her a nomination for Academy Award for Best Actress and two Golden Globe wins, including New Female Star of the Year, October 27, 1946 - April 1, 2004


• Ivan Reitman, film actor, producer, and director, who produced National Lampoon's Animal House in 1978 and directed Meatballs; he is known for Stripes, Ghostbusters, and other films; in the early 1990's, he began to direct fewer films, but increased his role as a producer and executive producer, 1946


• Garry Tallent, musician and record producer, best known for being the bass player in Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, 1949


• Frances Ann FRAN Lebowitz, author, best known for her sardonic social commentary on American life through her New York sensibilities; recently, she has made recurring appearances as Judge Janice Goldberg on Law & Order, 1950


• Roberto Benigni, film and television actor and director, 1952


• Peter Firth, actor, 1953


• Simon John Charles Le Bon, lead singer and lyricist for Duran Duran, 1958


• Thomas TOM Andrew Nieto, former MLB catcher and current catching instructor for the New York Mets; played from 1984 to 1990, appearing in the 1985 World Series with the St. Louis Cardinals, 1960


• Brad Radke, former MLB pitcher for the Minnesota Twins; an All-Star in 1998, he retired after the 2006 season, 1972


• Jason Michael Johnson, MLB right-handed starting pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds, 1973


• Vanessa-Mae Vanakorn Nicholson, classical and pop violinist, 1978


• Cassia Riley, model and actress, 1980

RIP:

• Ginette Neveu, violinist, August 11, 1919 – October 27, 1949


• Lise Meitner, physicist, who studied radioactivity and nuclear physics; she received the Max Planck Medal of the German Physics Society in 1949; element 109 is named meitnerium in her honour, November 17, 1878 – October 27, 1968


• Rex Todhunter Stout, writer, best known as the creator of the fictional detective Nero Wolfe, December 1, 1886 - October 27, 1975


• Stephen Ross Porter, aka Steve Peregrin Took, named himself after a hobbit, musician, drummer for Tyrannosaurus Rex, July 28, 1949 – October 27, 1980


• John Hasbrouck van Vleck, physicist, who developed fundamental theories of the quantum mechanics of magnetism and the bonding in metal complexes (crystal field theory); he was awarded the Lorentz Medal in 1974, and shared the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physics Philip W. Anderson and Sir Nevill Mott, March 13, 1899 – October 27, 1980


• Julia Verlyn JUDY LaMarsh, PC, OC, politician, author, and broadcaster, first elected to the Canadian House of Commons in a 1960 by-election, as a Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) for Niagara Falls, joining the Cabinet after the Liberals defeated the Progressive Conservative government in the 1963 election; serving under Prime Minister Lester Pearson, she served as Minister of National Health and Welfare and Minister of Amateur Sport from 1963 to 1965, and as Secretary of State for Canada from 1965 to 1968; she worked as a broadcaster, including a stint for CBC Radio, hosting This Country in the Morning from 1974 until 1976; in the late 1970's, she headed the Ontario government's Royal Commission on Violence in the Communications Industry, December 20, 1924 – October 27, 1980


• Francisco de Asis Javier Cugat Mingall de Bru y Deulofeo, aka Xavier Cugat, bandleader, influential in the infusion of Latin music into United States popular music, who had trained as a classical violinist and played with the Orchestra of the Teatro Nacional in Havana, January 1, 1900 - October 27, 1990


• Elliott Roosevelt, World War II hero and author, the son of Franklin Delano and Eleanor Roosevelt, September 23, 1910 – October 27, 1990


• Ugo Tognazzi, film, TV, and theatre actor, director, and screenwriter, who starred in he film version of La Cage aux Folles, March 23, 1922 - October 27, 1990


• David Joseph Bohm, quantum physicist, who made significant contributions in the fields of theoretical physics, philosophy, and neuropsychology, and to the Manhattan Project, December 20, 1917 - October 27, 1992


• Morey Amsterdam, television actor and comedian, and cellist, known as The Human Joke Machine, whose most famous role may have been as comedy writer Buddy Sorrell on The Dick Van Dyke Show, a role suggested for him by his friend Rose Marie, who also appeared on the show, December 14, 1908 – October 27, 1996


• Robert L. Mills Ph.D., physicist, specializing in quantum field theory, the theory of alloys, and many-body theory, April 15, 1927 - October 27, 1999


• Walter Berry, bass-baritone, who made his debut at the Vienna State Opera in 1947; his signature roles were Papageno in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, Figaro, and Bluebeard; he was also a noted interpreter of Lied and choral works, and enjoyed performing in operettas, particularly Die Fledermaus, April 8, 1929 – October 27, 2000


• Robert Ray ROD Roddy, radio and television announcer, the long-time announcer on The Price is Right, September 28, 1937 – October 27, 2003


• Joseph Franklin JOE Niekro, MLB starting pitcher, who specialized in throwing the knuckleball; in 1976, he hit his first and only big league home run in 973 lifetime at bats, off his brother Phil Niekro, who was also a knuckleball pitcher; he was an All-Star in 1979, a year in which he led the National League with 21 wins, and threw a league-leading five shutouts; when he appeared in the 1987 World Series, he set a record for the longest period of time elapsed between a player's major league debut and his first appearance in the World Series; on May 4, 1988, after compiling a 10.03 earned run average in his first five games, the Minnesota Twins released him, effectively ending his 22-year career; his 221 career victories make him one of the most successful knuckleball pitchers of all time; he finished his career with a .520 winning percentage [221 - 204] and a 3.59 ERA in 702 games, November 7, 1944 — October 27, 2006