Today CXCII

Birthdays:

• James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck, lawyer, diarist, and author, best known as the biographer of Samuel Johnson, October 29, 1740 - May 19, 1795


• Daniel Decatur DAN Emmett, songwriter and entertainer; in 1842, he co-founded the Virginia Minstrels; the group's full-length blackface performance is generally considered to have performed the first true minstrel show - previous blackface acts were usually either an entr'acte for a play or one of many acts in a comic variety show, October 29, 1815 – June 28, 1904


• Abram Fedorovich Ioffe, physicist, who researched electromagnetism, radiology, features of crystals, physics of high impact, thermoelectricity, and photoelectricity, and was a leading force in building new research laboratories for radioactivity, superconductivity, and nuclear physics, October 29, 1880 – October 14, 1960


• Fania Borach, aka FANNY or FANNIE Brice, comedienne, singer, and entertainer, October 29, 1891 – May 29, 1951


• Akim Tamiroff, actor; in 1936, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the title role in The General Died at Dawn, October 29, 1899 - September 17, 1972


• Sir Alfred Jules [A. J.] Ayer, philosopher, known for his promotion of logical positivism, particularly in his books Language, Truth, and Logic, which presented his verification principle, according to which a sentence is meaningful only if it has verifiable empirical import, and The Problem of Knowledge, October 29, 1910 – June 27, 1989


• William Berenberg, M.D., physician, Harvard professor, and pioneer in the treatment and rehabilitation of cerebral palsy, October 29, 1915 - September 14, 2005


• Edward Constantinowsky, aka Eddie Constantine, actor and singer, who became a star in France in the 1950's, most notably playing the part of the detective/secret agent Lemmy Caution in a series of B-movies; his most significant film was Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville, in which he reprised the role of Lemmy; he also recorded several successful songs, October 29, 1917 - February 25, 1993


• Baruj Benacerraf, M.D., immunologist, who shared the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for the discovery of the Major histocompatibility complex genes which encode cell surface molecules important for the immune system's distinction between self and non-self, with Jean-Baptiste-Gabriel-Joachim Dausset and George Davis Snell, 1920


• William Henry BILL Mauldin, editorial cartoonist; in 1945, he won the Pulitzer Prize, winning a second Pulitzer and the National Cartoonist Society Award for Editorial Cartooning in 1959; in 1961, he received the society's Reuben Award, October 29, 1921 – January 22, 2003


• Neal Hefti, jazz trumpeter, composer, arranger, and banleader, known for his charts for Count Basie; wrote the themes of TV series, such as Batman and The Odd Couple, 1922


• Carl Djerassi, chemist, author, and playwright, best known for his contribution to the development of the oral contraceptive pill; he is the author of the novel Cantor's Dilemma, in which he explores the ethics of modern scientific research through his protagonist, Dr. Cantor, 1923


• Timothy Sydney Robert Hardy, CBE, actor, and an acknowledged expert on the longbow; his most famous role was as Siegfried Farnon on All Creatures Great and Small; he has played Winston Churchill in several productions; his most recent role was as Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge in the Harry Potter movies, 1925


• Jon S. Vickers, CC , D.Mus., tenor, who studied at the Royal Conservatory in Toronto under George Lambert and made his professional debut in 1956 in Stratford, Ontario, as Don Jose in Carmen, 1926


• Isao Takahata, anime director, 1935


• Akiko Kojima, former model, the first Miss Universe to originate from Asia, 1936


• Ralph Bakshi, director, mainly of animated films, with the occasional live-action movie, known for such films as Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic, Wizards, and Cool and the Crazy, 1938


• Donald Clarence DON Simpson, film producer, known for such hits as Flashdance, Beverly Hills Cop, Top Gun, and The Rock; in 1985 and 1988, he and his producing partner, Jerry Bruckheimer, were named Producers of the Year by the National Association of Theater Owners, October 29, 1943 - January 19, 1996


• Brian Hines, aka Denny Laine, songwriter and musician, former guitarist and lead singer for The Moody Blues and co-founder of Wings, 1944


• Peter Allen Greenbaum, aka Peter Green, blues-rock guitarist, songwriter, and founding member of Fleetwood Mac, who wrote the song Black Magic Woman, 1946


• Richard Stephen Dreyfuss, actor, won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1977 for The Goodbye Girl, 1947


• Catherine Elise KATE Jackson, actress, played the role of Sabrina Duncan on Charlie's Angels, and co-starred in Scarecrow and Mrs. King with Bruce Boxleitner, 1948


• Daniel Louis DAN Castellaneta, actor and voice, best known for providing the voice of Homer Simpson and other characters on The Simpsons; he was a cast member on The Tracey Ullman Show where The Simpsons first appeared, 1957


• David Remnick, journalist, writer, and magazine editor, formerly the Washington Post's Moscow correspondent; he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for his book Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire; he has been editor of The New Yorker magazine since 1998, 1958


• Finola Hughes, actress, who appeared on the sitcom Blossom, and was a frequent guest star on Charmed playing witches' mother, Patricia Halliwell, 1960


• Joely Fisher, actress, who played Paige Clark on Ellen, Dr. Brenda Bradford in the movie Inspector Gadget, and Lucy Hudson in Nostradamus; guest appearances on TV include Growing Pains, Blossom, Caroline in the City, The Outer Limits, Grace Under Fire, and Coach; her voice work includes the role of Lana Lang in the animated series Superman; she had the title role on Zoe Busiek: Wild Card and made several appearances on Desperate Housewives as Nina Fletcher; as of the fall of 2006, she stars as the onscreen wife of Brad Garrett in the sitcom 'Til Death; she is the daughter of Eddie Fisher and Connie Stevens, 1967


• Winona Laura Horowitz, aka Winona Ryder, actress, known for her work in Heathers, Girl, Interrupted, Little Women, Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, and Bram Stoker's Dracula, and other films, 1971


• Gabrielle Monique Union, actress and former model, who played Isis, a cheerleader, in the film Bring it On, made a guest appearance on Star Trek: DS9 as a Klingon named N'Garen, and had a role was in the 2005 series Night Stalker, 1972


• Brendan Jacob Joel Fehr, actor, known for his role as Michael Guerin on Roswell, 1977


• Ben Foster, actor, appeared in X-Men: The Last Stand as Angel/Warren Worthington III, 1980


• Dana J. Eveland, MLB relief pitcher for the Milwaukee Brewers, 1983

RIP:

• Sir Walter Raleigh, writer, poet, courtier, and explorer; he established the first English colony in the new world, located at Roanoke Island, 1552 or 1554 – 29 October 1618


• Jean le Rond d'Alembert, mathematician, mechanician, physicist, and philosopher, co-editor with Diderot of the Encyclopédie, the original French encyclopedia; D'Alembert's method for the wave equation is named after him, November 16, 1717 – October 29, 1783


• Joseph Pulitzer, publisher, best known for posthumously establishing the Pulitzer Prizes; in 1872, he purchased the St. Louis Post and, in 1878, he bought the St. Louis Dispatch and merged the two papers, which became the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which remains St. Louis' daily newspaper; it was at the Post-Dispatch that he developed his role as a champion of the common man with exposès and a hard-hitting populist approach; in 1917, the first Pulitzer Prizes were awarded, in accordance with Pulitzer's wishes, April 10, 1847 – October 29, 1911


• Joseph Jules François Félix Babinski, neurologist, known for his 1896 description of the Babinski sign, a pathological plantar reflex indicative of corticospinal tract damage, November 17, 1857 - October 29, 1932


• Léon Charles Albert Calmette, physician, bacteriologist, and immunologist, and an officer of the Pasteur Institute, who discovered the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin, an attenuated form of Mycobacterium used in the BCG vaccine against tuberculosis, and developed the first antivenom for snake venom, the Calmette's serum, July 12, 1863 – October 29, 1933


• Paul Painlevé, mathematician and politician, who twice as Prime Minister of the [French] Third Republic; in 1921, he introduced a coordinate system for the Schwarzschild solution, the first coordinate chart which clearly reveals that the Schwarzschild radius is a mere coordinate singularity - it represents the event horizon of a black hole, December 5, 1863 – October 29, 1933


• Georges [Georgiy] Ivanovich Gurdjieff, mystic, author, and spiritual teacher, who has introduced certain esoteric ideas into Western society, for instance, the enneagram, which were previously unknown to western culture; he had a strong influence on Timothy Leary, January 13, 1872 – October 29, 1949


• William Kapell, pianist, September 20, 1922 – October 29, 1953


• Eliezer Meir, aka Louis Burt Mayer, film producer, creator of the star system within Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), July 4, 1882 – October 29, 1957


• Rosalie Marie ROSEMARIE Auguste Nitribitt, call girl, whose violent death caused a scandal in late 1950's Germany, February 1, 1933 – October 29, 1957


• Zoe Akins, playwright, October 30, 1886 - October 29, 1958


• Adolphe Jean Menjou, actor, February 18, 1890 – October 29, 1963


• Howard Duane Allman, guitarist, known for his slide guitar skills, session musician, a founding member and the leader/lead guitarist of The Allman Brothers Band; he had a major role on the album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs by Derek and the Dominos; he was killed in a motorcycle accident only a few months after the summer release and great initial success of the Allman Brothers Band's album At Fillmore East, November 20, 1946 – October 29, 1971


• Arne Wilhelm Kaurin Tiselius, biochemist, awarded the 1948 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, August 10, 1902 – October 29, 1971


• Woodrow Charles WOODY Herman, jazz clarinetist, alto and soprano saxophonist, singer, and bandleader, May 16, 1913 – October 29, 1987


• Michel Regnier, aka Greg, comic-book writer and artist, known for the series Achille Talon, May 5, 1931 – October 29, 1999


• Harry Clement Stubbs, aka Hal Clement, science fiction writer; in 1996, he received a 1946 Hugo Award for his short story Uncommon Sense, retroactively; the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) named him a Grand Master in 1998; he painted astronomically oriented artworks under the name George Richard, May 30, 1922 - October 29, 2003


• Franco Corelli, tenor, active in opera from the early 1950's to 1976, April 8, 1921 – October 29, 2003


• Abbott VAUGHN Meader, comedian and impersonator, whose rise to fame with The First Family album spoofing President John F. Kennedy was equalled by his crash into obscurity with Kennedy's assassination in 1963, March 20, 1936 – October 29, 2004


• Peter Frank George Twinn Ph.D., mathematician, World War II codebreaker, and entomologist, who joined GC&CS — Britain's codebreaking service — in early 1939, working first in London, before moving to Bletchley Park; he worked with Dilly Knox and Alan Turing on German Enigma ciphers; in early 1942, he became the head of the Abwehr Enigma section; he was the first British cryptographer to read a German military Enigma message, having obtained vital information from Polish cryptanalysts in July 1939; he had a strong interest in music. and played the clarinet and viola, January 9, 1916 – October 29, 2004