Today CCXXVIII

Birthdays:

• André Campra, composer and conductor, December 4, 1660 – June 29, 1744


• Orest Danilovich Khvolson, physicist, who authored a number of works on electricity, magnetism, photometry, and actinometry; he proposed the designs of actinometer and pyrheliometer, which would be used by the Russian weather stations for a long time, December 4, 1852, Petersburg - May 11, 1934


• Helen Louise Leonard, aka Lillian Russell, actress and singer, December 4, 1860 - June 6, 1922


• Jesse Cail Burkett, MLB outfielder, who played from 1890 to 1905; he had 200 hits in a season six times, and batted over .400 three times; he was the National League Batting Champion in 1895, 1896, and 1901; he was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946, December 4, 1868 - May 27, 1953


• Joseph Aloysius JOE Corbett, MLB starting pitcher, who broke into the majors in 1895; best season came in 1897, when he posted career highs in wins - 24, strikeouts - 149, ERA - 3.11, starts - 37, complete games - 34, and innings - 313; he was the younger brother of World Heavyweight Boxing Champion James J. Corbett, December 4, 1875 - May 2, 1945


• Alfred Day Hershey Ph.D., bacteriologist and geneticist, who shared the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Salvador Luria and Max Delbrück, December 4, 1908 – May 22, 1997


• Alex North, composer, responsible for the first jazz based film score, A Streetcar Named Desire, and the first truly modernist film score, Viva Zapata!; other film scores include Spartacus, Cleopatra, Dragonslayer, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and The Devil's Brigade; his classical works include a Rhapsody for Piano, Trumpet obbligato and Orchestra, December 4, 1910 - September 8, 1991


• Mark Robson, film editor, film director, and producer, December 4, 1913 – June 20, 1978


• Edward EDDIE Heywood, Jr., jazz pianist, December 4, 1915 - Januray 3, 1989


• Ely Jacques [E. J.] Kahn, Jr., writer, who wrote for The New Yorker for five decades, December 4, 1916 – May 28, 1994


• Edna Mae DEANNA Durbin, singer and actress in Hollywood films of the 1930's and 1940's, 1921


• Gérard Philipe, actor, December 4, 1922 – November 22, 1959


• Jim Hall, jazz guitarist, composer, and arranger, 1930


• Ronald Balfour RONNIE Corbett, OBE, comedian and actor, best known as one of The Two Ronnies, 1930


• Alexander Peter ALEX Delvecchio, former NHL hockey player, and member of the Hockey Hall of Fame, 1931


• Horst Werner Buchholz, actor, remembered for his role in The Magnificent Seven; he appeared in over sixty films during his acting career from 1952 to 2002, December 4, 1933 – March 3, 2003


• Victor French, actor, co-starred on Little House on the Prairie and Highway to Heaven, December 4, 1934 - June 15, 1989


• Winston Conrad WINK Martindale, disc jockey and television game show host, 1934


• Maximilian Adalbert MAX Baer, Jr., actor, screen writer, producer, and director, known for the role of Jethro Bodine on The Beverly Hillbillies, 1937


• Yvonne Fay Minton CBE, opera singer, 1938


• Frederick Anthony Picariello, aka Freddy Cannon, rock and roll singer and guitarist, 1939


• John Davies Cale, musician, songwriter, and record producer, known as a founding member of the Velvet Underground, 1942


• Dennis Carl Wilson, rock and roll musician, drummer for and a founding member of The Beach Boys, the only real surfer in the band, December 4, 1944 – December 28, 1983


• Anna McGarrigle, folk music singer/songwriter, who writes and performs as a duo with her sister Kate McGarrigle, 1944


• Dr. Roberta Lynn Bondar, O.C., O.Ont, M.D., Ph.D, D.Sc, F.R.C.P.(C), Canada's first woman astronaut; she is currently the chancellor of Trent University, 1945


• Jeffrey Leon JEFF Bridges, actor and cartoonist, the son of Lloyd Bridges; his first major role was in The Last Picture Show, for which he received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, 1949


• Pamela Stephenson Ph.D., actress, psychologist, and former comedian, 1949


• Tony Todd, actor and producer; he has appeared in more than 100 screen and television films, including Platoon and Candyman; he played Worf's brother Kurn on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and the Alpha Hirogen on an episode of Star Trek: Voyager and the adult Jake Sisko in the Deep Space Nine episode The Visitor, 1954


• David Alejandro Green Casaya, former MLB outfielder and first baseman who played from September, 1981, to the end of the 1987 season, 1960


• Alexander Valterovich Litvinenko, former member of the KGB and its successor, the FSB, and later a Russian dissident; he was poisoned with radioactive Polonium 210, December 4, 1962, or August 30, 1962 – November 23, 2006


• Marisa Tomei, television, film, and stage actress, who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1992 for My Cousin Vinny, 1964


• Álex de la Iglesia, film director, 1965


• Chris Shepherd, television/film writer and director, known for combining live action with animation, 1966


• Nikki Tyler, actress, 1972


• Tyra Lynne Banks, model, television personality, author, actress, executive producer, and talk show host, 1973


• Tadahito Iguchi, MLB second baseman for the Chicago White Sox, who previously played for the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks in Japan, 1974


• Kyle Matthew Lohse, MLB right-handed relief/starting pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds, 1978

R.I.P.:

• Omar Khayyám, poet, May 18, 1048 – December 4, 1131


• Thomas Hobbes, philosopher, whose book Leviathan set the agenda for nearly all subsequent Western political philosophy; he also contributed to other fields, including history, geometry, ethics, general philosophy, and what now is called political science, April 5, 1588 – December 4, 1679


• Thomas Bartholin, physician, mathematician, and theologian, best known for his discovery of the lymphatic system in humans, October 20, 1616 – December 4, 1680


• Luigi Galvani, physician and physicist, discovered that muscle and nerve cells produce electricity, and is credited with the discovery of bioelectricity; he coined the term animal electricity to describe whatever it was that activated the muscles of his specimens; the Galvanic cell, the galvanometer and galvanization are named after him, as is Galvani crater, on the Moon, September 9, 1737 – December 4, 1798


• Charles Henry Dow, journalist, who co-founded Dow Jones & Company with Edward Jones and Charles Bergstresser; he also founded The Wall Street Journal, and invented the Dow Jones Industrial Average, November 6, 1851 – December 4, 1902


• Johan Halvorsen, composer, conductor, and violinist, the Musical Director of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra from 1919 to 1920, March 15, 1864 – December 4, 1935


• Charles Robert Richet, physiologist, awarded the 1913 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his work on anaphylaxis, whose research helped to elucidate problems of hay fever, asthma, and other allergic reactions to foreign substances, August 26, 1850 – December 4, 1935


• Roger Philip Bresnahan, MLB pitcher, catcher, and player/manager, who began his major league career as a pitcher, throwing a six-hit shutout on August 27, 1897; as a catcher, he experimented with head and thigh protection gear, which led to the widespread use of more protection for catchers in the early 20th century; in 1430 games, he had a batting average of .279 in 4480 at-bats; he managed the St. Louis Cardinals from 1909 to 1912, and the
  Chicago Cubs in 1915; he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1945, June 11, 1879 - December 4, 1944


• Thomas Hunt Morgan, geneticist and embryologist, whose discoveries formed the basis of the modern science of genetics; he was awarded the 1933 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, the first Nobel Prize given for genetics, for demonstrating hereditary transmission mechanisms in fruit flies, September 25, 1866 – December 4, 1945


• Irving Lahrheim, aka Bert Lahr, burlesque, vaudeville, Broadway, and film comic actor, remembered today for his role as the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz, the inspiration for the cartoon character Snagglepuss, August 13, 1895 – December 4, 1967


• Tommy Bolin, musician, guitarist for Zephyr, 1969 to 1971, The James Gang, 1973 and 1974, and Deep Purple, 1975 and 1976, August 1, 1951 - December 4, 1976


• Lord Edward BENJAMIN Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH, composer, conductor, and pianist, November 22, 1913 – December 4, 1976


• Lionel Giroux, aka Little Beaver, midget professional wrestler, 1935 - December 4, 1995


• Richard Vernon, actor, who appeared in many feature films and television programmes; known for his parts as a man on a train reluctantly sharing a seat with The Beatles in A Hard Day's Night, and Slartibartfast on the radio and TV series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, March 7, 1925 – December 4, 1997


• Rosa María Coscolin, aka Gloria Lasso, singer, November 25, 1922 - December 4, 2005