December 1 Dateline

Birthdays

1913 - Mary Martin, American actress, singer, and Broadway star. A muse of Rodgers and Hammerstein, she originated many leading roles over her career including Nellie Forbush in South Pacific (1949) and Maria von Trapp in The Sound of Music (1959). She was named a Kennedy Center Honoree in 1989. Her next major success was in the role of Peter in the Broadway production of Peter Pan in October 1954 with Martin winning the Tony Award. She opened on Broadway in The Sound of Music as Maria on November 16, 1959, and stayed in the show until October 1961. She won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. Amongst her other numerous awards, she was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1973. She received the Kennedy Center Honors, an annual honor for career achievements, in 1989. She was the mother of Dallas actor Larry Hagman. (Mary Martin's Peter Pan (1954) Colored Televised Musical. YouTube, uploaded by ObamaBin Lama.)

 
1930 - Matt Monro (born Terence Edward Parsons), English singer who became one of the most popular entertainers on the international music scene during the 1960s and 1970s. Known as The Man with the Golden Voice, he filled cabarets, nightclubs, music halls, and stadiums across the world. His recordings include the UK Top 10 hits: "Portrait of My Love", "My Kind of Girl", "Softly As I Leave You", "Walk Away" and "Yesterday" (originally by The Beatles). He also recorded several film themes such as "From Russia with Love" for the James Bond film of the same name, "Born Free" for the film of the same name and "On Days Like These" for The Italian Job.  The Precious Moments.  Accessed December 1, 2020. )

1932 - Dame Isoleen Heather Begg, DNSM OBE, New Zealand-born operatic soprano who spent most of her career in the UK and Australia. She was renowned in roles such as the title role in Bizet's Carmen, Amneris in Verdi's Aida and in lighter operas such as The Gondoliers. (Gilbert & Sullivan's The Mikado - Act 1 Finale. Uploaded by DancairoOpera. Accessed December 1, 2016. The Act 1 finale to the 1973 production with the marvelous Heather Begg as Katisha. )

1933 - Louis Allen Rawls, American songwriter, actor, singer, and record producer. Rawls released more than 60 albums, sold more than 40 million records, and had numerous charting singles, most notably his song "You'll Never Find Another Love like Mine".

1935 - Woody Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg), American film director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans multiple Academy Award-winning movies. He began his career as a comedy writer, working alongside Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Larry Gelbart and Neil Simon. He also began writing material for television, published several books featuring short stories, and writing humor pieces for The New Yorker. In the early 1960s, he performed as a stand-up comedian in Greenwich Village. He released three comedy albums during the mid to late 1960s, even earning a Grammy Award nomination for his 1964 comedy album entitled simply, Woody Allen. In 2004 Comedy Central ranked Allen fourth on a list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians, while a UK survey ranked Allen the third-greatest comedian.

1939 - Lee Buck Trevino, American retired professional golfer who is regarded as one of the greatest players in golf history. He was inducted to the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1981. Trevino won six major championships and 29 PGA Tour events. He is one of only four players to twice win the U.S. Open, The Open Championship and the PGA Championship. The Masters was the only major that eluded him. He is an icon for Mexican Americans, and is often referred to as "The Merry Mex" and "Supermex," affectionate nicknames given to him by other golfers.

1940 - Richard Pryor (Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor), American stand-up comedian, actor, and writer. He is regarded as one of the most influential stand-up comedians of all time. His work includes the concert movies and recordings. As an actor, he starred mainly in comedies and occasionally in dramas. He collaborated on many projects with actor Gene Wilder. Pryor won an Emmy Award (1973) and five Grammy Awards. In 1974, he also won two American Academy of Humor awards and the Writers Guild of America Award. The first-ever Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor was presented to him in 1998. He was listed at number one on Comedy Central's list of all-time greatest stand-up comedians.  

 
1945 - Bette Midler, American actress, singer and entertainer. Many of her songs became chart hits, such as "The Rose", "Wind Beneath My Wings", and "From a Distance." She won Grammy Awards for Best New Artist, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for "The Rose", and Record of the Year for "Wind Beneath My Wings". She made her motion picture debut in 1979 with The Rose, which earned her a Golden Globe for Best Actress, and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She went on to star in numerous hit films. In her starring roles in For the Boys and Gypsy, she won two additional Golden Globe Awards and received a second Academy Award nomination for the former. She starred in the Broadway revival of Hello, Dolly!, which premiered at the Shubert Theatre in April 2017. The show was her first leading role in a Broadway musical. Midler received the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance. (B. Midler singing "The Rose." YouTube, Accessed December 1, 2018.  Bette Midler - From A Distance (Official Music Video, YouTube, uploaded by RHINO. Accessed July 26, 2020.)

1946 - Gilbert O'Sullivan, Irish singer-songwriter who achieved his most significant success with his hit songs "Alone Again (Naturally)", "Clair", and "Get Down". O'Sullivan's songs are often marked by his distinctive, percussive piano playing style and observational lyrics using word play. Born in Waterford, Ireland, he settled in Swindon, England, as a child. He has charted 16 top 40 records including six No. 1 songs, the first of which was 1970's "Nothing Rhymed". Across his career, he has recorded 19 studio albums, up to his UK top 20 self-titled record in 2018. The music magazine Record Mirror voted him the top UK male singer of 1972. He has received three Ivor Novello Awards, including “Songwriter of the Year” in 1973. (Gilbert O'Sullivan - Alone Again (original version). YouTube, uploaded by valliseasons1. Accessed March 17, 2021.)

1951 - Richard Treat Williams, American actor, writer, and aviator who has appeared on film, stage and television. He first became well known for his starring role in the 1979 musical film Hair, and later also starred in the films Prince of the City, Once Upon a Time in America, The Late Shift and 127 Hours. From 2002 to 2006, he was the lead of the television series Everwood and was nominated for two Screen Actors Guild Awards. He has additionally been nominated for three Golden Globe Awards, two Satellite Awards, and an Independent Spirit Award.

Lefties:
None known
 

More birthdays and historical events, December 1 - On This Day

 

Historical Events

1804 - Napoleon Bonaparte marries Josephine of Martinique.  

1886 - Richard Wagner's opera Tristan and Isolde in its American premiere is enormously successful. Anton Seidl conducted the Metropolitan Opera in the New York opening.

November 30 Dateline

Birthdays

1667 - Jonathan Swift, Anglo-Irish author, satirist, essyaist, political pamphleteer, poet and cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, hence his common sobriquet, "Dean Swift". Aside from Gulliver's Travel  which he is famous for, Swift is also remembered for works such as A Tale of a Tub, An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity, and A Modest Proposal. He is regarded by the Encyclopædia Britannica as the foremost prose satirist in the English language. He originally published all of his works under pseudonyms – such as Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff, M. B. Drapier, or anonymously. He was a master of two styles of satire, the Horatian and Juvenalian styles. His ironic writing style, particularly in A Modest Proposal  led to such satire subsequently termed "Swiftian".

1835 - Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens), American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, and lecturer. He created most memorable characters in The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. (The Adventures of of Tom Sawyer is a 1938 American literature adaptation produced by David O. Selznick and directed by Norman Taurog starring Tommy Kelly. Accessed November 30, 2018.)  He was lauded as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," and William Faulkner called him "the father of American literature". His novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and its sequel, the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the latter often called "The Great American Novel".

1874 - Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, Former British prime minister of the UK during the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. Churchill was Member of Parliament (MP) from 1900 to 1964 and represented a total of five constituencies. Ideologically an economic liberal and imperialist, he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party.

 
1937 - Ridley Scott, English film director and producer. He is best known for directing the science fiction horror film Alien, the neo-noir dystopian film Blade Runner, the road adventure film Thelma & Louise, the historical drama film Gladiator (2000), the war film Black Hawk Down, and the science fiction film The Martian. Scott has been nominated for three Academy Awards for Directing, which he received for Thelma & Louise, Gladiator, and Black Hawk Down. Gladiator won the Academy Award for Best Picture, while Scott himself received a nomination in that category for the 2015 film The Martian. In 2003, he was knighted for services to the British film industry. He received an honorary doctorate from the Royal College of Art in London in 2015, and the BAFTA Fellowship for lifetime achievement in 2018.

1965 - Ben Stiller, (Benjamin Edward Meara Stiller), American actor, comedian, film producer and director, writer. He is the son of the late comedians and actors Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara. Stiller wrote several mockumentaries and was offered his own show, titled The Ben Stiller Show, which he produced and hosted for its 13-episode run. He made his directorial debut with Reality Bites. He has written, starred in, directed, or produced more than 50 films. He has also made cameos in music videos, television shows, and films. Stiller is a member of a group of comedic actors colloquially known as the Frat Pack. His films have grossed more than $2.6 billion in Canada and the United States, with an average of $79 million per film. He has received various awards and honors, including an Emmy Award, multiple MTV Movie Awards, a Britannia Award and a Teen Choice Award.

Lefties:
Former Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill
Film director and producer Ridley Scott
Actor Ben Stiller
Author Mark Twain

 

More birthdays and historical events, November 30 - On This Day

 
 

Below, Sir Simon Rattle conducts Berliner Philharmoniker perform Jules Massenet's Le Cid in a concert. Le Cid is an opera in four acts and ten tableaux by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Louis Gallet, Édouard Blau and Adolphe d'Ennery. It is based on the play of the same name by Pierre Corneille.

 

Historical Events

1609 - In Padua, Italy, Galileo Galilei peers through his telescope at the Moon and makes several drawings. He notes that the Moon is not smooth, but pitted, changing forever people's notions of objects in the sky.

1885 - Jules Massenet's opera Le Cid is first performed.