April 23 Dateline

Birthdays

1564 - William Shakespeare, English poet, playwright and actor (It's always a challenge to verify facts about him, but it is believed that on this day, Shakespeare was born, and baptised on the 26th. He died in Stratford on the same day, April 23, in 1616.  He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language, and world's pre-eminent dramatist. 

 
1775 - J.M.W Turner RA (Joseph Mallord William Turner), English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colourisations, imaginative landscapes and turbulent, often violent marine paintings. He left behind more than 550 oil paintings, 2,000 watercolours, and 30,000 works on paper. He was championed by the leading English art critic John Ruskin from 1840. Turner is regarded as having elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting. (To the tune of Carl Orff's famous Carmina Burana, are images to J.M. William Turner's paintings. Uploaded by Beatriz. Accessed April 23, 2015.)  

1857 - Ruggero (or Ruggiero) Leoncavallo, Italian opera composer (Famous for his opera I Pagliacci) and librettist. Although he produced numerous operas and other songs throughout his career it is Pagliacci (1892) that remains his lasting contribution. It continues to be one of the most popular works in the repertory, appearing as number 20 on the Operabase list of the most-performed operas worldwide in the 2013/14 season. His other well-known works include the song "Mattinata", popularized by Enrico Caruso.

1891 - Sergei Prokofiev, Russian Soviet composer, pianist, conductor, Russian Soviet composer, pianist and conductor. Acknowledged creator of masterpieces across numerous musical genres, he is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century. His works include widely heard pieces as the March from The Love for Three Oranges, the suite Lieutenant Kijé, the ballet Romeo and Juliet—from which "Dance of the Knights" is taken—and the famous Peter and the Wolf. Of the established forms and genres in which he worked, he created seven completed operas, seven symphonies, eight ballets, five piano concertos, two violin concertos, a cello concerto, a symphony-concerto for cello and orchestra, and nine completed piano sonatas. (Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 2, Op.16, performed by Evgeny Kissin, with Philharmonia Orchestra, Vladimir Ashkenazy conducting. Uploaded by The Best of Music. Accessed April 23, 2018.) 

1921 - Janet Blair (born Martha Janet Lafferty), American big-band singer who later became a popular film, stage and television actress. She made a string of successful pictures, although she is today best remembered for playing Rosalind Russell's sister in My Sister Eileen (1942) and Rita Hayworth's best friend in Tonight and Every Night (1945). In the 1947 film The Fabulous Dorseys, Blair returned to her musical roots, portraying a singer. In 1950, Blair took the lead role of Nellie Forbush in the U.S touring production of the stage musical South Pacific, making more than 1,200 performances in three years.
 

1928 - Shirley Temple Black, American child actress, dancer, singer, businesswoman, and diplomat who was Hollywood's number one box-office draw as a child actress from 1935 to 1938. As an adult, she was named United States ambassador to Ghana and to Czechoslovakia, and also served as Chief of Protocol of the United States. Temple was the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Kennedy Center Honors and a Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. She is 18th on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest female American screen legends of Classic Hollywood cinema. 

1936 - Roy Kelton Orbison, American singer, songwriter, and musician known for his impassioned singing style, complex song structures, and dark, emotional ballads. He was known for his shyness and stage fright, which he countered by wearing dark sunglasses. Orbison's honors include inductions into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987, the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1989, and the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2014. He received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and five other Grammy Awards. Rolling Stone placed him at number 37 on its list of the "Greatest Artists of All Time" and number 13 on its list of the "100 Greatest Singers of All Time". 

 
1939 - Lee Majors, (born Harvey Lee Yeary), American actor. Majors is best known for portraying the characters of Heath Barkley in the American television Western series The Big Valley, Colonel Steve Austin in the American television science fiction action series The Six Million Dollar Man, and Colt Seavers in American television action series The Fall Guy.

1955 - Judy Davis, Australian actress known for her work in film, television, and theatre. She is commended for her versatility and is regarded as one of the finest actresses of her generation. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including eight Australian Film Institute Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards and two Golden Globe Awards, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards. For her work on television, Davis won Primetime Emmy Awards for Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story, for playing Judy Garland in Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows and The Starter Wife and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film for Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows and One Against the Wind.


Leftie:
Composer Sergei Prokofiev

 

More birthdays and historical events today, 23 April - On This Day.

 

Feature:

Enjoy a video of S. Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 1, featuring Martha Argerich with Alexandre Ravinovitch conducting. Filmed at the La Roque d'Anthéron festival on July 29th, 2005. (Two other Prokofiev works you might want to listen to: "Classical Symphony" and his famous symphonic fairy tale "Peter and the Wolf.") 

Historical Events

1533 - The Archbishop of Canterbury annuls the marriage of Catherine of Aragon and King Henry VIII. First, he had to pass a law repudiating jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic Church over England.

1775 - Wolfgang A. Mozart's opera  Il re pastore (The Shepherd King), K. 208, premieres in Salzburg. He wrote it to an Italian libretto by Metastasio, edited by Giambattista Varesco. It was based on Aminta by Torquato Tasso. Mozart was 19 years old. (Annette Dasch - Mozart - Il Re Pastore, uploaded by ilrepastore2006. Accessed April 23, 2007.)

1942 - Germans begin the Baedeker Raids on England during World War II, beginning with a bomb strike over Exeter in retaliation for the British raid on Lubeck.

April 22 Dateline

Birthdays

1610 - Pope Alexander VIII (born Pietro Vito Ottoboni), was Pope from 6 October 1689 to his death in 1691. He is to date the last pope to take the pontifical name of "Alexander" upon his election to the papacy.

1724 - Immanuel Kant, German philosopher, an influential great thinker. In his doctrine of transcendental idealism, he argued that space, time and causation are mere sensibilities; "things-in-themselves" exist, but their nature is unknowable.

 
1766 - Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein, commonly known as Madame de Staël, novelist and critic, whose Delphine and Corinne are noted as the first "modern" feminist psychological romantic novels

1858 - Dame Ethel Smyth, English composer and suffragist, whose work was notably eclectic, ranging from conventional to experimental. Born into a military family, Smyth studied at the Leipzig Conservatory and was encouraged by Johannes Brahms and Antonín Dvořák. She first gained notice with her sweeping Mass in D (1893). Her best-known work is The Wreckers (1906), the most-admired English opera of its time. March of the Women (1911) reflected Smyth’s strong involvement in the woman suffrage movement. The comic opera The Boatswain’s Mate (1916) enjoyed considerable success. (Dame E. Smyth's  The Wreckers Overture. Uploaded by Le Hoang. Accessed April 22, 2014.   

1870 - Vladimir Lenin (Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (22 April [O.S. 10 April] 1870]), better known as Lenin, Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1924 and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924. Under his administration, Russia, and later the Soviet Union, became a one-party Marxist–Leninist state governed by the Soviet Communist Party. Ideologically a Marxist, he developed a variant of it known as Leninism.

1899 - Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin, Russian and American novelist, poet, translator and entomologist. His first nine novels were written in Russian, but he achieved international prominence after he began writing English prose. Nabokov became an American citizen in 1945. Nabokov's Lolita (1955) was ranked fourth in the list of the Modern Library 100 Best Novels in 2007. He was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction seven times.  Nabokov was also an expert lepidopterist and composer of chess problems.

1904 - J. Robert Oppenheimer, American theoretical physicist and professor of physics. Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is among those who are credited with being the "father of the atomic bomb" for their role in the Manhattan Project, the World War II undertaking that developed the first nuclear weapons. The first atomic bomb was successfully detonated on July 16, 1945, in the Trinity test in New Mexico. Oppenheimer later remarked that it brought to mind words from the Bhagavad Gita: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." In August 1945, the weapons were used in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

1906 - Eddie Albert (Edward Albert Heimberger), American actor and activist. He was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor; the first nomination came in 1954 for his performance in Roman Holiday, and the second in 1973 for The Heartbreak Kid. His other well-known screen roles include Bing Edwards in the Brother Rat films, traveling salesman Ali Hakim in the musical Oklahoma!. He starred as Oliver Wendell Douglas in the 1960s television sitcom Green Acres and as Frank MacBride in the 1970s crime drama Switch. He had a recurring role as Carlton Travis on Falcon Crest, opposite Jane Wyman.

1912 - Kathleen Ferrier, CBE, (born Kathleen Mary Ferrier), English contralto singer in stage, concert and as recording artist, with a repertoire extending from folksong and popular ballads to the classical works of Bach, Brahms, Mahler and Elgar. Her death from cancer at the height of her fame, was a shock to the musical world and particularly to the general public, which was kept in wraps. ( Kathleen Ferrier sings "What is Life" and "Art Thou Troubled". Uploaded by Russell Watson. Accessed March 21, 2020. KF with rendition of Land of Hope & Glory. Live Performance from Manchester (1951) in the presence of the late Queen Mother Elizabeth. YouTube uploaded by Rip van Winkle. Accessed April 22, 2016.)

1916 - Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM KBE, American-born violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in Britain. He is considered one of the great violinists of the 20th century. He played the Soil Stradivarius, considered one of the finest violins made by Italian luthier Antonio Stradivari. (Menuhin - Paganini Concerto No. 1 (3rd Movement) - 1934 Paris Symphony Orchestra with Pierre Monteux, The Legendary Recording used to dub the 1963 video. Uploaded by adamwas. Accessed April 22, 2018. Menuhin plays JS Bach's Chaconne. uploaded by VIRT1976. Accessed April 22, 2020.)

1926 - Charlotte Rae (Charlotte Rae Lubotsky), American character actress, comedienne, and singer. She was known for her portrayal of Edna Garrett in the sitcoms Diff'rent Strokes and its spin-off, The Facts of Life (in which she had the starring role from 1979–1986). She received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Best Actress in a Comedy in 1982. She voiced the character of "Nanny" in 101 Dalmatians: The Series and Aunt Pristine Figg in Tom and Jerry: The Movie.  In 2015, she returned to film in the feature film Ricki and the Flash, with Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, and Rick Springfield. In 2015, Rae released her autobiography, The Facts of My Life, which was co-written with her son, Larry Strauss.

 

1926 - Glen Travis Campbell, American singer, American guitarist, singer, songwriter, actor and television host. He was best known for hosting The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour on CBS TV. He released 64 albums, selling over 45 million records worldwide. In 1967, Campbell won four Grammys in the country and pop categories. For "Gentle on My Mind", he received two awards in country and western; "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" did the same in pop. Three of his early hits later won Grammy Hall of Fame Awards, while he won the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012. He owned trophies for Male Vocalist of the Year from both the Country Music Association (CMA) and the Academy of Country Music (ACM), and took the CMA's top award as 1968 Entertainer of the Year. Campbell played a supporting role in the film True Grit (1969), which earned him a Golden Globe nomination for Most Promising Newcomer. He also sang the title song, which was nominated for an Academy Award.

1937 - Jack Nicholson (born John Joseph Nicholson), American actor and filmmaker. His twelve Academy Award nominations make him the most nominated male actor in the Academy's history. He has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice, once for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the other, for As Good as It Gets. He also won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Terms of Endearment. He is one of only three male actors to win three Academy Awards, and one of only two actors to be nominated for an Academy Award for acting in every decade from the 1960s to the 2000s. He has won six Golden Globe Awards and received the Kennedy Center Honor in 2001. In 1994, he became one of the youngest actors to be awarded the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award. His most known and celebrated films among others include: the road drama Easy Rider; the dramas Five Easy Pieces and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest; the comedy-dramas Carnal Knowledge, Terms of Endearment, the neo-noir mysteries Chinatown, and the legal drama A Few Good Men. He has also directed three films, including The Two Jakes.

 

1944 - Joshua Rifkin, American pianist, conductor, and musicologist, currently a professor of music at Boston University. As a performer he has recorded music by composers from Antoine Busnois to Silvestre Revueltas, and as a scholar has published research on composers from the Renaissance to the 20th century. He is famed among classical musicians and aficionados for his increasingly influential theory that most of Bach's choral works were sung with only one singer per choral line. He is best known by the general public, however, for having played a central role in the ragtime revival in the 1970s, with the three albums he recorded of Scott Joplin's works for Nonesuch Records.

Lefties:
Actor Eddie Albert
Singer Glen Campbell
Actress Charlotte Rae
 

More birthdays and historical events today, 22 April - On This Day.

 

Historical Events

1509 - Henry VIII becomes King of England upon the death of his father.

1913 - The first issue of Pavda ("The Truth"), the Soviet Communist Party newspaper is published in St. Petersburg.