May 29 Dateline

Birthdays

1860 - Isaac Albeniz (born Isaac Manuel Francisco Albéniz y Pascual, Spanish virtuoso pianist, composer, and conductor. He is one of the foremost composers of the Post-Romantic era who also had a significant influence on his contemporaries and younger composers. He is best known for his piano works based on Spanish folk music idioms. Transcriptions of many of his pieces, such as Asturias (Leyenda), Granada, Sevilla, Cadiz, Córdoba, Cataluña, Mallorca, and Tango in D, are important pieces for classical guitar, though he never composed for the guitar. The personal papers of Albéniz are preserved, among other institutions, in the Biblioteca de Catalunya.

 1892 - Frederick Schiller Faust, pen name is "Max Brand" becomes "king of the pulp writers". American author known primarily for his Western stories. As Max Brand, he created the popular fictional character of young medical intern Dr. James Kildare for a series of pulp fiction stories. Faust's Kildare character was subsequently featured over several decades in other media, including a series of American theatrical movies by Paramount Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), a radio series, two television series, and comics.Faust used many other pseudonyms including George Owen Baxter, Evan Evans, George Evans, Peter Dawson, David Manning, John Frederick, Peter Morland, George Challis, Peter Ward and Frederick Frost.

1897 - Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Austrian-American composer and conductor. A child prodigy, he became one of the most important and influential composers in Hollywood history. He was a noted pianist and composer of classical music, along with music for Hollywood films, and the first composer of international stature to write Hollywood scores.  (Toscha Seidel (violin) - Korngold, "Much Ado About Nothing" Suite 3, Op. 11- III, Daniel Kurganov. Accessed May 29, 2019.

1903 - Bob Hope, KBE, KC*SG, KSS (born Leslie Townes Hope), British-American stand-up Comedian, Vaudevillian, actor, singer, dancer, athlete, and author. With a career that spanned nearly 80 years, Hope appeared in more than 70 short and feature films, with 54 feature films with Hope as star, including a series of seven "Road" musical comedy movies with Bing Crosby as Hope's top-billed partner.  In addition to hosting the Academy Awards show 19 times, more than any other host, he appeared in many stage productions and television roles, and was the author of 14 books. The song "Thanks for the Memory" was his signature tune. 

1917 - John Fitzgerald Kennedy, often referred to by his initials as JFK or by the nickname Jack. He was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination near the end of his third year in office. Kennedy was the youngest person to assume the presidency by election. He was also the youngest president at the end of his tenure, and his lifespan was the shortest of any president. Kennedy served at the height of the Cold War, and the majority of his work as president concerned relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba. A Democrat, he represented Massachusetts in both houses of the U.S. Congress prior to his presidency.
 

1958 - Annette Carol Bening, American actress. She was nominated for the 1987 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her Broadway debut in Coastal Disturbances and for the 2019 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for All My Sons. She is a four-time Academy Award nominee for the films: The Grifters, American Beauty, Being Julia, and The Kids Are All Right. In 2006, she received a film star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Bening won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role for American Beauty, two Golden Globe Awards for Being Julia and The Kids Are All Right, and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie for Mrs. Harris. In 2019, she played the roles of Supreme Intelligence and Mar-Vell / Wendy Lawson in the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Captain Marvel, which became her highest grossing release. Annette Being is married to actor Warren Betty.

Leftie:
None known

 

More birthdays and historical events today, May 29 - On This Day

 

Feature: 

 

Sharing a favourite tango music of Albeniz I grew up listening to. (I don't know the performing pianist.)  Enjoy!

Historical Events

1453 - Constantinople falls to Muhammad II, ending the Byzantine Empire.

1919 - Charles Strite patents a pop-up toaster.

May 28 Dateline

Birthdays

1759 - William Pitt the Younger, prominent British Tory statesman of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He became the youngest prime minister of Great Britain in 1783 at the age of 24 and the first prime minister of the UK of Great Britain and Ireland as of January 1801. He left office in March 1801, but served as prime minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806. He was also Chancellor of the Exchequer for all of his time as prime minister. He is known as "the Younger" to distinguish him from his father, William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, who is customarily referred to as "William Pitt the Elder" and had previously served as prime minister.

1779 - Thomas Moore, Irish poet, singer, songwriter, and entertainer, often referred to as Anacreon Moore. He is best remembered for the lyrics of "The Minstrel Boy" and "The Last Rose of Summer". As Lord Byron's named literary executor, along with John Murray, Moore was responsible for burning Lord Byron's memoirs after his death. (The Last Rose of Summer by Thomas Moore. 'Tis the Last Rose of Summer (lyrics). Uploaded by 4Stanzas. Accessed April 30, 2020.) "The Last Rose of Summer" was written by Moore in 1805 while he was at  Jenkinstown Park in County Kilkenny, Ireland, said to have been inspired by a specimen Rosa 'Old Blush'. The music is a traditional tune called "Aislean an Oigfear" or "The Young Man's Dream", transcribed by Edward Bunting in 1792. The poem and the tune together were published in December 1813, Volume 5 of Moore's A Selection of Irish Melodies. (The Last Rose of Summer. Taryn Fiebig & Jayne Hockley. YouTube, by The Orchard Enterprises. Thyme & Roses ℗ 2005. Accessed May 28, 2017.)

1853 - Carl Olof Larsson, Swedish painter representative of the Arts and Crafts movement. His many paintings include oils, watercolors, and frescoes. He is principally known for his watercolors of idyllic family life. He considered his finest work to be Midvinterblot (Midwinter Sacrifice), a large painting now displayed inside the Swedish National Museum of Fine Arts. His turning point came in 1882 when he moved to the Scandinavian artists’ colony in Grez-zur-Loing outside Paris where he met his future wife Karin Bergöö. He abandoned his oil painting in favour of watercolours – a lucky move that would mean a lot for his artistic development. It was in Grez-zur-Loing that Carl Larsson painted some of his most significant pictures.

1903 - Marguerite Monnot, French songwriter and composer, best known for having written many of the songs performed by Édith Piaf and for the music in the stage musical Irma La Douce. As a female composer of popular music in the first half of the 20th century, Monnot was a pioneer in her field. Classically trained by her father and at the Paris Conservatory (her teachers included prominent composers Nadia Boulanger, Vincent d’Indy, and Alfred Cortot), Monnot made the unusual switch to composing popular music after poor health ended her career as a concert pianist when she was eighteen. Soon after writing her first commercially successful song, "L'Étranger", she met Édith Piaf, and they became the first female songwriting team in France, remaining friends and collaborators throughout most of their lives. (Hymne a L'amour - Edith Piaf. Youtube, uploaded by BillsOldiesUK. Accessed May 28, 2026.)   

1908 - Ian Lancaster Fleming, English author, journalist and naval intelligence officer best known for his James Bond series of spy novels. (How Ian Fleming Created James Bond. Uploaded by moogheer. Accessed May 28, 2010.) He wrote his first Bond novel, Casino Royale, in 1952. It was a success, with three print runs being commissioned to cope with the demand. Eleven Bond novels and two collections of short stories followed between 1953 and 1966. The novels revolve around James Bond, an officer in the Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6. Bond is also known by his code number, 007, and was a commander in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve.

1912 - Patrick White (born Patrick Victor Martindale White), Australian writer who published 12 novels (famous for The Eye of Storm), three short-story collections, and eight plays, from 1935 to 1987. His fiction employs humour, florid prose, shifting narrative vantage points and stream of consciousness techniques. In 1973 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for an epic and psychological narrative art which has introduced a new continent into literature", as it says in the Swedish Academy's citation, the first and only Australian to have been awarded the prize. White was also the inaugural recipient of the Miles Franklin Award.

1935 - Anne Reid, CBE, English stage, film and television actress. She's known for her roles as Valerie Barlow in the soap opera Coronation Street (1961–71); Jean in the sitcom Dinnerladies (1998–2000); and her BAFTA-nominated role as Celia Dawson in Last Tango in Halifax (2012–2020). She won the London Film Critics Circle Award for British Actress of the Year for the film The Mother (2003).

1940 - Maeve Binchy, Irish writer. Best known for her sympathetic and often humorous portrayal of small-town life in Ireland, her descriptive characters, her interest in human nature, and her often clever surprise endings.

 

1952 -  Elizabeth Spires, American poet and university professor. She holds a Chair for Distinguished Achievement. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, American Poetry Review, The New Criterion, The Paris Review and many other literary magazines and anthologies.She has been the recipient of the Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Scholarship, a Whiting Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Witter Bynner Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Ohioana Book Awards, and the Maryland Author Award from the Maryland Library Association. (Elizabeth Spires on riddles and writer's block and  ends with reading "In Heaven it is Always Autumn", YouTube, uploaded by hocopolitso. Accessed May 28, 2018.)

1968 - Kylie Minogue, AO, OBE (born Kylie Ann Minogue), Australian singer, songwriter and actress. She is the highest-selling female Australian artist of all time, having sold over 70 million records worldwide. She has been recognised for reinventing herself in music and fashion, for which she is referred to by the European press as the “Princess of Pop” and a style icon. Her accolades include a Grammy Award, three Brit Awards and 17 ARIA Music Awards.

 
Lefties:
None known

 

More birthdays and historical events today, May 28 - On This Day.

 

 
Feature: 

 

Edith Piaf singing the popular and loved French song "Hymne a l'amour" ("Hymn to Love"), here - with music composed by Marguerite Monnot, the lyrics written by Piaf herself, also originally performed by her.  Piaf  first sang this song at the Cabaret Versailles in New York on September 14, 1949. It was written to her lover and the love of her life, the French boxer, Marcel Cerdan. On October 28, 1949 Cerdan was killed in a plane crash on his way from Paris to New York to come see her. She recorded the song on 2 May 1950. Apology. Live videos are no longer available at YouTube. (April 3, 2022).

Below is a video of Hymne a L'amour  sung by Piaf in English: "If you love me, really love me."

Historical Events

1533 - Archbishop Thomas Cranmer proclaimed the validity of the marriage of Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn.

1961 - Amnesty international is founded by Peter Benenson.