November 6 Dateline

Birthdays

1661 - Charles II, King of Spain, also known as El Hechizado or the Bewitched, was the last Habsburg ruler of the Spanish Empire. He is best remembered for his alleged physical disabilities, and the war that followed his death. Charles suffered ill-health throughout his life; from the moment he became king at the age of four, the succession was a prominent consideration in European politics. Despite two marriages, he remained childless. When he died in 1700, his heir was 16-year-old Philip of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV and his first wife, Charles's elder half-sister, Maria Theresa. The succession of Charles was less important than the division of his territories, and the failure to resolve that question led to war in 1701.

1814 - Adolph Sax, Belgian inventor and musician who created the saxophone in the early 1840s, patenting it in 1846. He also invented the saxotromba, saxhorn and saxtuba. He played the flute and clarinet.

1854 - John Philip Sousa, American composer and conductor of the late Romantic era known for American military marches. He is known as "The March King" or the "American March King", to distinguish him from his British counterpart Kenneth J. Alford.  Among his best-known marches are "The Stars and Stripes Forever" (National March of the United States of America), "Semper Fidelis" (official march of the United States Marine Corps), "The Liberty Bell", "The Thunderer", and "The Washington Post".

1860 - Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Polish composer, pianist, and former Prime Minister, a spokesman for polish independence. He was a favorite of concert audiences around the world and his musical fame opened access to diplomacy and the media. Paderewski played an important role in meeting with President Woodrow Wilson and obtaining the explicit inclusion of independent Poland as point 13 in Wilson's peace terms in 1918, called the Fourteen Points. He was the Prime Minister of Poland and also Poland's foreign minister in 1919, and represented Poland at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. He served 10 months as prime minister, and soon thereafter left Poland, never to return. (Paderewski plays his Minuet in G, Op 14, No. 1. Recorded 1937. Uploaded by Bechmesser2. Accessed November 6, 2019.) 

1883 - Hubert Charles Bath, English film composer, music director, and conductor. His credits include the music to the Oscar-winning documentary Wings Over Everest (1934), as well as to the films Tudor Rose (1936), A Yank at Oxford (1938), and Love Story (1944). Cornish Rhapsody, the theme music featured in the film Love Story is often played as a companion piece to the more famous Richard Addinsell's Warsaw Concerto. Love Story stars Margaret Lockwood and Stewart Grainger, with Lockwood playing as concert pianist, and in the film her composition of the Rhapsody reflects her love both for Grainger and the Cornish landscape that provides much of the setting for the film. (Cornish Rhapsody - Hubert Bath). YouTube, uploaded by Montezuma48. Accessed Nov 6, 2012)
 

1892 - Harold Ross, American journalist, founder of New Yorker (1925)

1901 - Juanita Hall,  American musical theatre and film actress, remembered for her roles in the original stage and screen versions of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals South Pacific as Bloody Mary - a role that gave her the Tony Award - and Flower Drum Song as Madame Liang. (Link from the film South Pacific with Juanita Hall's exquisite voice from the original Broadway cast recording, synched to the film. The clip also includes a deleted scene, apparently due to its gay overtones that time - Here. YouTube, uploaded by Lost Vocals. Accessed August 16, 2018.)

1916 - Ray Conniff, American bandleader and arranger, leader of popular vocal groups, best known for his Ray Conniff Singers during the1960s. (Feeling nostalgic about the good old days? Here: some of his greatest hits, YouTube, uploaded by Natural Relax. Accessed Nov 6, 2025.)

1946 - Sally Field, American actress and director.  She is the recipient of various accolades, including two Academy Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award, and she has been nominated for a Tony Award and two BAFTA Awards. Field began her professional career on television, starring in the short-lived comedies Gidget, The Flying Nun, and The Girl with Something Extra. In 1976, she garnered critical acclaim for her performance in the miniseries Sybil, for which she received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie. More successful movies and television roles followed.  As a director, Field is known for the television film The Christmas Tree, an episode of the 1998 HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, and the feature film Beautiful. In 2014, she was presented with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and in 2019 received the Kennedy Center Honors.

1955 - Maria Owings Shriver, American journalist and writer, former First Lady of California, and the founder of the nonprofit organization The Women's Alzheimer's Movement. She was married to former Governor of California and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, from whom she filed for divorce in 2011. Shriver has received a Peabody Award and was co-anchor for NBC's Emmy-winning coverage of the 1988 Summer Olympics. As executive producer of The Alzheimer's Project, Shriver earned two Emmy Awards and an Academy of Television Arts & Sciences award for developing a "television show with a conscience". She is a member of the Kennedy family; her mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, was a sister of John F. Robert and Ted Kennedy. 

Lefties:
None known

 

More birthdays and historical events, November 6 - On This Day

 

Featured Music:

 
Ignacy Paderewski's exciting Polish Fantasy (Fantazja polska) in G minor for piano and orchestra, Op. 19, 1st Movement. The Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic European Art Centre. Marcin Nałęcz-Niesiołowski, conductor. Kevin Kenner, piano. The Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic Symphonic Orchestra.

 

 

November 5 Dateline

Birthdays

1494 - Hans Sachs, German Burgher, meistersinger, composer, master shoemaker,  and poet who was outstanding for his popularity, output, and aesthetic and religious influence. He surpassed all his contemporaries in artistic power; for there was nowhere in which he did not try his hand, no interest of the time which did not find an echo in his writings. He is considered the greatest poetical genius that had appeared in Germany since the Minnesingers.  Richard Wagner made him the principal in his opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. (Image: Hans Sachs' Reflection and David Song. Sachs ponders about last day's riot, while David tries to gain his attention. Music: Overture and beginning of the first scene of the third act of the music drama "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg" Composer: Richard Wagner Orchestra: Herbert von Karajan with the Staatskapelle Dresden.  Uploaded by Arthur Carmonario. Accessed November 5, 2016.)

1887 - Paul Wittgenstein, Austrian-American concert pianist notable for commissioning new piano concerti for the left hand alone, following the amputation of his right arm during the First World War. He devised novel techniques, including pedal and hand-movement combinations, that allowed him to play chords previously regarded as impossible for a five-fingered pianist.  He was an older brother of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. (Wittgenstein plays Ravel, Piano Concerto For the Left Hand (Solo Excerpts). YouTube, uploaded by Eoin Alllen. Accessed Novembr 5, 2018.)

1913 - Vivien Leigh (born Vivian Mary Hartley), styled as Lady Olivier after 1947), British stage and film actress. She won two Academy Awards for Best Actress, for her definitive performances as Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939) and Blanche DuBois in the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), a role she had also played on stage in London's West End in 1949. She also won a Tony Award for her work in the Broadway musical version of Tovarich.

1940 - Elke Sommer (born Elke Baronin von Schletz), German actress, entertainer and artist who starred in many Hollywood films.  After the 1990s, Sommer concentrated more on painting than on acting. As an actress, she had worked in countries learning the languages (she speaks seven languages) and storing up images which she has subsequently expressed on canvas. Her artwork shows a strong Marc Chagall influence. In 2001, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to her.  As of early May 2017, Frau Baronin (Baroness) von Sommer was living in Los Angeles, California. 

1941 - Art Garfunkel, American musician and singer, poet, and actor. He is best known for his partnership with Paul Simon in the folk rock duo Simon & Garfunkel. Highlights of his solo music career include a top 10 hit, three top 20 hits, six top 40 hits, 14 Adult Contemporary top 30 singles, five Adult Contemporary number ones, two UK number ones and a People's Choice Award. Through his solo and collaborative work, Garfunkel has earned eight Grammys, including a Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1990, he and Simon were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2008, Garfunkel was ranked 86th in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. (The Sound of Silence from the famous Duo: Simon and Garfunkel).

1943 - Sam Shepard Rogers III, American actor, author and playwright, screenwriter, and director. He won ten Obie Awards for writing and directing. He wrote 58 plays as well as several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs. Shepard received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of pilot Chuck Yeager in the 1983 film The Right Stuff. He received the PEN/Laura Pels Theater Award as a master American dramatist in 2009. Shepard's plays are known for their bleak, poetic, surrealist elements, black comedy, and rootless characters living on the outskirts of American society. 

 

1954 - Geoffrey Peter Bede Hawkshaw Tozer,  Australian classical pianist and composer. A child prodigy, he composed an opera at the age of eight and became the youngest recipient of a Churchill Fellowship award at 13. His career included worldwide tours, where he performed the Yellow River Concerto to an estimated audience of 80 million people. Tozer had more than 100 concertos in his repertoire, including those of Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Medtner, Rachmaninoff, Bartók, Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Gerhard. Tozer recorded for the Chandos label. Regarded as a "superb recitalist", he had the ability to improvise, transpose "instantly" and reduce an orchestral score to a piano score at sight. Tozer won numerous awards and much recognition worldwide. (Geoffrey Tozer - Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody No 2 with own cadenza (1987 Canberra)-LP transfer. YouTube, uploaded by Oceania Classics. Accessed May 20, 2023)

 
Leftie:
Pianist Paul Wittgenstein

 

More birthdays and historical events, November 5 - On This Day

 

Historical Events

1605 - The Gunpowder Plot is foiled when Guy Fawkes is discovered in a cellar below the English Houses of Parliament lighting a long fuse, set to explode as King James I opens Parliament. Fawkes is executed later.

1846 - Robert Schumann's Symphony No.2 is first performed and conducted by Felix Mendelssohn in Leipzig.