June 16 Dateline

 Birthdays

1313 - Giovanni Boccaccio,  Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist. Boccaccio is best known for The Decameron. He wrote his literature mostly in the Italian vernacular, and other works in Latin. (Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron and Bawdy Medieval Literature - Fabian Alfie. Uploaded by Humanities Seminars Program. Accessed June 16, 2018.)

1858 - John Peter Russell, Australian Impressionist painter (Of great interest is Russell's painting of his famous friend, Vincent van Gogh, credit: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation). Although V. van Gogh had been painted by other fellow artists, including Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec, this one by Russell remains a personal favourite. A healthier looking Vincent, with eyes purposeful, intent.)

1890 - Stan Laurel (born Arthur Stanley Jefferson), English actor, writer, and film director who was part of the comedy duo Laurel and Hardy. He appeared with his comedy partner Oliver Hardy in 107 short films, feature films, and cameo roles.

1917 - Katharine Graham, American publisher and the second female publisher of a major American newspaper, following Eliza Jane Nicholson's ownership of the New Orleans Daily Picayune.  She led her family's newspaper, The Washington Post, for more than two decades, overseeing its most famous period: the Watergate coverage that eventually led to the resignation of former President Richard Nixon. Her memoir, Personal History, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998.

1934 - Dame Eileen (June) Atkins, CBE, DBE, English actress and occasional screenwriter. In 2008, she won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress and the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie for Cranford. She is a three-time Olivier Award winner, winning Best Supporting Performance in 1988 (for Multiple roles) and Best Actress for The Unexpected Man (1999) and Honour (2004). She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1990 and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 2001.

1937 - Erich Segal, American author, screenwriter and educator. He was best known for writing the novel Love Story, a best-seller, and writing the motion picture of the same name, which was a major hit. (Scenes from the movie Love Story (1970), starring Ali Macgraw and Ryan O'Neal. Uploaded by Samuel. Accessed June 16, 2019. Famous quote from Love Story: "Love is never having to say you're sorry".) 

1938 - Joyce Carol Oates, American writer and University professor. Oates has published numerous novels, as well as a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, for her novel them, two O. Henry Awards, the National Humanities Medal and the Jerusalem Prize. Her novels Black Water, What I Lived For, and Blonde, and short story collections The Wheel of Love and Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories were each finalists for the Pulitzer Prize.

Lefties:
None known

 

More birthdays and historical events today, 16 June - On This Day.  

Historical Events

1904 - Writer James Joyce meets Nora, his future wife. Leopold Bloom, his fictional character in Ulysses, spends this day wandering around Dublin.    

1956 - English poet Ted Hughes marries American poet Sylvia Plath.

June 15 Dateline

Birthdays

1330 - Edward of Woodstock, Prince of Wales, known to history as the Black Prince, was the eldest son of King Edward III of England, and thus the heir to the English throne. He died before his father and so his son, Richard II, succeeded to the throne instead. 

 

1479 - Lisa del Giocondo (née Gherardini), Italian noblewoman and member of the Gherardini family of Florence and Tuscany. Her name was given to the Mona Lisa, her portrait commissioned by her husband and painted by Leonardo da Vinci during the Italian Renaissance. Little is known about Lisa's life. Born in Florence and married in her teens to a cloth and silk merchant who later became a local official, she was a mother to five children and led what is thought to have been a comfortable and ordinary life. Lisa outlived her husband, who was considerably her senior.  In the centuries after Lisa's death, the Mona Lisa became the world's most famous painting. In 2005, Lisa was definitively identified as the model for the Mona Lisa and about six million people view it at the Louvre every year. 

1749 - Georg Joseph Vogler, also known as Abbé Vogler, German composer, organist, teacher and theorist. Contemporary of Mozart. He established himself as a foremost experimenter in baroque and early classic music. His greatest successes came as performer and designer for the organ, as well as a teacher, attracting highly successful and devoted pupils such as Carl Maria von Weber. His career as a music theorist and composer however was mixed, with contemporaries such as Mozart believing Vogler to have been a charlatan. Despite his mixed reception in his own life, his highly original contributions in many areas of music (particularly musicology and organ theory) and influence on his pupils endured, combined with his eccentric and adventurous career.

1763 - Franz Danzi (born Franz Ignaz Danzi), German cellist, composer and conductor, the son of the Italian cellist Innocenz Danzi (1730–98), brother of the noted singer Franzeska Danzi, and sister of Francesca Lebrun. He is known for his woodwind quintets. At Schwetzingen, the city concert hall was renamed in his honor in 2005. (Soni Ventorum beautifully performs Danzi's, Quintet in Bb, Op. 56 No. 1.Uploaded by YouTube, clarisoon888. Accessed June 15, 2019.)

1843 - Edvard (Hagerup) Grieg, Norwegian composer and pianist. He is widely considered one of the leading Romantic era composers, and his music is part of the standard classical repertoire worldwide. Grieg is the most celebrated person from the city of Bergen, with numerous statues depicting his image, and many cultural entities named after him: the city's largest concert building (Grieg Hall), its most advanced music school (Grieg Academy) and its professional choir (Edvard Grieg Kor). The Edvard Grieg Museum at Grieg's former home, Troldhaugen, is dedicated to his legacy. Grieg's development of Norwegian folk music in his own compositions brought Norway's music to international consciousness, as well as helped develop its national identity. 

1923 - Erroll Louis Garner, American Jazz pianist and composer, known for his swing playing and ballads. His best-known composition, the ballad "Misty", has become a jazz standard. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6363 Hollywood Blvd. His live album, Concert by the Sea, sold over a million copies by 1958. (Erroll Garner Plays "Misty". Youtube, Joris Holderbeke. Accessed June 15, 2020.) 

1949 - Simon Phillip Hugh Callow CBE, English actor, writer, theatre and opera director. Callow appeared as Verlaine in Total Eclipse, Lord Foppington in The Relapse, and the title role in Faust at the Lyric Hammersmith, where he also directed The Infernal Machine (with Maggie Smith). He played Mozart in the premiere of Peter Shaffer's Amadeus at the National Theatre, also appearing in the 1983 BBC original cast radio production. He wrote of having "discovered Mozart quite early: the operas, the symphonies, the concertos, the wind serenades were all very much part of my musical landscape when I was asked to play the part of the composer in Peter Shaffer's Amadeus; possibly this was one of the reasons I got the job." He appeared at the National Theatre as Orlando in As You Like It and Fulganzio in Galileo.

 
1954 - James Adam Belushi, American actor, comedian, singer and musician. He is best known for the role of Jim on the sitcom According to Jim. His other television roles include Saturday Night Live, Wild Palms, and Twin Peaks, among others. Belushi appeared in films such as Thief, Trading Places, About Last Night, Joe Somebody, Underdog, The Ghost Writer and Katie Says Goodbye. He is the younger brother of comic actor John Belushi and the father of actor Robert Belushi.
 

1963 - Helen Elizabeth Hunt, American actress and filmmaker. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award and four Emmy Awards. She rose to fame portraying Jamie Buchman in the sitcom Mad About You, for which she won three Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy and four Emmy Awards (Primetime) for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. Hunt won the Academy Award for Best Actress for starring as Carol Connelly in the romantic comedy As Good as It Gets, while her portrayal of Cheryl Cohen-Greene in The Sessions, gained her an additional Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Hunt made her directorial film debut with Then She Found Me (2007).

1964 - Courteney Bass Cox, American actress, producer, and director. She gained worldwide recognition for her starring role as Monica Geller on the NBC sitcom Friends and as Gale Weathers in the horror film series Scream. She owns the production company Coquette Productions, which was created by Cox and her then-husband David Arquette.

Leftie:
Jazz Musician Erroll Garner

 

 

More birthdays and historical events today, 15 June - On This Day.  

Historical Events

1215 - The Magna Carta is sealed by King John of England. It guarantees that the will of the King can be bound by law.

1752 - Benjamin Franklin flies a kite with a key attached to it in a thunderswtorm to prove that lightning is electricity.