June 20 Dateline

Famous Birthdays

1819 - Jacques Offenbach, French-German composer of French light operas, famous for The Tales of Hoffmann. He's also cellist and impresario of the romantic period. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera "The Tales of Hoffmann". Offenbach was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr. and Arthur Sullivan. His best-known works were continually revived during the 20th century, and many of his operettas continue to be staged in the 21st. The Tales of Hoffmann remains part of the standard opera repertory. Offenbach revered Mozart above all other composers. He had an ambition to present Mozart's neglected one-act comic opera Der Schauspieldirektor at the Bouffes-Parisiens, and he acquired the score from Vienna. With a text translated and adapted by Léon Battu and Ludovic Halévy, he presented it during the Mozart centenary celebrations in May 1856 as L'impresario.

1905 - Lillian Hellman, American playwright and screenwriter known for her success as a playwright on Broadway, as well as her political activism and left-wing sympathies, despite her denial she belonged to the Communist Party. As a playwright, she had successes on Broadway, including Watch on the Rhine, The Autumn Garden, Toys in the Attic, Another Part of the Forest, The Children's Hour and The Little Foxes. She adapted her semi-autobiographical play The Little Foxes into a screenplay.  Hellman was romantically involved with fellow writer and political activist Dashiell Hammett, author of the classic detective novels The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man. The couple never married. Hellman was the first librettist of the operetta Candide (based on Voltaire's 1759 novella of the same name) with music composed by Leonard Bernstein, although since 1974 it has been generally performed with a book by Hugh Wheeler, faithful to Voltaire's novel, with other contributors to the text with Hellman. (Lillian Hellman - Rare 1973 TV Interview. Alan Eichler. Accessed June 20, 2019.)

1906 - Dame Catherine (Ann) Cookson, DBE, British author. Top 20 of most widely read British novelists with sales topping 100 million in her day, while retaining a relatively low profile in the world of celebrity writers.

1909 - Errol Flynn (born Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn), Australian-born American actor during the Golden Age of Hollywood. Considered the natural successor to Douglas Fairbanks, he achieved worldwide fame for his romantic swashbuckler roles in Hollywood films, as well as frequent partnerships with Olivia de Havilland.

1929 - Ingrid Haebler, Austrian pianist. She studied at the Salzburg Mozarteum, Vienna Music Academy, Conservatoire de Musique de Genève and privately in Paris with Marguerite Long. She toured worldwide. She is best known for a series of recordings from the 1950s to 1980s. Her complete set of Mozart's piano sonatas for the Denon label is still regarded as among the finest sets. Haebler also recorded all of Mozart's piano concertos (most of them twice), often with her own cadenzas, and all of Schubert's sonatas. She was one of several Austrian musicians to experiment early with period instruments, having recorded the music of Johann Christian Bach on a fortepiano. Her recordings of Mozart and Beethoven with the violinist Henryk Szeryng are particularly prized. (I. Haebler plays Mozart Sonata No.12 in F K 332. YouTube, uploaded by gullivior. Accessed June 20, 2021.)

1931 - Martin James Landau, American actor, acting coach, producer, and editorial cartoonist. His career began in the 1950s, with early film appearances including a supporting role in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest. He played regular roles in the television series Mission: Impossible and Space: 1999.

1949 - Lionel Richie (born Lionel Brockman Richie Jr.), American singer, songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and actor. His recordings with the Commodores and in his solo career made him one of the most successful balladeers of the 1980s. He's one of the world's best-selling artists of all time. He won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year for Can't Slow Down, and his other Grammy Awards include Producer of the Year (Non-Classical) and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for "Truly".  Richie has been nominated for two Golden Globe awards and won one. He won the Golden Globe award for Best Original Song for "Say You, Say Me". The song also won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. In 2016, Richie received the Songwriters Hall of Fame's highest honor, the Johnny Mercer Award.

1967 - Nicole Mary Kidman, AC, Australian-American actress, philanthropist and producer. Her awards include an Academy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards. She was listed among the highest-paid actresses in the world in 2006, 2018, and 2019. Time magazine twice named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world, in 2004 and 2018. Kidman won the Academy Award for Best Actress for portraying the writer Virginia Woolf in the drama The Hours. Her other Oscar-nominated roles were as a courtesan in the musical Moulin Rouge! and emotionally troubled mothers in the dramas Rabbit Hole and Lion. Kidman has been a Goodwill ambassador for UNICEF since 1994 and for UNIFEM since 2006. She was appointed Companion of the Order of Australia in 2006.

Lefties:
Actress Nicole Kidman

 

More birthdays and historical events today, 20 June - On This Day.   

Historical Events

1214 - The University of Oxford, U.K. is granted its charter by papal legate Nicholas de Romanis.

1837 - Victoria becomes the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. William IV dies in the night. The Lord Chamberlain and the Archbishop of Canterbury rush through the gardens to knock on the door of Kensington Palace, where 18 year-old Victoria is sleeping. The Lord Chamberlain kneels, kisses her hand and utters the words: "Your Majesty." At that point she knew the throne is hers. She was crowned 8 days later, June 28. She held the title until her death at age 81 in 1902. She is UK's longest-reigning monarch until surpassed by her great-great-granddaughter Queen Elizabeth II on September 9 September 2015.

1947 - Sir Benjamin Britten conducts the first performance of his opera Albert Herring, at Glyndebourne, England. (Benjamin Britten - Albert Herring - Part 1. Albert Herring - Part 2. - Uploaded by Jeffrey Skender. Accesed June 20, 2023.

 
1963 - The "hot line," which really was a red telephone, is established between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. as a direct emergency communication device between the leaders following the Cuban Missile Crisis. 

1991 - The German Parliament, known as Bundestag, votes to move the nation's capital from Bonn back to Berlin. The move is completed September 1999. It sat in the Reichstag building in Berlin in April 1999.

1999 - NATO declares an official end to its bombing campaign of Yugoslavia, which had been suspended 10 days earlier.





Resources:

1. Asiado, Tel. The World's Movers and Shapers. New Hampshire: Ore Mountain Publishing House (2005)

2. Britannica. www.britannica.com
3. Chambers Biographical Dictionary, 19th Ed. London: Chambers Harrap, 2011
4. Dateline. Sydney: Millennium House, (2006)
5. Grun, Bernard. The Timetables of History, New 3rd Revised Ed. Simon and Schuster/Touchstone (1991)
6. Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org


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