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January 29 Dateline

Birthdays


1737 - Thomas Paine (born Thomas Pain, February 9, 1737 [O.S. January 29, 1736]),  English-born American political theorist & activist, philosopher, and revolutionary. He authored Common Sense (1776) and The American Crisis (1776–1783), the two most influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution, and helped inspire the patriots in 1776 to declare independence from Great Britain. His ideas reflected Enlightenment-era ideals of transnational human rights. 
 
 1860 - Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Russian playwright and short-story writer considered to be among the greatest writers of short fiction in history. As a playwright he produced four classics, and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics. Along with Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Chekhov is often referred to as one of the three seminal figures in the birth of early modernism in the theatre. Chekhov practiced as a medical doctor throughout most of his literary career: "Medicine is my lawful wife", he once said, "and literature is my mistress."  Chekhov renounced the theatre after the reception of The Seagull in 1896, but the play was revived to acclaim in 1898 by Konstantin Stanislavski's Moscow Art Theatre, which subsequently also produced Chekhov's Uncle Vanya and premiered his last two plays, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard. (Anton Chekhov Documentary Film. Uploaded by MrShurayev. accessed January 29, 2020. Interesting Reading: Anton Chekhov: where to start with his literature. By Diána Vonnák. The Calvert Journal. Accessed January 29, 2021.)

1862 - Frederick (Theodore Albert) Delius, CH, originally Fritz Delius, English composer. Born to a prosperous mercantile family, he was sent to Florida, US, in 1884 to manage an orange plantation. After two years he returned to Europe. Influenced by African-American music during his short stay in Florida, he began composing. After a brief period of musical study in Germany, he embarked on a full-time career as a composer in Paris and in nearby Grez-sur-Loing, where he and his wife Jelka lived for the rest of their lives, except during the First World War. After 1918, Delius became paralysed and blind, but completed some late compositions with the aid of his amanuensis, Eric Fenby.  (Delius - Summer Evening. Royal Scottish Orchestra - David Lloyd Jones. Impressionist painter John Lavery's sequence of paintings shows. Uploaded by Jane Anne Strutt. Accessed January 29, 2018. Delius - Walk to the Paradise Garden. Uploaded by Thomas Turner. Accessed January 29, 2020. Walk to the Paradise Garden, London Symphony Orchestra, Sir John Barbirolli. Works by John Atkinson Grimshaw.)

1874 - John D. Rockefeller Jr., American financier and philanthropist, and only son of Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller. He was often known as “Junior”, to distinguish him from his father. From early adulthood, he was interested in philanthropy and business ethics. But in 1913, a bitter strike in the Colorado Fuel and Iron company, part-owned by him, had provoked an attack by the National Guard, causing casualties. His action in visiting the miners and their families in person, to resolve their grievances, did much to present a more humanized image of the Rockefellers, marking a new departure in industrial relations generally. He was involved in the development of the vast office complex in midtown Manhattan known as the Rockefeller Center, making him one of the largest real estate holders in the city. Towards the end of his life, he was famous for his philanthropy, donating over $500 million to a wide variety of different causes, notably in educational establishments.

1880 - W.C. Fields (William Claude Dukenfield), American comedian, actor, juggler, and writer. Fields' comic persona was a misanthropic and hard-drinking egotist, who remained a sympathetic character despite his supposed contempt for children and dogs. His show business career began in vaudeville, where he was a silent juggler. He gradually incorporated comedy into his act and was a featured comedian in the Ziegfeld Follies. He became a star in the Broadway musical comedy Poppy, in which he played a colorful small-time con man. Among his recognizable trademarks were his raspy drawl and grandiloquent vocabulary. The characterization he portrayed in films and on radio was so strong it was generally identified with Fields himself.

1915 - Victor John Mature, American stage, film, and television actor who was known for his dark hair and smile. His best known film roles include One Million B.C., My Darling Clementine, Kiss of Death, Samson and Delilah, and The Robe. He also appeared in many musicals opposite such stars as Rita Hayworth and Betty Grable.

1918 - John Forsythe, American stage, film producer and television actor, drama teacher and philanthropist. He appeared as a guest on several talk and variety shows and as a panelist on numerous game shows. His 60-year acting career began in films in 1943. He signed up with Warner Bros. at age 25 as a minor contract player, but he starred in The Captive City (1952) and co-starred opposite Loretta Young in It Happens Every Thursday (1953), Edmund Gwenn and Shirley MacLaine in The Trouble With Harry, and Olivia De Havilland in The Ambassador's Daughter.

1931 - Leslie Bricusse, British composer, lyricist, and playwright who worked in the musicals and wrote theme music for films. He was best known for writing the music and lyrics for the films Doctor Dolittle, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Scrooge, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Tom and Jerry: The Movie, the songs "Goldfinger", "You Only Live Twice", "Can You Read My Mind (Love Theme)" (with John Williams) from Superman and "Le Jazz Hot!" with Henry Mancini from Victor/Victoria. Pure Imagination: The World of Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse, devised and directed by Bruce Kimmel, opened at the Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice, California, on 7 December 2013. In 2015, it went to the St James Theatre, London.

1934 - Noel Harrison (born Noel John Christopher Harrison), English singer, actor, and Olympic skier, who had a hit singing "The Windmills of Your Mind" in 1968, and was a member of the British Olympic skiing team in the 1950s. He was the son of the actor Rex Harrison. (The Windmills of Your Mind. YouTube, uploaded by Noel Harrisonfan. Accessed January 29, 2018.)

1939 - Germaine Greer, Australian writer, regarded as one of the major voices of the radical feminist movement in the latter half of the 20th century. Specializing in English and women's literature, she has held academic positions in England at the University of Warwick and Newnham College, Cambridge, and in the United States at the University of Tulsa. Based in the UK since 1964, she has divided her time since the 1990s between Queensland, Australia and her home in Essex, England. Greer's ideas have created controversy ever since her first book, The Female Eunuch. The book offered a systematic deconstruction of ideas such as womanhood and femininity, arguing that women are forced to assume submissive roles in society to fulfill male fantasies of what being a woman entails. Her work since then has focused on literature, feminism and the environment. Greer is a liberation (or radical) rather than equality feminist. Her goal is not equality with men, which she sees as assimilation and "agreeing to live the lives of unfree men". She argues instead that liberation is about asserting difference and "insisting on it as a condition of self-definition and self-determination".

1940 - Katharine Juliet Ross, American film, stage, and TV actress. Her accolades include one Academy Award nomination, one BAFTA Award, and two Golden Globe Awards. Ross made her film debut in the Civil War-themed drama Shenandoah. She was cast in Curtis Harrington's Games, a thriller co-starring James Caan and Simone Signoret. At Signoret's recommendation, Ross was cast as Elaine Robinson in Mike Nichols' comedy-drama The Graduate, which saw her receive significant critical acclaim, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, a BAFTA nomination, and Golden Globe win for New Star of the Year. She garnered further acclaim for her roles in two 1969 western films: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here, for both of which she won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress. 

1942 - Claudine Longet, French-American Singer, Actress, Dancer, and Recording Artist popular during the 1960s and 1970s.  Longet was married to American singer and television entertainer Andy Williams from 1961 until 1975. She has maintained a private profile since 1977, following her conviction for negligent homicide in connection with the death of her boyfriend, former Olympic skier Spider Sabich.

1945 - Tom William Selleck, American actor and film producer. His breakout role was playing private investigator Thomas Magnum in the TV series Magnum, P.I.. Since 2010, Selleck has co-starred as New York City Police Commissioner Frank Reagan in the series Blue Bloods, and the show has been renewed for its eleventh season in 2020–2021. He has portrayed troubled small-town police chief Jesse Stone in nine made-for-TV movies based on the Robert B. Parker novels. In films, Selleck has played bachelor architect Peter Mitchell in Three Men and a Baby and its sequel. He also had a lead role in the television western movie The Sacketts, based on two of Louis L'Amour's books. Selleck is a California Army National Guard veteran, a spokesman for the National Rifle Association (NRA), an endorser in advertisements for National Review magazine, and co-founder of the Character Counts! organization.
 
1954 - Oprah Winfrey (born Orpah Gail Winfrey), American talk-show host, TV producer, publisher, author, actress, and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, broadcast from Chicago, which was the highest-rated television program of its kind in history and ran in national syndication for 25 years from 1986 to 2011. Dubbed the "Queen of All Media", she was the richest African American of the 20th century and North America's first black multi-billionaire, and she has been ranked the greatest black philanthropist in American history. By 2007, she was sometimes ranked as the most influential woman in the world. In 2013, Winfrey was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama and honorary doctorate degrees from Duke and Harvard. In 2008, she formed her own network, the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). Winfrey has won many accolades which includes 18 Daytime Emmy Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award and the Chairman's Award, 2 Primetime Emmy Awards, including the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award, a Tony Award, a Peabody Award and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, awarded by the Academy Awards and two additional Academy Award nominations.

Lefties:
Actor W.C. Fields
Author Germaine Greer
Media mogul Oprah Winfrey

More birthdays and historical events, January 29 - On This Day



Historical Events


1781 - Wolfgang Mozart's opera Idomeneo is first staged, in Munich.



1856 - Queen Victoria signs a Royal Warrant to create the highest award for valour - the Victoria Cross.

1886 - The first successful gasoline-driven automobile is patented by Karl Benz, in Karlsuhe, Germany. Related article:  Land Transport Pioneering Ideas

1933 - Paul von Hindenburg, the first President of Germany, appoints Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany.

1996 - French President Jacques Chirac announces a "definitive end" to French nuclear testing after widespread criticism.


Video Credit:

Mozart Idomeneo Overture Daniel Harding & WPO.  YouTube, uploaded by ClassicMusic541.  Accessed January 29, 2017.


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 & Schuster/Touchstone (1991)
6. Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org.



(c) June 2007. Updated January 29, 2023. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.

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