February 1 Dateline

Birthdays

1859 - Victor Herbert, American composer, cellist and conductor, of Irish ancestry and German training. He is best known for composing successful operettas. He founded the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). Herbert produced two operas, a cantata, 43 operettas, incidental music to 10 plays, 31 compositions for orchestra, nine band compositions, nine cello compositions, five violin compositions with piano or orchestra, 22 piano compositions and numerous songs, choral compositions and orchestrations of works by other composers. His successful operettas include: The Serenade and The Fortune Teller, and more successful were: Babes in Toyland, Mlle. Modiste, The Red Mill, Naughty Marietta, Sweethearts and Eileen. After World War I, Herbert began to compose musicals and music for other composers' shows. (The Musical Worlds of Victor Herbert. YouTube, uploaded by Library of Congress. Accessed February 1, 2021.)

1894 - John Ford (born John Feeney), American film director and naval officer. He is renowned both for Westerns such as Stagecoach, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, as well as adaptations of classic 20th-century American novels such as The Grapes of Wrath. He was the recipient of five Academy Awards including a record four wins for Best Director. Ford directed more than 140 films and he is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers of his generation. Ford's work was held in high regard by his colleagues, with Orson Welles and Ingmar Bergman among those who named him one of the greatest directors of all time.

1901 - William Clark Gable, American film actor, often referred to as "The King of Hollywood". He had roles in more than 60 motion pictures in a wide variety of genres in a career that lasted 37 years, three decades of which was as a leading man. He was famous for his line from the classic movie, Gone with the Wind:  "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn." Here's a lovely clip of the film's final scene, starring Vivian Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara. Movieclips. Accessed February 1, 2013.  

1905 - Emilio Gino Segrè, Italian-American physicist and Nobel laureate, who discovered the elements technetium and astatine, and the antiproton, a subatomic antiparticle, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1959 along with Owen Chamberlain. Segrè was also an active photographer who took photographs documenting events and people in the history of modern science, which were donated to the American Institute of Physics after his death. The American Institute of Physics named its photographic archive of physics history in his honor.

1918 - Dame Muriel Sarah Spark, DBE FRSE FRSL (née Camberg), British novelist, short story writer, poet and essayist, famous for her book The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Her first novel, The Comforters, was published to great critical acclaim in 1957. Spark displayed originality of subject and tone, making extensive use of flashforwards and imagined conversations. It is clear that James Gillespie's High School was the model for the Marcia Blaine School in the novel. Her residence at the Helena Club was the inspiration for the fictional May of Teck Club in The Girls of Slender Means published in 1963.

1922 - Renata Ersilia Clotilde Tebaldi, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI, Italian lirico-spinto soprano popular in the post-war period and was one of the stars of La Scala and the Metropolitan Opera. Among the greatest and most beloved opera singers, she has been said to have possessed one of the most beautiful voices of the 20th century, a voice focused on the verismo roles of the lyric and dramatic repertoires. Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini praised Tebaldi's voice as "la voce d'angelo" ("the voice of an angel"). (R. Tebaldi, a famous interpreter of Puccini, beautifully sings "Vissi d'arte" from Puccini's Tosca, accessed February 1, 2019.)

1931 - Boris Nicolayevich Yeltsin, Russian and Former Soviet politician who served as the first President of Russia from 1991 to 1999. A member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1961 to 1990, he later stood as a political independent, during which time he was viewed as being ideologically aligned with liberalism and Russian nationalism.

1937 - Don Everly (Isaac Donald Everly), American singer, one of the Everly Brothers (the other one is Phillip "Phil" Everly (born January 19, 1939), known for steel-string acoustic guitar playing and close harmony singing. The duo was raised in a musical family, first appearing on radio singing along with their father Ike Everly and mother Margaret Everly as "The Everly Family" in the 1940s. They gained the attention of prominent Nashville musicians like Chet Atkins, who began to groom them for national attention.

1954 - Bill Murray (born William James Murray), American actor, comedian, and writer. Known for his deadpan delivery, he first rose to fame on Saturday Night Live, that earned him his first Emmy Award, and later starred in comedy films—including Meatballs, Caddyshack, Stripes, Tootsie, among others. His only directorial credit is Quick Change, which he co-directed with Howard Franklin. Murray later starred in Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation, which earned him a Golden Globe and a British Academy Film Award, and an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. He received Golden Globe nominations for his roles in Ghostbusters, Rushmore, Hyde Park on Hudson, St. Vincent, and the HBO miniseries Olive Kitteridge, for which he later won his second Primetime Emmy Award. He received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2016.

1968 - Lisa Marie Presley, American singer and songwriter. She is the only child of singer and actor Elvis Presley and actress Priscilla Presley, as well as the sole heir to her father's estate. Presley has developed a career in the music business and has issued three albums. She has been married four times, including to singer Michael Jackson and actor Nicolas Cage, and her fourth husband is music producer Michael Lockwood, father of her twin daughters.

1972 - Taryn Fiebig, Australian Opera soprano and cellist (Canteloube Chants D'Auvergne Ound Ouren Gorda. Taryn Fiebig, soprano and cellist, Jane Rutter, flautist, Vincent Colagiuri, pianist. Sorry if recording isn't high quality, but performance is superb. Accessed February 1, 2018.  Quando m'en vo - Taryn Fiebig - La bohème Opera Australia. YouTube, uploaded by Opera Australia. Accessed February 1, 2019. Anything but Opera! With Taryn Fiebig. YouTube, uploaded by Anything BUT Opera. Accessed February 1, 2023.)  

Leftie: 
Singer Don Everly

More birthdays and historical events, February 1 - On This Day



Featuring:

Opera soprano and cellist Taryn Fiebig

Helpmann Award-winner Taryn Fiebig is an Australian opera and musical theatre soprano and cellist. She graduated as a cellist, before commencing vocal training, occasionally performing on stage with her cello accompanying her own singing. She joined Opera Australia in 2005 as a principal soprano, her roles varied: in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute, Gilbert & Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance & The Mikado, and in many more... In memory of loved Taryn Fiebig (who passed away 20th MArch 2021), wonderful, talented and lovely Australian soprano and cellist. YouTube, uploaded by Pinchgut Opera. 1 February 2024.

 

Historical Events

1788 - Isaac Briggs and William Longstreet patent the steamboat.

1814 - Mayon Volcano in Albay, Philippines erupts, killing more than a thousand people. It is the most devastating eruption of this active volcano at the time.

1827 - Felix Mendelssohn's Overture to "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is first performed in Stettin, Karl Loewe conducting.



1893 - Thomas Alva Edison finishes construction of the first motion picture studio, the Black Maria in West Orange, New Jersey.

1896 - Giacomo Puccini's opera La Bohème premieres in Turin, Italy.


 

1968 - Viet Cong officer Nguyen Van Lem is executed by Nguyen Ngoc Loan, a South Vietnamese National Police chief.

2003 - Space shuttle Columbia disintegrates over Texas upon re-entry, killing all seven astronauts on board.  Columbia, the world's first reusable space vehicle, was the oldest of a fleet of four. In 2003, this space shuttle, disintegrated over Texas on re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere that killed all 7 astronauts on board. It was the first accident during landing in 42 years of space flight. Columbia's sister ship, Challenger, exploded soon after lift-off 17 years previously, also killing all of the 7 astronauts on board.



Space Shuttle Columbia launches on STS-109(HST-3B) to repair the Hubble Space telescope. This was the final successful mission of Columbia before STS-107. Image Credit:  en.wikipedia.org

Video Credit:

Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream Overture (Abbado).  YouTube, uploaded by ArtyClassical. Accessed February 1, 2018.

La Boheme - Pavarotti- "Che gelida manina" Fiamma Izzo d' Amico "Si, mi chiamano Mimi." Youtube, uploaded by gercha88. Accessed Feb 1, 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 February 1, 2024. Tel Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.