April 4 Dateline

Birthdays

1802 - Dorothea Dix, American social reformer/activist, advocate on behalf of the indigent mentally ill who, through a vigorous and sustained program of lobbying state legislatures and the United States Congress, created the first generation of American mental asylums. During the Civil War, she served as a Superintendent of Army Nurses.

1843 - Hans Richter, Hungarian-born Austrian orchestral and operatic conductor. In later years, he  became a whole-hearted admirer of Sir Edward Elgar and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. On one occasion, he laid down his baton and allowed a London orchestra to play the whole second movement of Tchaikovsky's Pathétique Symphony itself. Never afraid to experiment on behalf of the music he loved, he lent his authority to an English-language production of The Ring at Covent Garden. In 1909, he delivered the British premiere, very shortly after the world premiere, in Boston, of Ignacy Jan Paderewski's Symphony in B minor "Polonia". Richter's approach to conducting was monumental rather than mercurial or dynamic, emphasising the overall structure of major works in preference to bringing out individual moments of beauty or passion.

1875 - Pierre Monteux (born Pierre Benjamin Monteux), French conductor. After violin and viola studies, and a decade as an orchestral player and occasional conductor, he began to receive regular conducting engagements in 1907. (Pierre Monteaux conducts Debussy's Nocturnes, L.91. Pierre Monteaux conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra · Women of the Berkshire Festival Chorus. Accessed April 4, 2019.)

1922 - Elmer Bernstein, American composer and conductor. He composed "some of the most recognizable and memorable themes in Hollywood history", including over 150 original film scores, as well as scores for nearly 80 television productions. Bernstein received an Academy Award for Thoroughly Modern Millie and Primetime Emmy Award. He also received seven Golden Globe Awards, five Grammy Awards, and two Tony Award nominations. He composed and arranged scores for over 100 film scores, amoang them: The Man with the Golden Arm, The Ten Commandments, Sweet Smell of Success, The Magnificent Seven, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Escape, Hud, Thoroughly Modern Millie, True Grit, and Far from Heaven. He is also known for his work on the comedic films, among them: Meatballs, Trading Places, Ghostbusters, Spies Like Us, and Three Amigos. He was not related to composer & conductor Leonard Bernstein, but they were friends.

  

1928 - Maya Angelou, American poet, writer, memoirist, civil rights activist. She is best known for her 1969 memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which made literary history as the first nonfiction bestseller by an African American woman.  Maya Angelou's poem "Caged Bird" conveys the message that anyone oppressed or "caged" will always "wish" for freedom, believing that if others have it, they should, too. The poem's overall theme is love and its power. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years. She received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees.

1932 - Anthony Perkins, American actor, director, and singer. Perkins is known for his role as Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's suspense thriller Psycho, which made him an influential figure in pop culture and in horror films. He often played distinctive villainous roles in film, though he was most renowned for his romantic leads such as Goodbye Again (excerpt) with Ingrid Bergman and Yves Montand. The film earned him a Best Actor Bravo Otto nomination, a second career Bambi nomination, as well as his winning the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor and a Best Actor David di Donatello award. After a string of European films, he returned to America in 1968 with his first American film after an eight-year hiatus, Pretty Poison. He starred in critically successful films and also conceded to typecasting, starring in Psycho films. 

  

1932 - Andrei Tarkovsky, Russian filmmaker, theatre director, and writer. He is widely considered one of the greatest and most influential directors in the history of Russian and world cinema.

1951 - Hun Sen, Cambodian politician. He served as the Prime Minister of Cambodia since 1985, the longest-serving head of government of Cambodia, and one of the longest-serving leaders in the world. He is also the president of the Cambodian People's Party and a member of the National Assembly for Kandal.

1960 - Hugo Weaving, AO (born Hugo Wallace Weaving), British actor, resident in Australia. He is best known for playing Agent Smith in The Matrix trilogy, Elrond in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies, V in V for Vendetta, and Red Skull in the movie Captain America: The First Avenger.

Lefties:
None known 

 

More birthdays and historical events today, 4 April - On This Day.

 

Historical Events

1581 - Sir Francis Drake becomes the first seafaring captain to circumnavigate the globe. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth I on the deck of his chip, the Golden Hind. He had brought home vast revenues for the Crown.

1739 - G.F. Handel's oratorio Israel in Egypt is first performed in London. (Enjoy a performance with John Eliot Gardiner conducting the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque. Soloists: Michael Chance (counter-tenor), Nigel Robson (tenor). Uploaded by Don Goncau. Accessed April 4, 2020. Trivia: Our Sydney Philharmonia Choirs' ChoruzOz presented Handel's Israel in Egypt conduced by Graham Abbott. June 12, 2016, 5pm. Sydney Opera House Concert Hall.)

April 3 Dateline

Birthdays

1783 - Washington Irving, American Short-story Writer, Essayist, Biographer, Historian, and Diplomat of the early 19th century. He is best known for his short stories "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", both of which appear in his collection The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (Washington Irving - Rip VanWinkle. Uploaded by Lance Eaton. Accessed April 3, 2015.)

1880 - Otto Weininger, Austrian Philosopher, who lived in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1903, he published the book Geschlecht und Charakter (Sex and Character), which gained popularity after his suicide at the age of 23. Parts of his work were adapted for use by the Nazi regime (while at the same time denouncing him). Weininger was a large influence on Ludwig Wittgenstein, August Strindberg, and, via his lesser-known work Über die letzten Dinge, on James Joyce.

1893 -Leslie Howard Steiner, English actor, director and producer. He wrote many stories and articles for The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Vanity Fair and was one of the biggest box-office draws and movie idols of the 1930s. Active in both Britain and Hollywood, Howard played Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind (1939). He had roles in many other films, often playing the quintessential Englishman, including Berkeley Square, Of Human Bondage, The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Petrified Forest, Pygmalion, Intermezzo, "Pimpernel" Smith, and The First of the Few. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Berkeley Square and Pygmalion. After his death, British exhibitors voted him the second-most popular local star at the box office.

 

1895 - Mario Castelnuove-Tedesco, Italian-American Composer, Pianist and Writer. He was known as one of the foremost guitar composers in the 20th-century with almost one hundred guitar compositions.  (Castelnuovo Tedesco's "Tarantella" is interpreted by Gulio Tampalini. Accessed April 3, 2019.) 

1905 - Lili Kraus, Hungarian-English Pianist. During World War II she was imprisoned by the Japanese in Southeast Asia, where she had been on concert tour.  After the war,  she became a New Zealand citizen and resumed her career, teaching and touring extensively. In the early 1950s she performed the entire Beethoven sonata cycle with violinist Henri Temianka. From 1967 to 1983, she taught as artist-in-residence at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth.  She served on the jury of the Paloma O'Shea Santander International Piano Competition.  She then made her home in Asheville, North Carolina, where she died in 1986. (Listen and enjoy the Mozart Piano Sonatas she played - here.)

1924 - Marlon Brando, Jr., American actor and film director. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice. One of the greatest and most influential actor in 20th-century film, Brando was also an activist for many causes, notably the civil rights movement and various Native American movements. Having studied with Stella Adler in the 1940s, he is credited with being one of the first actors to bring the Stanislavski system of acting and method acting, derived from the Stanislavski system, to mainstream audiences. He initially gained acclaim and an Academy Award nomination for reprising the role of Stanley Kowalski in the 1951 film adaptation of Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire, a role that he originated successfully on Broadway. He received further praise, and an Academy Award, for his performance as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront, and his portrayal of the rebellious motorcycle gang leader Johnny Strabler in The Wild One proved to be a lasting image in popular culture. Brando also received various Academy Award nominations.

1924 - Doris Day (born Doris Mary Anne Kappelhoff), American actress, singer, and animal welfare activist. She began her career as a big band singer, with two No. 1 recordings, "Sentimental Journey" and "My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time". Day was one of the biggest film stars in the 1950s–1960s era. Her film career began during the Golden Age of Hollywood with the film Romance on the High Seas. She starred in films of many genres, including musicals, comedies, dramas, and thrillers. She played the title role in Calamity Jane, Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much. Her best-known films are those in which she co-starred with Rock Hudson, among them 1959's Pillow Talk, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She worked with many more prominent movie actors. She received various awards including: Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in motion pictures, Presidential Medal of Freedom, Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, among others.

1930 - Helmut Josef Michael Kohl, German statesman and politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who served as Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 (of West Germany, 1982–1990; and of reunified Germany, 1990–1998) and as chairman of the CDU from 1973 to 1998. Kohl's 16-year tenure is the longest of any German Chancellor since Otto von Bismarck, and oversaw the end of the Cold War, the German reunification and the creation of the European Union.

1934 - Jane Morris Goodall, DBE (born Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall; formerly Baroness Jane van Lawick-Goodall, is an English Zoologist, Primatologist and Anthropologist. Considered to be the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees, Goodall is best known for her 60-year study of social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees since she first went to Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania in 1960. She is the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and the Roots & Shoots programme, and she has worked extensively on conservation and animal welfare issues. She has served on the board of the Nonhuman Rights Project since its founding in 1996. In April 2002, she was named a UN Messenger of Peace. Dr. Goodall is also honorary member of the World Future Council.

1958 - Alec Baldwin, (born Alexander Rae Baldwin III), American actor, writer, producer, comedian, and political activist. He is the eldest of the four actor brothers in the Baldwin family. Baldwin first gained recognition appearing on the sixth and seventh seasons of the CBS primetime soap opera Knots Landing. In his early career he then played both leading and supporting roles in a variety of films. Baldwin gained critical acclaim starring as Jack Donaghy on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock, winning two Primetime Emmy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and seven Screen Actors Guild Awards, making him the male performer with the most SAG Awards in history. On stage, he portrayed Stanley Kowalski in the 1992 Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire and the title character in a 1998 Off-Broadway production of Macbeth, the former earning him a Tony Award nomination. Baldwin has received critical acclaim for his portrayal of Donald Trump on the long-running sketch series Saturday Night Live, a role that won him his third Primetime Emmy.

 

1961 - Eddie Murphy (born Edward Regan Murphy), American actor, comedian, writer, producer, and singer. He rose to fame on the sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, for which he was a regular cast member from 1980 to 1984. Murphy has also worked as a stand-up comedian and was ranked No. 10 on Comedy Central's list of the 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time. In films, Murphy has received Golden Globe Award nominations for his performances in 48 Hrs., the Beverly Hills Cop series (1984–present), Trading Places, amongothers. In 2007, Murphy won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor and received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of soul singer James "Thunder" Early in the musical film Dreamgirls. As a singer, Murphy has released three studio albums, including How Could It Be, So Happy, and Love's Alright. He has won numerous awards for his work.
 

Lefties:
None known.

More birthdays and historical events today, 3 April - On This Day.

 

Historical Events

1885 - Gottlieb Daimler patents the first water-cooled engine.

1897 - Johannes Brahms dies of cancer in Vienna, aged 63. Although I love Brahms' famous German Requiem and Symphony No. 1,  an emotional attachment goes to Brahms' Symphony No.3 In F major, Op.90 (Complete, 4 movements). Conductor: Professor Nicolás Pasquet. The Orchestra of the University of Music FRANZ LISZT Weimar, Neue Weimarhalle on May 10th, 2012. (Uploaded by Nathaniel Adams. Accessed April 3, 2017)

April 2 Dateline

Birthdays

1725 - Casanova (born Giacomo Girolamo Casanova), Italian adventurer, philanderer and author. Casanova's autobiography, Histoire de ma vie (Story of My Life), is regarded as one of the most authentic sources of the customs and norms of European social life during the 18th century. Depending on circumstances, he used fictitious names, such as Baron or Count of Farussi (the name of his mother) or Chevalier de Seingalt. He often signed his works Jacques Casanova de Seingalt after he began writing in French following his second exile from Venice. He became so famous for his complicated and elaborate affairs with women that his name is now synonymous with "womanizer". He associated with European royalty, popes, and cardinals, along with luminaries such as Voltaire, Goethe, and Mozart. He spent his last years in the Dux Chateau (Bohemia) as a librarian in Count Waldstein's household, where he also wrote the story of his life.

1805 - Hans Christian Andersen, Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, he is best remembered for his fairy tales. Andersen's popularity is not limited to children. His stories express themes that transcend age and nationality. (Hans Christian Andersen: The Man Behind the Writer. Uploaded by FutureLearn. Hans Christian Andersen. Uploaded by Steven Ward. Accessed April 2, 2016.)

1840 - Émile Zola (born Édouard Charles Antoine Zola), French novelist, playwright, journalist, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism, and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism. He was a major 19th-century novelist known for his realist novels dealing with the working-class. (Zola's Therese Raquin BBC Drama 1979: Part 1/3, Part 2/3, Part 3/3. A disturbing but excellently made, forgotten BBC drama. I think the best adaptation from the book Therese Raquin written by Emile Zola. It's disturbing story set in Paris 1875. Surrounded by a seedy & grimy environment, two people find real love but whose affair is doomed. Uploaded by James Deann. Accessed April 2, 2016. )

1851 - Adolf Davidovich Brodsky, Russian-born violinist, most of his professional life spent in England. He enjoyed a long and illustrious career as a performer and teacher, starting early in Vienna, going on to Moscow, Leipzig, and New York City and finally Manchester. During its course he met and worked with composers such as Tchaikovsky and Elgar. The first performance of Tchaikovsky's famous Violin Concert   was given by Adolph Brodsky on December 4, 1881 in Vienna, under the baton of Hans Richter. (Adolph Brodsky (1851-1929). Accessed April 2, 2021.)

1891 - Max Ernst, German (naturalised American in 1948 and French in 1958) painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. He is noted for his novels consisting of collages. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and surrealism. He had no formal artistic training, but his experimental attitude toward the making of art resulted in his invention of frottage—a technique that uses pencil rubbings of objects as a source of images—and grattage, an analogous technique in which paint is scraped across canvas to reveal the imprints of the objects placed beneath.

1905 - Kurt Herbert Adler, Austrian-born American Conductor and Opera House Director. The Adler Fellowship program was started in his name by Terence A. McEwen to support young singers managed by the San Francisco Opera.

1939 - Martin Gaye (born Marvin Pentz Gay Jr.), American singer, songwriter, and record producer. He helped to shape the sound of Motown, first as an in-house session player and later as a solo artist with a string of hits, earning him the nicknames "Prince of Motown" and "Prince of Soul". His hits include "Ain't That Peculiar", "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)", and "I Heard It Through the Grapevine". Gaye also recorded duets with Diana Ross, among others. He also recorded the albums What's Going On and Let's Get It On. His later recordings influenced several contemporary R&B sub-genres, such as quiet storm and neo soul. He he released "Sexual Healing" the 1982 hit which won his first two Grammy Awards on the album Midnight Love. 

1971 - Todd Andrew Woodbridge, Australian Tennis Player, retired Australian professional Tennis Player and Sports Broadcaster with the Nine Network. He is best known for his successful Doubles partnerships with Mark Woodforde (nicknamed "The Woodies") and later with Jonas Björkman. He is among the most successful doubles players of all time, having won 16 Grand Slam men's doubles titles (nine Wimbledons, three US Opens, three Australian Opens and one French Open), and a further six Grand Slam mixed doubles titles (three US Opens, one French Opens, one Wimbledon, one Australian Open). Additionally, he was a gold medalist with Woodforde at the 1996 Summer Olympics to complete a career Golden Slam. In total he has won 83 ATP doubles titles. Woodbridge reached the World No. 1 doubles ranking in July 1992. In 2002, he was inducted into the Australian Institute of Sport 'Best of the Best'.

Leftie:
Author Hans Christian Andersen 

More birthdays and historical events today, 2 April - On This Day.

 

Historical Events

1513 - Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon discovers Florida.

1930 - Haile Selassie becomes Emperor of Ethiopia.

April 1 Dateline

Today, April 1, is April Fool's Day.  According to The Museum of Hoaxes, "The Origin of April Fool's Day",  references to April Fool's Day can be found as early as the 1500s, however, they were infrequent and tended to be vague and ambiguous.  Many theories have been put forward about how the tradition began. Unfortunately, none of them are very compelling. Therefore, the origin of the "custom of making April Fools" remains as much a mystery to us as it was back in 1708.

 

Birthdays

1866 - Ferruccio Busoni, Italian composer, pianist, and teacher. He met and had close relations with many of the leading musicians, artists and literary figures of his time, and he was sought-after both as a keyboard instructor and as composition teacher. Extremely prolific, he rejected his earlier works and embarked on a highly stylistic ones that incorporated Italianate, occult, virtuoso, post-Bachian polyphonic, and Mozartian elements. He is known for his masterpiece, the opera Doktor Faust, that dismisses Wagnerian music-drama in favour of a highly humanist, warmly lyrical, and a visionary aesthetic. (Busoni's Piano Concerto in C major, Op. 39. Marc-André Hamelin piano. Sibelius Hall, Lahti - 31st March 2001. Uploaded by AllegroModerato. Accessed April 1, 2019. Note: Busoni's Piano Concerto in C major, Op. 39 (BV 247), is one of the largest works ever written in this genre. The concerto lasts around 70 minutes, in 5 movements.)

1873 - Sergei Rachmaninoff (or Sergey Rakhmaninov), Russian composer, conductor of the late Romantic period, and virtuoso pianist. He becomes an American citizen shortly before he died. Some of his works are among the most popular in the Romantic repertoire.  Born into a musical family, Rachmaninoff took up the piano at age four. By the time he graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1892 he had already composed several piano and orchestral pieces. In 1897, following the negative critical reaction to his Symphony No. 1, Rachmaninoff entered a four-year depression and composed little until successful therapy allowed him to complete his enthusiastically received Piano Concerto No. 2 in 1901. For the next sixteen years, he conducted at the Bolshoi Theatre, and relocated to Dresden, Germany, then toured the United States for the first time.(Van Cliburn performs Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18, with Kirill Kondrashin conducting Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra. YouTube, uploaded by classical rarities. Accessed June 5, 2020.) 

1908 - Abraham Harold Maslow, American psychologist, best known for creating Maslow's hierarchy of needs, a theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human needs in priority, culminating in self-actualization. He was a psychology professor at various colleges and universities in the U.S. Maslow stressed the importance of focusing on the positive qualities in people, as opposed to treating them as a "bag of symptoms". A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Maslow as the tenth most cited psychologist of the 20th century.

1909 - Eddy Duchin, American pianist and orchestra leader, famous in jazz circle and was a bandleader during his time. Playing what later came to be called "sweet" music rather than jazz, Duchin opened a similarly styled, piano-playing sweet bandleaders such as Henry King, Joe Reichman, Little Jack Little, and particularly Carmen Cavallaro who acknowledged Duchin's influence, to compete with the large jazz bands for radio time and record sales.

1917 - Dinu Lipatti (born Dinu Constantin Lipatti), Romanian Classical pianist and composer whose career was cut short by his death from causes related to Hodgkin's disease at age 33. He was elected posthumously to the Romanian Academy. (Listen to his beautiful interpretation of Mozart's famous Piano Concerto No. 21 in C, K.467. Uploaded by scartatum. Accessed April 1, 2018.)

1922 - William Manchester, American author, historian and biographer, known for The Glory and the Dream. He was the author of 18 books which have been translated into over 20 languages. He was awarded the National Humanities Medal and the Abraham Lincoln Literary Award.

1940 - Wangari Muta Maathai, Kenyan social, environmental and political activist and the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. She was educated in the United States at Mount St. Scholastica and the University of Pittsburgh, as well as the University of Nairobi in Kenya.

Leftie:
Composer Sergei (Sergey) Rachmaninoff (Rakhmaninov)

 

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

 

Features:

1.  Rachmaninoff and Busoni

2.  Sergey Rachmaninov (Rachmaninoff) and his popular "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43" performed by pianist/composer Stephen Hough.

Historical Events

1747 - George F. Handel's oratorio Judas Maccabaeus is first performed in London.

1826 - The internal combustion engine is patented by U.S. inventor Samuel Morey. It meets with disinterest during Morey's lifetime and is not used in automobiles until the 1890s.

March 31 Dateline

Birthdays

1596 - René Descartes, French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist. A native of the Kingdom of France, he spent about 20 years of his life in the Dutch Republic after serving for a while in the Dutch States Army of Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange and the Stadtholder of the United Provinces. His famous quote: "Cogito ergo sum." (I think; therefore I am.) Philosophy - Rene Descartes. Uploaded by The School of Life. Accessed October 28, 2015.

1685 - Johann Sebastian Bach (31 March O.S. and  21 March N.S.) German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. See my entry for March 21 Dateline: Johann Sebastian Bach. 

1732 - Franz Joseph Haydn, Austrian composer of the Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the piano trio. His contributions to musical form have earned him the epithets "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet". Haydn spent much of his career as a court musician for the wealthy Esterházy family at their remote estate. Until the later part of his life, this isolated him from other composers and trends in music so that he was, as he put it, "forced to become original". Yet his music circulated widely, and for much of his career he was the most celebrated composer in Europe. He was a friend and mentor of Wolfgang A. Mozart, a tutor of Ludwig van Beethoven, and the older brother of composer Michael Haydn.

1872 -  Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev (referred to outside Russia as Serge Diaghilev), Russian art promoter, art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, from which many famous dancers and choreographers would arise. He revitalised ballet by integrating the ideas of other art forms - music, painting, and drama - with those of the dance. From 1906 he lived in Paris, where in 1909 he founded the Ballets Russes. Then he toured Europe and the Americas with his ballet company; he produced three ballet masterpieces by Igor Stravinsky: The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911), and The Rite of Spring (1913). He collaborated with other composers, including: Ravel, Debussy, Satie, Falla and Prokofiev; and a close relationship with such artists as Picasso, Rouault and Bakst, and choreographers Fokine, Nizhinsky, Massin and Balanchine. (Diaghilev and the Ballet Russes. Uploaded by National Gallery of Art. Accessed March 31, 2015. Please note: Read the comment of John Borstlap (Great comment! Couldn't agree more with him! And a book suggested by Dennis Chiapello.) 30 Interesting Facts about Diaghilev. Uploaded by Study Guides. Accessed March 31, 2018)

1914 - Octavio Paz, Mexican poet, diplomat, and critic, best known for The Other Mexico and The Bow and the Lyre. For his body of work, he was awarded the 1981 Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the 1982 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, and the 1990 Nobel Prize in Literature. 

1922 - Richard Paul Kiley, American stage, film and television actor and singer, best known for his "sonorous baritone" voice and distinguished theatrical career winning twice the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical. He created the role of Don Quixote in the original 1965 production of the Broadway musical Man of La Mancha and was the first to sing and record "The Impossible Dream". In the 1953 hit musical Kismet, he played the Caliph in the original Broadway cast and was one of the quartet who sang "And This Is My Beloved". Kiley won four Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards during his 50-year career.

  

1934 - Shirley Mae Jones, American actress and singer. In her six decades in show business, she has starred as wholesome characters in a number of musical films, such as Oklahoma!, Carousel, and The Music Man. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for playing a vengeful prostitute in Elmer Gantry. She played the lead role of Shirley Partridge, the widowed mother of five children, in the musical situation-comedy television series The Partridge Family (1970–1974), which co-starred her real-life stepson, David Cassidy, son of Jack Cassidy. (Rodgers & Hammerstein's Carousel - 1956 - If I loved you duet. Beautiful Duet with Gordon MacRae and Shirely Jones. YouTube, uploaded by Anjaxo. Accessed March 30, 2021.)

1943 - Christopher Walken, (born Ronald Walken), American actor, who has appeared in more than 100 films and television programs, including Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter, A View to a Kill, Batman Returns, True Romance, Catch Me If You Can, Hairspray, and Irreplaceable You, among many others. He has received a number of awards and nominations, including the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for The Deer Hunter. He was nominated for the same award and won BAFTA and Screen Actors Guild Awards for Catch Me If You Can. Walken has also played the lead in the Shakespeare plays Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and Coriolanus. Walken debuted as a film director and screenwriter with the 2001 short film Popcorn Shrimp. He also wrote and played the lead role in the 1995 play Him about his idol Elvis Presley.

1971 - Ewan Gordon McGregor, Scottish actor who has starred in various film and musical roles. Among many others, he has portrayed character roles in drama films, poet Christian in the musical film Moulin Rouge!, young Edward Bloom in Big Fish, "the ghost" in The Ghost Writer, Lumière in the live-action adaptation of the musical romantic fantasy Beauty and the Beast, the adult version in the fantasy comedy-drama Christopher Robin, and Black Mask in the superhero film Birds of Prey. McGregor won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or TV Film for his performance in the third season of FX anthology series Fargo, and received Golden Globe nominations for Best Actor – Musical or Comedy for both Moulin Rouge! and Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. McGregor has served as an ambassador for UNICEF UK since 2004. In 2013 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to drama and charity. In 2016 he received the BAFTA Britannia Humanitarian Award.

Lefties:
Actress Shirley Jones

More birthdays and historical events, March 31 - On This Day
 

 

Listen to Haydn's Hob III:49 - String Quartet Op. 50. 50 No. 6 in D major. YouTube, uploaded by ComposersbyNumbers. (Accessed March 31, 2017). Although famous for his orchestral works, Haydn was also the first master of the string quartet, a teacher of both Mozart (his young friend) and Beethoven, for a brief period.

Historical Events

1814 - Paris surrenders to Russian and Prussian forces, the first time the city ha been taken by foreign forces in 4 centuries. Deserted by most of his generals, Napoleon Bonaparte is forced to abdicate on April 6 and is taken into exile on Elba on April 20.

1889 - The Eiffel Tower is officially opened. Gustave Eiffel, its designer, climbs the 1710 stairs to unfurl the French flag from the third level.

March 30 Dateline

Birthdays

1746 - Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, Spanish Romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries and throughout his long career was a commentator and chronicler of his era.  His paintings, drawings, and engravings reflected contemporary historical upheavals and influenced important 19th- and 20th-century painters; among those influenced by Goya are the Spanish masters Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí who drew influence from Goya's Los caprichos and the Black Paintings. He also earned commissions from the highest ranks of the Spanish nobility,  Goya is often referred to as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns.

 
1853 - Vincent Willem van Gogh, Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. A lot have been written about him. In over a decade he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life. His paintings include landscapes, still lifes, portraits and self-portraits, and are characterised by bold colours and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art. He was not commercially successful, and his suicide at 37 came after years of mental illness and poverty.   (Famous Vincent van Gogh Paintings. Uploaded by Arts Heavaen. Accessed March 30, 2015. Don McLean's "Vincent" - Starry, Starry Night. wysty67. Accessed March 30, 2019. Young Vincent. Thanks to Van Gogh Museum, Netherlands. Accessed April 23, 2020)

1872 - Sergei Nikiforovich Vasilenko was a Russian and Soviet composer, conductor, and music teacher whose compositions showed a strong tendency towards mysticism. (Sergei Vasilenko (1872-1956) : Symphony No. 3 "Italian" (1934). Orchestra of Balalaïka and Wind Orchestra (1934) Conductor: Nikolai Nekrason. Uploaded by collection CB2. Accessed March 30, 2019.)

1880 - Sean O'Casey, Irish dramatist and memoirist. A committed socialist, he was the first Irish playwright of note to write about the Dublin working classes. From the early 1890s, O'Casey and his elder brother, Archie, put on performances of plays by Dion Boucicault and William Shakespeare in the family home. He also got a small part in Boucicault's The Shaughraun in the Mechanics' Theatre, which stood on what was to be the site of the Abbey Theatre.

1937 - Henry Warren Beatty (né Beaty), American actor and filmmaker. He has been nominated for 15 Academy Awards, including four for Best Actor, four for Best Picture, two for Best Director, three for Original Screenplay, and one for Adapted Screenplay – winning Best Director for Reds (1981). Beatty is one of only two people (Orson Welles being the other) to have been nominated for acting in, directing, writing, and producing the same film, and he did so twice: first for Heaven Can Wait (with Buck Henry as co-director), and again with Reds. Eight of the films he has produced have earned 53 Academy nominations, and in 1999, he was awarded the Academy's highest honor, the Irving G. Thalberg Award. Beatty has been nominated for 18 Golden Globe Awards, winning six, including the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award, which he was honoured with in 2007. Among his Golden Globe-nominated films are Splendor in the Grass, his screen debut, and Bonnie and Clyde, Shampoo, Heaven Can Wait, Reds, Dick Tracy, Bugsy, Bulworth and Rules Don't Apply, all of which he also produced.

1968 - Céline Marie Claudette Dion CC OQ, Quebecois Canadian singer. She is renowned for her powerful, technically skilled vocals, and remains the best-selling Canadian recording artist and one of the best-selling artists of all time with record sales of over 200 million worldwide. Born into a large family from Charlemagne, Quebec, she emerged as a teen star in her home country with a series of French-language albums during the 1980s. She first gained international recognition by winning both the 1982 Yamaha World Popular Song Festival and the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest, where she represented Switzerland. After learning to speak English, she signed on to Epic Records in the United States. In 1990, Dion released her debut English-language album, Unison, establishing herself as a viable pop artist in North America and other English-speaking areas of the world.

Leftie:
Celine Dion

More birthdays and historical events, March 30 - On This Day

Listening Pleasure:

GOYA Complete Album - Placido Domingo Musical. Uploaded by Tozmusictv. Accessed March 30, 2017.  

Historical Events

1842 - Dr. Crawford W. Long uses ether as an anaesthetic for the first time when he removes a tumor from a patient's neck.

1856 - The Paris Treaty is signed, bringing the Crimean War to an end.

March 29 Dateline

Birthdays

1902 - Sir William Walton, OM (born William Turner Walton), English composer. During a 60-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera. His best-known works include Façade, cantata Belshazzar's Feast, Viola Concerto, First Symphony, and the British coronation anthems Crown Imperial and Orb and Sceptre. Walton was painstakingly perfectionist, and his complete body of work across his long career is not large. His most popular compositions continue to be frequently performed in the 21st century, and by 2010 almost all his works had been released on CD.

1916 - Eugene Joseph McCarthy, American politician and poet. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959 and the United States Senate from 1959 to 1971. McCarthy sought the Democratic nomination in the 1968 presidential election, challenging incumbent Lyndon B. Johnson on an anti-Vietnam War platform. McCarthy sought the presidency five times, but never won.

1940 - Astrud Gilberto (born Astrud Evangelina Weinert), Brazilian samba and bossa nova singer and songwriter. Known for her unique mellow timbre tone, she gained international attention in the 1960s following her recording of the song "The Girl from Ipanema". Her original recording of "Fly Me to the Moon" was edited as a duet using a recording of the same song by Frank Sinatra. Her recording "Who Can I Turn To?" was sampled by The Black Eyed Peas in the song "Like That" from the 2005 album Monkey Business. Her vocals on "Berimbau" were sampled by Cut Chemist in his song "The Garden". Her recording of "Once I Loved" was featured in the 2007 film Juno. The "Astrud" track on Basia Trzetrzelewska's 1987 album, Time and Tide, is a tribute to Astrud Gilberto. A Legendary Singer Suddenly Passed Away | RIP Girl From Ipanema Singer | Good Bye Astrud Gilberto. YouTube, uploaded by AllinAll. Accessed June 5, 2023. A Gilberto - A Certain Sadness. YouTube, uploade by BasiaDanny. Accessed June 7, 2023.) 

 

1964 - Elle MacPherson (born Eleanor Nancy Macpherson; née Gow), Australian model, TV host and actress, businesswoman. She is known for her record five cover appearances for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue beginning in the 1980s, leading to her nickname "The Body", coined by Time in 1989. She is the founder, primary model, and creative director for a series of business ventures, including Elle Macpherson Intimates, a lingerie line, and The Body, a line of skin care products. She has been the host and executive producer of Britain & Ireland's Next Top Model from 2010 to 2013. She is an executive producer of NBC's Fashion Star and was the host for the first season. As an actress, Macpherson appeared in supporting roles in The Mirror Has Two Faces and as Julie Madison in Batman and Robin, also lead roles in The Edge and South Kensington.

Lefties:
None known
 

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



Feature:

Pyotr Tchaikovsky's opera Eugene Onegin. PR Production. New Year's Music Festival 2014. (24.XII.2014'-1.I.2015').  Accessed March 29, 2017.

Historical Events

1461 - The Battle of Towton takes place, part of the Wars of the Roses between the houses of Lancaster and York, represented by a red and white rose respectively. Towton is a victory for the Yorkists. 

1795 - Ludwig van Beethoven performs his Piano Concerto No. 2 in Bb at a concert in Burgtheater, Vienna.

March 28 Dateline

Birthdays

1483 - Santi Raphael, Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance (birthday is not certain, could be March 28 or April 6). The works of Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, known as Raphael, is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur.

1868 - Maxim Gorky (born Alexei Maximovich Peshkov), Russian and Soviet novelist and playwright, a founder of the socialist realism literary method, and a political activist. He was also a five-time nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

1871 - Willem Mengelberg,  Dutch conductor famous especially for his performances of Mahler and Strauss with the Concertgebouw Orchestra.  (Mengelberg conducts Mahler's Symphony No. 4. Live recording, Amsterdam, XI.1939. Accessed March 28, 2017. So engaging, can't help but listen intently. Brilliant conducting from Mengelberg!) 

1943 - Sir Richard Henry Simpson Stilgoe OBE DL, is a British songwriter, lyricist and musician, and broadcaster who is best known for his humorous songs and frequent television appearances. His output includes collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber and Peter Skellern. He is also a keen puzzler who has hosted several quiz shows and written several books on the subject.  Stilgoe is also notable for his charity work and fundraising.

1921 - Dirk Bogarde (Sir Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde), English actor and writer. Initially a matinée idol in films such as Doctor in the House for the Rank Organisation, Bogarde later acted in art-house films. In a second career, he wrote seven best-selling volumes of memoirs, six novels and a volume of collected journalism, mainly from articles in The Daily Telegraph. Bogarde came to prominence in films including The Blue Lamp in the early 1950s, before starring in the successful Doctor film series. He twice won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, for The Servant and Darling. His other notable film roles included Victim, Accident, The Damned, Death in Venice, The Night Porter, A Bridge Too Far and Despair. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters in 1990 and a Knight Bachelor in 1992. (Haunting scenes from Death in Venice/Muerte en Venecia, starring Dirk Bogarde, (uploaded by Nick Tsormas), and more scenes (uploaded by Morrissot), with a poignant theme from Mahler's Symphony No. 5, "Adagietto" in Movement 4. Directed by Luchino Visconti, based on the great novel by Thomas Mann. Uploaded by Nick Tsormas. Accessed  March 28, 2018.

1924 - Freddie Bartholomew (born Frederick Cecil Bartholomew), English-American child actor. One of the most famous child actors of all time, he became very popular in 1930s Hollywood films. His most famous starring roles are in Captains Courageous (1937) and Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936). Freddie Bartholomew was born in London, and for the title role of MGM's David Copperfield (1935) he emigrated to the United States at the age of 10, living there the rest of his life. He became an American citizen in 1943 following World War II military service. Despite his great success and acclaim following David Copperfield, his childhood film stardom was marred by nearly constant legal battles and payouts which eventually took a huge toll on both his finances and his career. After World War II service, his film career dwindled, and he switched from performing to directing and producing in the medium of television.(Lord Fauntleroy (1936) - Full Movie. Described and Captioned Media Program. Accessed March 28, 2018.) 

Lefties:
None known

 

More birthdays and historical events, March 28 - On This Day

Historical Events

1854 - The Crimean War begins when France and Britain declare war on Russia to stop the Russians from controlling sections of the crumbling Ottoman empire.  

1930 - The Turkish Post Office officially changes Constantinople's name to Istanbul, a name used by Arabs since the thirteenth century that derives from the Greek phrase eis ten polin, "in the city." The city was originally named for the Roman emperor Constantine, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. Constantine converted to Christianity when he saw a vast cross in the sky. It is said that his vision may have coincided with a meteor strike reported that same time, great enough to create a cloud that looked like a cross. He wanted Christian relics of similar stature to St peter, so had the bones of St Andrew, another apostle, brought to Constantinople. Some of them were later taken by a monk shipwrecked off the coast of Scotland, which somehow got its link to St. Andrew.

March 27 Dateline

Birthdays

1785 - Louis XVII of France ((born Louis Charles, Duke of Normandy), the younger son of King Louis XVI of France and Queen Marie Antoinette. His older brother, Louis Joseph, Dauphin of France, died in June 1789, a little over a month before the start of the French Revolution. At his brother's death he became the new Dauphin (heir apparent to the throne), a title he held until 1791, when the new constitution accorded the heir apparent the style of Prince Royal. When his father was executed on 21 January 1793, the middle period of the French Revolution, he succeeded as the king of France, Louis XVII. France was by then a republic, so he never actually ruled. But in 1814 after the Bourbon Restoration, his uncle acceded to the throne and was proclaimed Louis XVIII.

1851 - Vincent d'Indy, French composer and teacher. Few of his works are performed regularly today. His best known pieces are probably the Symphony on a French Mountain Air (Symphonie sur un chant montagnard français, also known as Symphonie cévenole) for piano and orchestra (1886), and Istar (1896), a symphonic poem in the form of a set of variations in which the theme appears only at the end. Vincent d'Indy's works show the influence of Franck, Berlioz and especially of Wagner. D'Indy helped revive a number of then largely forgotten early works, for example, making his own edition of Claudio Monteverdi's opera L'incoronazione di Poppea. His musical writings include the studies of Franck and Beethoven.

 
1863 - Sir Frederick Henry Royce, 1st Baronet, OBE, English engineer famous for his designs of car and aeroplane engines with a reputation for reliability and longevity. With Charles Rolls (1877 – 1910) and Claude Johnson, he founded Rolls-Royce. He initially focused on large 40-50 horsepower motor cars, the Silver Ghost and its successors. Royce produced his first aero engine shortly after the outbreak of the First World War and aircraft engines became Rolls-Royce's principal product. His health broke down in 1911 and he was persuaded to leave his factory in the Midlands at Derby and, taking a team of designers, move to the south of England spending winters in the south of France.

1868 -  Patty Smith Hill, American songwriter and teacher who created our endeared "Happy Birthday" song.  She co-wrote the tune which was "Happy Birthday to You" later, simply "Happy Birthday". She was an American nursery school, kindergarten teacher, and key founder of the National Association for Nursery Education (NANE) which now exists as the National Association For the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).

1924 - Sarah Lois Vaughan, American jazz singer, Nicknamed "Sassy" and "The Divine One", she won four Grammy Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award. She was given an NEA Jazz Masters Award in 1989. Vaughan had numerous accolades and awards. Among other awards were: the album Sarah Vaughan with Clifford Brown and the single "If You Could See Me Now" were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, an award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least twenty-five years old and have "qualitative or historical significance." In 1985 she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and in 1988 she was inducted into the American Jazz Hall of Fame. She was given the George and Ira Gershwin Award for Lifetime Musical Achievement at the UCLA Spring Sing. San Francisco and Berkeley, California, made March 27 Sarah Lois Vaughan Day.

1927 - Mstislav Leopoldovich "Slava" Rostropovich, Soviet and Russian Cellist and Conductor. He is considered to be one of the greatest cellists of the 20th century. (Here's an absolute favourite, Rostropovitch and Britten interpreting Schubert's Sonata for Arpeggione and Piano in A. Uploaded by RDZ Nagano. Accessed March 27, 2016.)

1942 - Michael Hugh York,  English actor. A two-time Emmy Award nominee, for the ABC Afterschool Special: Are You My Mother? (1986) and the AMC series The Lot (2001), he has appeared in more than 70 films, including Romeo and Juliet, Cabaret, The Three Musketeers, Logan's Run, Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, and the Austin Powers film series (1997–2002).

1952 - Maria-Hélène Schneider, known professionally as Maria Schneider, was a French actress. In 1972 at the age of nineteen she starred opposite Marlon Brando in Last Tango in Paris, but was traumatized by a rape scene and hounded by unsavoury publicity she subsequently declined to appear nude in roles for even the most prestigious directors. Although Michelangelo Antonioni's The Passenger showcased her abilities, a reputation for walking out of films mid-production resulted in her becoming unwelcome in the industry. An incautious attitude to drugs and their toll on her mental health made what should have been banner years for her increasingly chaotic. She re-established stability in her personal and professional life in the early 1980s, and became an advocate for equality and improving the conditions actresses worked under.

1963 - Quentin Jerome Tarantino, American film director, screenwriter, producer, and actor. His films are characterized by nonlinear storylines, dark humor, aestheticization of violence, extended scenes of dialogue, ensemble casts, references to popular culture and a wide variety of other films, eclectic soundtracks primarily containing songs and score pieces from the 1960s to the 1980s. His film, Pulp Fiction, a crime comedy, was a major success and won him numerous awards, including the Palme d'Or and the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. He has received many industry awards, including two Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, and the Palme d'Or, and has been nominated for an Emmy and five Grammys. In 2005, he was included on the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world. In December 2015, Tarantino received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to the film industry.

Leftie:
Prince Louis XVII of France
 

More birthdays and historical events, March 27 - On This Day

 

Historical Events

1306 - Robert the Bruce is crowned king of Scotland and begins to fight for Scottish independence. England recognizes Scotland as a separate nation in 1328, one year before his death. 

1625 - James I, King of England and Scotland, dies and Charles I becomes King. He also claims the throne of France, though the French ignore him. His reign is fraught with religious and political conflict, resulting in civil war.  He believed that he had a "divine right" to rule, that his power is granted by God. He lost the English Civil War.

March 26 Dateline

Birthdays

 

1850 - Edward Bellamy, American author, journalist, and political activist most famous for his utopian novel, Looking Backward. Bellamy's vision of a harmonious future world inspired the formation of numerous "Nationalist Clubs" dedicated to the propagation of Bellamy's political ideas. Looking Backward was one of the most commercially successful books published in the United States in the 19th century, and it especially appealed to a generation of intellectuals alienated from the dark side of Gilded Age. In the early 1890s, Bellamy established a newspaper known as The New Nation and began to promote united action between the various Nationalist Clubs and the emerging Populist Party. He published Equality, a sequel to Looking Backward.

1859 - A.E. Housman (Alfred Edward Housman), English Classical scholar and poet, best known for his cycle of poems A Shropshire Lad. Lyrical and almost epigrammatic in form, the poems wistfully evoke the dooms and disappointments of youth in the English countryside. Their beauty, simplicity and distinctive imagery appealed strongly to Edwardian taste, and to many early 20th-century English composers both before and after the First World War. Housman was one of the foremost classicists of his age and has been ranked as one of the greatest scholars who ever lived. He established his reputation publishing as a private scholar and, on the strength and quality of his work, was appointed Professor of Latin at University College London and then at the University of Cambridge. His editions of Juvenal, Manilius and Lucan are considered authoritative.

1874 - Robert Lee Frost, American poet laureate. His work was initially published in England before it was published in America. He was a Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech, Frost frequently wrote about settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and philosophical themes. Frost was honored frequently during his lifetime and is the only poet to receive four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry. He became one of America's rare "public literary figures, almost an artistic institution." He was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1960 for his poetic works. On July 22, 1961, Frost was named poet laureate of Vermont. (Robert Frost - American Poet & Four-time Pulitzer Prize Winner | Mini Bio. YouTube, uploaded by Biography.

1911 - Tennessee Williams (Thomas Lanier Williams), Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and author. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the three foremost playwrights of 20th-century American drama. He became famous with the success of The Glass Menagerie. It was the first of a string of successes, including A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Sweet Bird of Youth, and The Night of the Iguana. His drama A Streetcar Named Desire is often numbered on short lists of the finest American plays of the 20th century alongside Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.

1925 - Pierre Boulez, CBE, French conductor, composer, writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of the post-war classical music world. Boulez was one of the dominant figures of post-war contemporary classical music.He also co-founded the Cité de la musique, a concert hall, museum and library dedicated to music in the Parc de la Villette in Paris and, in Switzerland, the Lucerne Festival Academy, an international orchestra of young musicians, with which he gave first performances of many new works.

 
1940 - James Edmund Caan, American actor. After early role in The Glory Guys (1965), for which he received a Golden Globe nomination. He came to prominence in the 1970s with significant roles in films such as Brian's Song, Cinderella Liberty, The Gambler, Funny Lady and A Bridge Too Far. For his signature role in The Godfather (1972), that of hot-tempered Sonny Corleone, Caan was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the corresponding Golden Globe. Caan's subsequent notable performances include roles in Thief, Misery, For the Boys, Bottle Rocket and Elf, as well as the role of "Big Ed" Deline in the television series Las Vegas. He prominently lent his voice to Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2. Caan was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1978 with a motion pictures star located at 6648 Hollywood Boulevard.

1944 - Diana Ross, American singer, actress, and record producer. She rose to fame as the lead singer of the vocal group The Supremes, who during the 1960s became Motown's most successful act, and are the best-charting female group in US history. Following her departure from the Supremes in 1970, Ross released her eponymous debut solo album that same year, featuring the No. 1 Pop hit "Ain't No Mountain High Enough". She later released the album Touch Me in the Morning in 1973; its title track was her second solo No. 1 hit. She continued a successful solo career through the 1970s, which included hit albums like Mahogany and Diana Ross and their No. 1 hit singles, "Theme from Mahogany" and "Love Hangover", respectively.  Her final single with Motown during her initial run with the company achieved her sixth and final US number one Pop hit, the duet "Endless Love" featuring Lionel Richie, whose solo career was launched with its success.(Diana Ross sings "Theme from Mahogany", uploaded by Shooofly. Accessed March 26, 2016.) 

1947 - John Edward Rowles, KNZM OBE (born 26 March 1947) is a New Zealand singer. He was most popular in the late 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s, and he was best known in New Zealand for his song from 1970, "Cheryl Moana Marie", which he had written about his younger sister.(John Rowles' "If I Only Had Only Time". Uploaded by C. R. Waetford. Accessed December 1, 2016.)

1985 - Keira Knightly, English actress. She is the recipient of an Empire Award and has been nominated for two BAFTA Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and two Academy Awards. Her breakthrough came with the film Bend It Like Beckham. She received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress for starring as Elizabeth Bennet in Pride & Prejudice; subsequently became known for starring in period dramas, including Atonement, The Duchess, A Dangerous Method, Anna Karenina, and Colette. She received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress portraying Joan Clarke in the historical drama The Imitation Game. On stage, Knightly has appeared on the West End in production of The Misanthrope, which earned her a nomination for a Laurence Olivier Award. She starred as the eponymous heroine in the 2015 Broadway production of Thérèse Raquin. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2018 Birthday Honours for services to drama and charity.


Leftie:
Actor James Caan

Death:
1827 - Composer Ludwig van Beethoven  

 

More birthdays and historical events, March 26 - On This Day
 

 

Historical Events

1723 - Johann Sebastian Bach's St John Passion is first performed on Good Friday services at St. Thomas-Kirche, in Leipzig. 

1827 - Ludwig van Beethoven dies in Vienna, aged 56.

March 25 Dateline

Birthdays

1867 - Arturo Toscanini, Italian conductor, one of the most acclaimed musicians conductor of the late 18th and 19th century and renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his eidetic memory. He was at various times the music director of La Scala in Milan, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and the New York Philharmonic. Later in his career he was appointed the first music director of the NBC Symphony Orchestra (1937–54), and this led to his becoming a household name (especially in the United States) through his radio and television broadcasts and many recordings of the operatic and symphonic repertoire.

1881 - Bela Bartok, Hungarian composer and pianist. With Zoltan Kodaly, Bartok collected folksongs extensively. (Enjoy a recording of his Concerto for Orchestra (here) or Pinchas Zukerman playing Bartok's Violin Concerto No. 2, First Movement, Allegro non troppo  [Part 1/4], with Los Angeles Philharmonic, Zubin Mehta conducting - here.)

1928 - James Lovell (James Arthur Lovell Jr.), retired American astronaut, naval aviator, and mechanical engineer. In 1968, as command module pilot of Apollo 8, he became one of the first three humans to fly to and orbit the Moon. He then commanded the 1970 Apollo 13 lunar mission which, after a critical failure en route, circled around the Moon and returned safely to Earth through the efforts of the crew and mission control. He was the first person to fly into space four times, and the also the first to fly to it twice. He is a recipient of the Congressional Space Medal of Honor and the Presidential Medal of Freedom (in 1970, as one of 17 recipients in the Space Exploration group), and co-author of the 1994 book Lost Moon, on which the 1995 film Apollo 13 was based.

1934 - Gloria Marie Steinem, American feminist journalist and social political activist. Steinem was a columnist for New York magazine, and a co-founder of Ms. magazine. In 1969, Steinem published an article, "After Black Power, Women's Liberation", which brought her to national fame as a feminist leader. In 1971, she co-founded the National Women's Political Caucus which provides training and support for women who seek elected and appointed offices in government. Steinem, Jane Fonda, and Robin Morgan co-founded the Women's Media Center, an organization that "works to make women visible and powerful in the media".

1942 - Aretha Louise Franklin, American singer, songwriter, actress, pianist, and civil rights activist. Franklin began her career as a child singing gospel at New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit, Michigan, where her father C. L. Franklin was a minister. At the age of 18, she embarked on a secular-music career as a recording artist for Columbia Records. Hit songs such as "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)", "Respect", "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman", "Chain of Fools", "Think", and "I Say a Little Prayer" propelled her past her musical peers. By the end of the 1960s, she had come to be known as the "Queen of Soul". Franklin recorded numerous singles on Billboard, R&B entries, etc. She received numerous honours in her career. The Pulitzer Prize jury in 2019 awarded Franklin a posthumous special citation "for her indelible contribution to American music and culture for more than five decades". In 2020, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

1943 - Paul Michael Glaser, American actor and director best known for his role as Detective Dave Starsky on the 1970's television series, Starsky & Hutch. Glaser also played Captain Jack Steeper on the NBC series Third Watch.

1965 - Sarah Jessica Parker, American actress and producer. She is known for her role as Carrie Bradshaw on the HBO television series Sex and the City, for which she won two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress in a Comedy Series and three Screen Actors Guild Awards. She later reprised the role in films Sex and the City (2008) and Sex and the City 2 (2010). Parker made her Broadway debut at the age of 11 in the 1976 revival of The Innocents, before going on to star in the title role of the Broadway musical Annie in 1979. She made her first major film appearances in the 1984 dramas Footloose and Firstborn. Her other film roles include L.A. Story, Honeymoon in Vegas, The First Wives Club, among others. She starred as Frances Dufresne in the HBO series Divorce, for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award. Since 2005, she has run her own production company, Pretty Matches, which has been creating content for HBO and other channels.

1947 - Sir Elton Hercules John CH Kt CBE (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight), English singer, songwriter, pianist, and composer. Collaborating with lyricist Bernie Taupin since 1967 on more than 30 albums, John has sold over 300 million records, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. He has more than fifty Top 40 hits in the UK Singles Chart and US Billboard Hot 100, including seven number ones in the UK and nine in the US, as well as seven consecutive number-one albums in the US. His tribute single "Candle in the Wind 1997", rewritten in dedication to Diana, Princess of Wales, sold over 33 million copies worldwide and is the best-selling single in the history of the UK and US singles charts. He has also produced records and occasionally acted in films.

Lefties:
Astronaut James Lovell
Actor Paul Michael Glaser
Actress Sarah Jessica Parker

More birthdays and historical events, March 25 - On This Day
 

 

Historical Events

1807 - The British Parliament passes the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act, banning the trade of human beings throughout the empire. 

1957 - France, West Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg sign the Treaty of Rome to form the European Economic Community. 

1969 - John Lennon and Yoko Ono begin their first "bed-in for peace" in Amsterdam.

March 24 Dateline

Birthdays

1693 - John Harrison, (3 April [O.S. 24 March]), English carpenter and clockmaker who invented the marine chronometer, a device for solving the problem of calculating longitude while at sea. His solution revolutionized navigation and greatly increased the safety of long-distance sea travel. The problem he solved was considered so important following the Scilly naval disaster of 1707 that the British Parliament offered financial rewards of up to £20,000 (equivalent to £3.17 million in 2020) under the 1714 Longitude Act. Toward the end of his life, he received recognition and a reward from Parliament. Harrison came 39th in the BBC's 2002 public poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.

1808 - Maria Felicia Malibran, nee Garcia, Spanish opera singer,  who commonly sang both contralto and soprano parts, and was one of the best-known opera singers of the 19th century. Malibran was known for her stormy personality and dramatic intensity, becoming a legendary figure after her death, Sept 1836, Manchester, UK, at the age of 28. She was the sister of Pauline Viardot, a leading 19th century French mezzo-soprano, pedagogue, and composer. She lived with composer Charles Auguste de Bériot and had a child (Charles-Wilfrid de Bériot, a piano professor). They were married in 1836 when Malibran obtained an annulment of her previous marriage.
 
1874 - Harry Houdini (born Erik Weisz, later Ehrich Weiss or Harry Weiss), Hungarian-born American illusionist and stunt performer, noted for his sensational escape acts. He first attracted notice in vaudeville in the United States and then as "Harry 'Handcuff' Houdini" on a tour of Europe, where he challenged police forces to keep him locked up. Soon he extended his repertoire to include chains, ropes slung from skyscrapers, straitjackets under water, and having to escape from and hold his breath inside a sealed milk can with water in it.

1930 - Steve McQueen (born Stephen Terrence McQueen), American actor. McQueen was nicknamed "The King of Cool", and his antihero persona developed at the height of the counterculture of the 1960s made him a top box-office draw during the 1960s and 1970s. McQueen received an Academy Award nomination for his role in The Sand Pebbles. His other popular films include The Cincinnati Kid, Love With the Proper Stranger, The Thomas Crown Affair, Bullitt, The Getaway, and Papillon, as well as the all-star ensemble films The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, and The Towering Inferno. In 1974, he became the highest-paid movie star in the world, although he did not act in films again for four years. McQueen was combative with directors and producers, but his popularity placed him in high demand and enabled him to command large salaries.

1936 - David Takayoshi Suzuki CC OBC FRSC, Canadian academic, science broadcaster and environmental activist. He earned a Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Chicago, and was a professor in the genetics department at the University of British Columbia. Suzuki has been known for his television and radio series, documentaries and books about nature and the environment. He is also best known as host and narrator of the popular and long-running CBC Television science program The Nature of Things, seen worldwide. A longtime activist to reverse global climate change, Suzuki co-founded the David Suzuki Foundation in 1990, "to find ways for society to live in balance with the natural world that does sustain us".

1951 - Tommy Hilfiger (Thomas Jacob Hilfiger), American fashion designer and founder of Tommy Hilfiger Corporation. After by co-founding a chain of jeans/fashion stores called People's Place in upstate New York in the 1970s, he began designing preppy clothing for his own eponymous menswear line. The company later expanded into women's clothing and various luxury items such as perfumes. Hilfiger's collections are often influenced by the fashion of music subcultures and marketed in connection with the music industry. In 2006, Hilfiger sold his company for $1.6 billion to Apax Partners, who next sold it to Phillips-Van Heusen for $3 billion. He remains the company's principal designer, leading the design teams and overseeing the entire creative process. In 2012, Hilfiger was awarded the Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America.

Lefties:
Actor Steve McQueen
Fashion entrepreneur Tommy Hilfiger
 

More birthdays and historical events, March 24 - On This Day

 

 

Sibelius' Symphony No. 7 with L. Bernstein conducting the Vienna Philharmonic 

Historical Events

1603 - On the death of Queen Elizabeth I of England and Ireland, King James VI of Scotland succeeds to the English throne, uniting the two countries, and becoming James I. QEI dies after a reign of 44 years, ending the Elizabethan age that saw the Spanish Armada smashed in 1588, prominence of Shakespeare, Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake prominent, and a huge period of expansion in English power at sea and on land.   

1882 - Dr. Robert Koch announces in Berlin that he has isolated the bacterium responsible fffor tuberculosis. He receives the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1905.

March 23 Dateline

Birthdays

1878 - Franz Shreker, Austrian late Romantic composer, first won success with his ballet Der Geburstag der Infantin, and still more, with his opera Der ferne Klang (The Distant Sound). He was a popular composer in the early decades of the 20th century, until his music was banned by the Nazis because he was of Jewish background. Der ferne Klang, his first major work, is a late Romantic opera of grand passions. Briefly, the opera is about Fritz, a composer, and Grete Graumann, the daughter of a poor retired officer, in love. Fritz wants to marry Grete, but he tells her that before that happens, he has to write a great piece of music and discover the mysterious distant sound ("der ferne Klang") which he hears within him. Grete tries in vain to convince him to stay with her. Fritz leaves his childhood sweetheart and goes in search of the distant sound.(Trailer of  Der ferne Klang, uploaded by theaterbonn. Accessed March 23, 2019.)

1887 - Juan Gris (born José Victoriano (Carmelo Carlos) González-Pérez), Spanish painter born in Madrid who lived and worked in France most of his life. Closely connected to the innovative artistic genre Cubism, his works are among the movement's most distinctive.

1900 - Erich Fromm, German psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, democratic socialist, a Jew who fled the Nazi regime and settled in the US.  He was one of the Founders of The William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. The word biophilia was used by Fromm as a description of a productive psychological orientation and "state of being". For example, in an addendum to his book The Heart of Man: Its Genius For Good and Evil, Fromm wrote as part of his humanist credo: "I believe that the man choosing progress can find a new unity through the development of all his human forces, which are produced in three orientations. These can be presented separately or together: biophilia, love for humanity and nature, and independence and freedom." E. Fromm postulated eight basic needs: Transcendence, Rootedness, Sense of Identity, Frame of Orientation, Excitation & Stimulation, Unity, and and Effectiveness. (The Art of Love | Erich Fromm - The art of loving. Uploaded by 5 Minute Concepts. Accessed March 23, 2021.)

1908 - Joan Crawford (born Lucille Fay LeSueur), American film and television actress. She debuted as a chorus girl on Broadway before signing a motion picture contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1925, her career spanning six decades. Her films ranged in genres from contemporary crime, melodramas, film noir, historical costume dramas, romances, mysteries, musicals, suspense, horror, to three westerns and over a dozen comedies. Her greater successes and perhaps most memorable performances were in romantic dramas and melodramas. In 1999, The American Film Institute ranked Crawford tenth on its list of the greatest female stars of Classic Hollywood Cinema.

1910 - Akira Kurosawa, Japanese film director and screenwriter, who directed 30 films in a career spanning 57 years. He is regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema.
ore entering the Japanese film industry in 1936, he had a brief stint as a painter. He made his debut as a director during WWII with the popular action film Sanshiro Sugata (a.k.a. Judo Saga). After the war, the critically acclaimed Drunken Angel (1948), in which Kurosawa cast then-unknown actor Toshiro Mifune in a starring role. The two men collaborated on another 15 films. Kurosawa directed approximately one film per year, including a number of highly regarded (and often adapted) films, such as Ikiru, Seven Samurai and Yojimbo. His final two epics, Kagemusha and Ran continued to win awards. In 1990, he accepted the Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement. Posthumously, he was named "Asian of the Century" in the "Arts, Literature, and Culture" category by AsianWeek magazine and CNN, cited there as being among the five people who most prominently contributed to the improvement of Asia in the 20th century.

1944 - Michael Nyman, English composer, librettist, musicologist and pianist, known for numerous film scores / soundtracks, and minimalist music. Many of his film scores were written in collaboration with filmmaker Peter Greenaway. He is also known for his multi-platinum soundtrack album to Jane Campion's The Piano. (See feature linked below)


Lefties:
None known

More birthdays and historical events, March 23 - On This Day



Features:

Film Soundtrack of the The Piano composed by Michael Nyman. 

Historical Events

1729 -  Johann Sebastian Bach's  St Matthew Passion is first performed, in Leipzig.

1917 - Leonard and Virginia Woolf establish the Hogarth Press.

March 22 Dateline

Birthdays

1599 - Sir Anthony Van Dyck, Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England after success in the Southern Netherlands and Italy. Van Dyck worked in London for some months in 1621, then returned to Flanders briefly, before travelling to Italy, where he stayed until 1627. In the late 1620s he completed his greatly admired Iconography series of portrait etchings. In 1632 he returned to London to be the main court painter, at the request of Charles I of England. With the exception of Holbein, van Dyck and Diego Velázquez were the first painters to work mainly as court portraitists, revolutionising the genre. He is best known for his portraits of the aristocracy, most notably Charles I, his family and associates. Van Dyck became the dominant influence on English portrait-painting for the next 150 years. He also painted mythological and biblical subjects, including altarpieces,and was an important innovator in watercolour and etching. The Van Dyke beard is named after him. Charles I granted him a knighthood, and he was buried in St Paul's Cathedral.

1887 - Chico Marx (born Leonard Joseph Marx),  American Comedian, Musician, Actor and Film star.  He was a member of the Marx Brothers (with Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, and Zeppo Marx). His persona in the act was that of a charming, uneducated but crafty con artist, seemingly of rural Italian origin, who wore shabby clothes and sported a curly-haired wig and Tyrolean hat. On screen, Chico is often in alliance with Harpo, usually as partners in crime, and is also frequently seen trying to con or outfox Groucho. He was the oldest of the Marx Brothers to live past early childhood (first-born Manfred Marx died in infancy). Chico Marx playing piano. 10 films. Complete. Uploaded by FairDealDan. Accessed March 22, 2018.

1923 - Marcel Marceau, French actor and mime artist most famous for his stage persona as "Bip the Clown". He referred to mime as the "art of silence" and he performed professionally worldwide for over 60 years. As a youth, he lived in hiding and worked with the French Resistance during most of World War II, giving his first major performance to 3,000 troops after the liberation of Paris in August 1944.  Following the war, he studied dramatic art and mime in Paris. Marceau established his own pantomime school in Paris, and set up the Marceau Foundation to promote the art in the U.S. Among his various awards and honours he was made "Grand Officier de la Légion d'Honneur" and was awarded the National Order of Merit in France. He won the Emmy Award for his work on television, was elected member of the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin and was declared a "National treasure" in Japan.

1930 - Stephen Sondheim, American songwriter/lyricist and composer, known for his work in musical theater.  He's considered one of the most important figures in 20th-century musical theater. His best-known works as composer and lyricist include A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Follies, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Sunday in the Park with George, and Into the Woods. He is also  known for writing the lyrics for West Side Story and Gypsy. Sondheim has received an Academy Award, eight Tony Awards (more than any other composer, including a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre), eight Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize, a Laurence Olivier Award, a 2015 Presidential Medal of Freedom, and more.

1931 - William Shatner,  Canadian actor, author, producer, director, screenwriter, and singer. He became a cultural icon for his portrayal of Captain James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise in the Star Trek franchise. He has written a series of books chronicling his experiences playing Captain Kirk, being a part of Star Trek, and life after Star Trek. Shatner has also co-written several novels set in the Star Trek universe, and a series of science fiction novels called TekWar, that were adapted for television. Shatner also played the eponymous veteran police sergeant in T. J. Hooker (1982–1986) and hosted the reality-based television series Rescue 911 (1989–1996), which won a People's Choice Award for Favorite New TV Dramatic Series. Among others, he starred as attorney Denny Crane both in the final season of the legal drama The Practice and in its spinoff series Boston Legal, a role that earned him two Emmy Awards. Shatner has also pursued a career in music and spoken word recordings since the late 1960s, having released eight albums.
1943 - George Washington Benson, American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. A former child prodigy, Benson first came to prominence in the 1960s, playing jazz guitar, and soul jazz with Jack McDuff and others. He then launched a successful solo career, alternating between jazz, pop, R&B singing, and scat singing. His album Breezin' was certified triple-platinum, hitting no. 1 on the Billboard album chart in 1976. Benson has been honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1948 - Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber, English composer and impresario of musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of variations, two film scores, and a Latin Requiem Mass. Multi-awarded, including a knighthood, several of Andrew Lloyd Webber's songs have been widely recorded and were hits, "The Music of the Night" and "All I Ask of You" from The Phantom of the Opera, "I Don't Know How to Love Him" from Jesus Christ Superstar, "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" from Evita, "Any Dream Will Do" from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and "Memory" from Cats.

1976 - Laura Jeanne Reece Witherspoon, American actress, producer, and entrepreneur. The recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award, she is one of the highest-paid actresses in the world as of 2019. Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2006 and 2015, and Forbes listed her among the World's 100 Most Powerful Women in 2019. Her breakthrough came in 1999 with a supporting role in Cruel Intentions, and for her portrayal of Tracy Flick in the black comedy Election. Other wider recognition followed with critical acclaim including her starring role in the romantic comedy Sweet Home Alabama. Her portrayal of June Carter Cash in the biographical musical film Walk the Line, won her the Academy Award for Best Actress. Witherspoon has since begun work in television, by producing and starring in the HBO drama series.

Lefties:
None known

More birthdays and historical events, March 22 - On This Day
 

 

Featuring the music of two great composers of musicals:  Stephen Sondheim (1930) and Andrew Lloyd Webber (1948):

Judi Dench - The Definitive "Send in the Clowns - South Bank Show 1995. The video features Dame Judi Dench on the South Bank Show in 1995, which centers around her appearance in the revival of Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music. Its a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler. Inspired by the Ingmar Bergman film Smiles of a Summer Night, it involves the romantic lives of several couples. The profile ends with this performance of the ever popular "Send In The Clowns."



Phantom of the Opera Live - 1988 Tony Awards. The Phantom of the Opera musical is composed by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Charles Hart, with additions from Richard Stilgoe. It is based on the French novel Le Fantôme de l'Opéra by Gaston Leroux. Its central plot revolves around Christine, a beautiful soprano, who becomes the obsession of a mysterious, disfigured musical genius living in the subterranean labyrinth beneath the Palais Garnier.

Historical Events

1457 - The Gutenberg Bible, the first printed book, is published. It is named after the inventor of the printing press, Johannes Gutenberg.

1834 - Horace Greeley and Jonas Winchester establish a weekly literary and new journal, the New Yorker.