October 29 Dateline

Birthdays

1656 - Edmond Halley, English astronomer famous for "Halley's Comet."  Halley's Comet is arguably the most famous comet. It is a "periodic" comet and returns to Earth's vicinity about every 75 years, making it possible for a human to see it twice in his or her lifetime. The last time it was here was in 1986, and it is projected to return in 2061.

1947 - Richard Stephen Dreyfus, American actor, best known for starring in popular films during the 1970s and 1980s, including American Graffiti, Jaws, Stand by Me, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, The Goodbye Girl, Tin Men, Stakeout, Always, What About Bob?, and Mr. Holland's Opus. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1978 for The Goodbye Girl, and was nominated in 1995 for Mr. Holland's Opus. He has also won a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA Award, and was nominated in 2002 for Screen Actors Guild Awards in the Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series and Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie categories.

1948 - Lucy Kate Jackson, American actress and television producer, best known for her television roles as Sabrina Duncan in the series Charlie's Angels and Amanda King in the series Scarecrow and Mrs. King. Her film roles include Making Love and Loverboy. She is a three-time Emmy Award nominee and four-time Golden Globe Award nominee. Her role as Sabrina Duncan on Charlie's Angels saw her appear on the front cover of Time magazine, alongside co-stars Farrah Fawcett and Jaclyn Smith, while her role as Mrs. King won her Germany's Bravo Golden Otto Award for Best Female TV Star three times. She starred in numerous TV movies, including Quiet Killer, Empty Cradle and Satan's School for Girls, a remake of the 1973 TV movie of the same name in which she also starred.

1971- Winona Ryder (Winona Laura Horowitz), American actress. She gained attention with her performance in Tim Burton's Beetlejuice. She garnered two consecutive Academy Award nominations for her portrayals of socialite May Welland in Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence and Jo March in the film adaptation of Little Women. Her other films were Reality Bites, How to Make an American Quilt, The Crucible, Celebrity, and Girl, Interrupted, which she also executive produced. In 2002, Ryder took a break from films, returning in 2009 with the high-profile film Star Trek. In 2010, she was nominated for two Screen Actors Guild Awards: as the lead actress in the television film When Love Is Not Enough: The Lois Wilson Story and as part of the cast of Black Swan. Since 2016, she has starred as Joyce Byers in the Netflix science fiction horror series Stranger Things, for which she has received Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations; in 2020, she starred in the HBO drama miniseries The Plot Against America. Ryder is honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. 

Lefties:
Richard Dreyfuss
Kate Jackson
Winona Ryder

 

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

 

Historical Events

1787 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera Don Giovanni is first performed in Prague, the composer himself conducting. Don Giovanni remained a favourite for many years to this day. Playing in the title role is baritone Luigi Bassi. Source: Wiki

1929 - The US stock market collapses, causing mass panic, with investors in panic and selling shares. The loss of millions of dollars led to The Great Depression bringing in a decade of mass unemployment and poverty.

October 28 Dateline

Birthdays

1803 - Caroline Unger, Hungarian contralto. She turned the deaf Beethoven's head around to hear applause at the performance of his famous Ninth Symphony.

1903 - Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh, English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books, a prolific Journalist and book Reviewer. His most famous works include the early satires Decline and Fall and A Handful of Dust, the novel Brideshead Revisited, and the Second World War trilogy Sword of Honour. Waugh s recognised as one of the great prose stylists of the English language in the 20th century. Waugh converted to Catholicism in 1930 after his first marriage failed. His traditionalist stance led him to strongly oppose all attempts to reform the Church, and the changes by the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) greatly disturbed his sensibilities, especially the introduction of the vernacular Mass. That blow to his religious traditionalism, his dislike for the welfare state culture of the postwar world, and the decline of his health all darkened his final years, but he continued to write. He displayed to the world a mask of indifference, but he was capable of great kindness to those whom he considered his friends. After his death, he acquired a following of new readers through the film and television versions of his works, such as the television serial Brideshead Revisited (1981). (Evelyn Waugh Face to Face BBC Interview. Uploaded by george harris. Accessed October 28, 2017.)

1907 - Edith Head, American costume designer. She won a record eight Academy Awards for Best Costume Design between 1949 and 1973. She started her career as a Spanish teacher, but was interested in design. After studying at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, she was hired as a costume sketch artist at Paramount Pictures in 1923. She won acclaim for her design of Dorothy Lamour’s trademark sarong in the film The Jungle Princess, and became a household name after the Academy Award for Best Costume Design was created in 1948. Head was considered exceptional for her close working relationships with her subjects, with whom she consulted extensively; these included virtually every top female star in Hollywood.She worked at Paramount for 44 years. In 1967, the company declined to renew her contract, and she was invited by Alfred Hitchcock to join Universal Pictures where she earned her eighth and final Academy Award for her work on the famous The Sting, starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford.

1909 - Francis Bacon - Irish-born English figurative painter known for his raw, unsettling imagery. Focusing on the human form, his subjects included crucifixions, portraits of popes, self-portraits, and portraits of close friends, with abstracted figures sometimes isolated in geometrical structures. He rejected various classifications of his work and claimed that he strove to render "the brutality of fact." 

 

1927 -  Dame Cleo Laine DBE, English jazz and pop singer and an actress, known for her scat singing and for her vocal range. Though her natural range is that of a contralto, she is able to produce a G above high C, giving her an overall compass of well over three octaves. (Cleo Laine with John Williams (guitar) - He was beautiful (Cavatina). Uploaded by Betaman31252. Accessed May 11, 2021. Cleo Laine - Not a Day Goes By. YouTube, uploaded by pbamse. Accessed June 25, 2022.)

1955 - Bill Gates (William Henry Gates III) - American principal founder/pioneer of Microsoft, business magnate / entrepreneur, philanthropist, author. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of Chairman, CEO and Chief Software Architect, while also being the largest individual shareholder until May 2014.(Bill Gates Breaks Down 6 Moments from his Life / WIRED. Uploaded by WIRED. Accessed October 28, 2019.)

1967 - Julia Roberts, American actress and producer. She established herself as a leading lady in Hollywood after headlining the romantic comedy film Pretty Woman, which grossed $464 million worldwide. She has won three Golden Globe Awards, from eight nominations, and has been nominated for four Academy Awards for her film acting, winning the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Erin Brockovich. Roberts was the highest-paid actress in the world throughout most of the 1990s and in the first half of the 2000s. People magazine has named her the most beautiful woman in the world a record five times.

Lefties:
Bill Gates

Julia Roberts - In the film "Erin Brockovich" lefty Julia Roberts played in the character role of Erin Brockovich-Ellis who is right-handed. Julia had to learn how to use her right hand, naturally. She obviously did very well. She won the Oscar for Best Actress, didn't she?

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

 

Historical Events

1636 - Harvard University is founded with a bequest from John Harvard, an English-born Puritan. It is the oldest univeristy in the U.S.

1893 - Tchaikovsky conducts the first performance of his Symphony No. 6, "Pathetique," in St. Petersburg, nine days before his death. It's his final completed symphony, written between February and the end of August 1893. The music lasts for 45 minutes in four movements. Tchaikovsky dedicated it to his nephew Vladimir Davidov. This symphony might be about death, but he considered: "the best thing I have composed"; indeed, for any lover of the composer's music, it is deeply engaging, so full of confidence and energy.  


 

1948 - Swiss chemist Paul Mueller is awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery of the insecticidal properties of DDT.