Hmmm...Do-Re-Milla's birthday list for theater-related birthday on Dec. 8th is up. I wonder who's celebrating a brithday tomorrow.
Today's Birthdays 12/8
Posted by: do_re_milla
Queen of Scots Mary 12/8/1542 - 2/8/1587 Scottish queen, source mat'l
Queen of Sweden Christina 12/8/1626 - 4/19/1689 Swedish queen, source mat'l
Camille Claudel 12/8/1864 - 10/19/1943 French sculptor, source mat'l
Jean Sibelius 12/8/1865 - 9/20/1957 Finnish composer, violin lovers, take a listen to Oistrak's performance of the Sibelius vln concerto
Diego Rivera 12/8/1886 - 11/25/1957 Mexican painter, politically controversial murals in Ministry of Education Building, National Palace and other government buildings in Mexico City, Rockefeller Ctr (painted over), source mat'l
James Thurber 12/8/1894 - 11/2/1961 writer: New Yorker magazine; author: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, My World and Welcome to It, The Last Flower, Is Sex Necessary? - The Male Animal (Leon Ames, Don DeFore, Elliott Nugent, Ruth Matteson, Gene Tierney)
Lee J. Cobb 12/08/1911 - Feb 11, 1976 performer, Husband of Helen Beverly (? - ?) divorced - Till the Day I Die (Robert Lewis, Russell Collins, Elia Kazan); Thunder Rock (Frances Farmer); Death of a Salesman; King Lear (Rene Auberjonois, Philip Bosco, Paul Rudd); tv's THE VIRGINIAN
Richard Fleischer 12/8/1916 director, author; son of pioneering animator Max Fleischer; nephew of Dave Fleischer, brother-in-law of Seymour Kneitel studied drama at Yale and joined New York's RKO-Pathé newsreel operation in 1942, where he wrote and directed for the "This Is America" series and wrote and produced "Flicker Flashbacks." His success there earned him a chance to move to the "real" RKO studio in Hollywood, where he proved his mettle on a series of suspenseful, noirish grade-B programmers like Bodyguard (1948, based on a story cowritten by Robert Altman!); His memoir, "Just Tell Me When to Cry," was published in 1993 - tv's & film's 20000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)(terrific cast, Kirk Douglas, James Mason, Paul Lukas, Peter Lorre, & the seal! 1 of my fav Disney movies); The Happy Time (Charles Boyer, Louis Jourdan, Marsha Hunt, Linda Christian, Bobbie Driscoll); Barrabbas (Anthony Quinn, Silvana Mangano, Vittorio Gassman, Jack Palance, Ernest Borgnine, Simone Signoret, Sharon Tate[Extra (uncredited)); Fantastic Voyage; Dr. Doolittle; The Boston Strangler; Conan the Destroyer; Darkness at High Noon: The Carl Foreman Documents
Sammy Davis Jr. 12/8/1925 - May 16, 1990 husband of Loray White (1958 - 1959) divorced; May Britt (1960 - 196 divorced; Altovise Gore (1970 - 1990) his death; nephew of Will Maston, son of Sammy Davis, Sr., performer - entertainer: Sammy and Company, NBC Follies; group: The Will Mastin Trio; actor: The Kid Who Loved Christmas, Cannonball Run series, Sweet Charity, A Man Called Adam, Robin and the 7 Hoods, The Three Penny Opera, Ocean’s 11, Porgy and Bess, Golden Boy, Mr. Wonderful, Rufus Jones for President; member: The Rat Pack; author: Why Me?
Maximilian Schell 12/8/1930 performer - Academy Award-winning actor: Judgment at Nuremberg [1961]; Little Odessa, Abraham, Stalin, The Freshman, Peter the Great, The Chosen, Julia, The Man in the Glass Booth, The Odessa File, Heidi, The Young Lions, Wiseguy
David Carradine 12/08/1936 performer, half-brother of Keith Carradine; son of John Carradine - Royal Hunt of the Sun (Judd Jones, Chris Plummer)
James MacArthur 12/8/1937 - performer; adopted son of actress Helen Hayes & Charles MacArthur - Invitation to a March; tv's & film's Hawaii Five-O: Dano of “Book ’em, Dano”, Hang ’Em High, Spencer’s Mountain, The Interns, The Swiss Family Robinson
Graciela Daniele 12/08/1939 Writer, Lyricist, Choreographer, Director, Performer, Other, Production Crew, Creative Consultant; Wife of Jules Fisher - What Makes Sammy Run?; Coco; Follies; Chicago; 1981 The Pirates of Penzance (Kevin Kline, Estelle Parsons, Linda Ronstadt, Alix Korey); The Mystery of Edwin Drood; The Goodbye Girl; Ragtime; Annie Get Your Gun; Chita Rivera: The Dancer's Life
John Rubinstein 12/8/1946 husband of Jane Lanier, son of piano great Arthur Rubinstein, performer - Pippin; Fools; Getting Away With Murder (Christine Ebersole, Terrence Mann); Tony Award-winning actor: Children of a Lesser God [1980]; Crazy Like a Fox, Family, composer: score: The Candidate
Bruce Kimmel 12/8/1947 producer, performer, author, director - Producer of numerous theater albums, including The King and I (Donna Murphy, Lou Diamond Phillps); Bells are Ringing (Faith Prince); preserved many theater songs that might have gone unheard with the Lost in Boston series and the Unsung Musicals series; author of the novel "Writer's Block" (2004 - murder mystery novel about a musical's out-of-town tryout) and “Rewind” (2005); founder of Kritzerland label in 2005 (After The Ball, New Guy In Town, The Last Starfighter, among others), film's: writer, director and co-star of The First Nudie Musical (1979)
SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:
1903 Mam'selle Napoleon is Anna Held in this musical at the Knickerbocker Theatre. Produced by Held's husband Florenz Ziegfeld, with a score by Gustav Luders, this show will have a 43-performance run.
1925 "Why a duck?" The ineffable question is first asked on Broadway today, the opening night of the George S. Kaufman/Irving Berlin musical The Cocoanuts at the Lyric Theatre with four young stars who overshadowed even the august writing team: The Marx Brothers, Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Zeppo. The anarchic nonsense about the Florida land rush runs 377 performances and is made into a classic film (minus most of the songs).
1930 Cole Porter scandalizes Broadway with the streetwalker's lament, "Love For Sale," in the musical The New Yorkers, which opens tonight at B.S. Moss's Broadway Theatre for a run of 168 performances. Included in the huge cast are Jimmy Durante and Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians.
1943 John Van Druten's romantic comedy The Voice of the Turtle opens today at the Morosco Theatre, and goes on to a remarkable 1,557-performance run.
1948 Rex Harrison is Henry VIII and Joyce Redman is Anne of the Thousand Days, by Maxwell Anderson. This drama dealing with the King's betrothal and marriage to Anne Boleyn will run 286 performances.
1949 - One of America’s classic Broadway plays, and later, a major motion picture, debuted. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes began its long run at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City. Carol Channing starred in the musical and charmed audiences with the show’s songs such as her trademark signature, Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.
1963 - Florence Henderson and Jose Ferrer co-starred in The Girl Who Came to Supper on Broadway. The production, however, only lasted for 112 shows.
1965 Lauren Bacall and Barry Nelson star in Cactus Flower. Abe Burrows directs and also adapted this work from Fleur de Cactus by Pierre Barillet and Jean-Pierre Gredy.
1991 One of the biggest musical flops of the 1990s, Nick & Nora, opens tonight at the Marquis Theatre -- and closes 9 performances later, despite a book by Arthur Laurents, score by Charles Strouse and Richard Maltby Jr., and performances by Joanna Gleason, Barry Bostwick and Faith Prince.
1994 Not a good date for Faith Prince, who opens on Broadway playing a dead housewife who returns to life in Donald Margulies' What's Wrong With This Picture?. It runs 12 performances at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre.
2002 Baz Luhrmann's staging of the opera La Boheme opens on Broadway today, with a directorial concept that makes it resemble a Broadway musical. The show will run 228 performances and win a special Tony honor for its three rotating casts of leads.