Famous Left-hander Birthday, March 24

Steve McQueen, Actor

Terrence Steven “Steve” McQueen (March 24, 1930 – November 7, 1980), was born in Beech Grove, Indiana.  Nicknamed “The King of Cool”, he was a very popular American movie actor in his time, most especially famous in The Great Escape among others. He was an avid racer of cars and motorcycles, and he also designed and patented a bucket seat and transbrake for race cars.

In films, he was known for his “anti-hero” persona roles which made him one of the top box-office draws of the 1960s and 1970s. In 1974, he became the highest-paid movie star in the world.

McQueen received an Academy Award nomination for his role in The Sand Pebbles. Aside the The Sand Pebbles and The Great Escape, his other most popular films include The Magnificent Seven, The Thomas Crown Affair, Bullitt, The Getaway, Papillon, and The Towering Inferno.  

McQueen is recognized for performing many of his own stunts, especially the majority of the stunt driving during the high-speed chase scene in Bullitt.

McQueen’s Marriages:   Neile Adams (1956-1972, divorced with 2 children; Ali MacGraw, 1973-1978; divorced; Marbara Minty, 1980 until his death.

He died at the age of 50, in Chihuahua, Mexico

 

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Famous Lefthander Birthday, March 21

Matthew Broderick, Actor

Matthew Broderick is born on March 21, 1962, in New York City. He is an American film and stage actor who, among other roles, played the title character in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,  and Leo Bloom in the film and Broadway productions of The Producers.

Broderick is well-known for his boyish charm. He won two Tony Awards for Best Actor – in 1983 for Brighton Beach Memoirs and in 1995, for How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying.

He is married to actress Sarah Jessica Parker.

 

Famous Left-hander Birthday, March 5

Actor Rex Harrison

Sir Reginald “Rex” Carey Harrison (5 March 1908 – 2 June 1990) was an English actor of stage and screen. Harrison won both an Academy Award and a Tony Award.  He first appeared on the stage in 1924 in Liverpool. His acting career was interrupted during World War II whilst he served in the Royal Air Force.

He acted in the West End of London when he was young, appearing in the Terence Rattigan play French Without Tears, which proved to be his breakthrough role.

He alternated appearances in London and New York in such plays as Bell, Book and Candle (1950), Venus Observed, The Cocktail Party, and The Love of Four Colonels, which he also directed.  He won his first Tony Award for his appearance as Henry VIII in Anne of the Thousand Days and international superstardom (and a second Tony Award) for his Henry Higgins in the musical My Fair Lady, in which he appeared opposite a young Julie Andrews. He had other later appearances including Pirandello’s Henry IV. He also had and one on Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre presented by Douglas Urbanski.

His film debut was in The Great Game (1930), and other notable early films include The Citadel (1938), Night Train to Munich (1940), Major Barbara (1941), Blithe Spirit (1945), Anna and the King of Siam (1946), The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), and The Foxes of Harrow (1947).

He was best known for his portrayal of Professor Henry Higgins that won him a Best Actor Oscar co-starring with Audrey Hepburn in the 1964 film version of My Fair Lady. This was based on the Broadway production of the same name, on George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion. He also starred in Doctor Dolittle (1967) then as an aging homosexual man opposite Richard Burton as his lover in Staircase (1969).

Harrison retired from films in the late 1970s, but continued to act on Boadway until his death. He suffered from glaucoma and a failing memory. He returned as Henry Higgins in a highly paid revival of My Fair Lady directed by Patrick Garland in 1981, cementing his association with the plays of George Bernard Shaw which included a Tony nominated performance as Shotover in Heartbreak House, Julius Caesar in Caesar and Cleopatra, and General Burgoyne in a Los Angeles production of The Devil’s Disciple.

In 1989 he appeared on Broadway in The Circle by W. Somerset Maugham, when he fell ill. He died of pancreatic cancer on 2 June 1990, aged 82.

He acted in various stage productions until 11 May 1990.

Famous Left-hander Birthday, March 1

Actor Alan Thicke

Alan Thicke, born Alan Willis Jeffery on March 1, 1947, is a Canadian actor, songwriter, and game and talk show host. He is best known for his role as Jason Seaver, the Patriarch on the TV series Growing Pains on the ABC.

Before finding success with television sitcoms, he took on Johnny Carson in the late-night talk show wars with his “Thicke of the Night.”

As a theme song composer, Thicke has had a successful career. He collaborated with his wife Gloria Loring on these projects, which included the themes to the popular sitcoms Diff’rent Strokes and The Facts of Life. He wrote a number of TV game show themes, including The Wizard of Odds (for which he also sang the vocal introduction), The Joker’s Wild, The Diamond Head Game, the original theme to Wheel of Fortune, among others.

Thicke has also been a popular songwriter. For instance, he co-wrote “Sara”, a solo hit for Bill Champlin and included on the latter’s Runaway album in 1981. He also wrote the theme song for the sitcom The Facts of Life.

Famous Left-handers, February 28

 

• Linus Pauling, Scientist

• Milt Caniff, Strip Cartoonist

• Robert Sean Leonard, Actor

 

Milt Caniff created his first daily comic strip, “Dickie Dare” in 1933 before creating his more famous “Terry and the Pirates” and “steve Canyon” strips.

Famous Left-hander Birthday, February 6

Former American President Ronald Reagan

Although a natural left-handed, the late former American president Reagan was converted to right-handed in writing when he was in Grammar school.

Any reader interested may want to check out: United States Presidents Trivia and First Ladies of the White House.

Birthday Celebrant, January 21

Telly Savalas, Actor

Aristotelis “Telly” Savalas (January 21, 1922-January 22, 1994) was a Greek-born American actor and singer.  He was best known for playing the title role in the 1970s crime drama Kojak.  He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Birdman of Alcatraz (1962).

Savalas’s other movie credits include:

• 1961 The Young Savages
• 1965  The Greatest Story Ever Told
• 1965  Battle of the Bulge
• 1967  The Dirty Dozen
• 1969  On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
• 1970  Kelly’s Heroes
• 1971  Pretty Maids All in a Row
• 1975  Inside Out
• 1979  Escape to Athena

Savalas died January 22, 1994, a day after his birthday aged 72.

Actor Robert De Niro

The son of a painter and a poet, actor extraordinaire and lefty Robert De Niro has won two Academy Awards.

He won the Best Actor Award in 1980 for his role in Raging Bull, and the Best Supporting Actor Award for his role in The Godfather Part II.

He heads up his own film company, Tribeca Film Center.

Lefty Celebrant, January 1

Frnak Langella, Actor