Sarah Jessica Parker, Actress

Sarah Jessica Parker

Sarah Jessica Parker is born on March 25, 1965, in Nelsonville, Ohio. She is an American film, television, theatre actress and producer.  She is best known for her leading role as Carrie Bradshaw on the HBO television series Sex and the City (1998–2004), for which she won four Golden Globe Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and two Emmy Awards.

Parker played the same role in the 2008 feature film based on the show, Sex and the City: The Movie,  and in its sequel, Sex and the City 2, which opened on May 26, 2010. She has also appeared in many other films, including Footloose (1984), The Family Stone (2005), Smart People (2008), and Did You Hear About the Morgans? (2009).

Image Credit:  Wiki Commons

Steve McQueen, Actor

Steve McQueen in The Towering Inferno

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

• … that moles on the left side of the face and body were at tone believed to be signs of evil and witchcraft.

• … that along the Niger River, among some African tribes, women were forbidden to use their left hands when cooking, for fear of incurring supernatural poisoning.

Matthew Broderick, Actor

Matthew Broderick

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.

Left-handers often make great musicians because of their exceptional musical memories, despite the scarcity of left-friendly instruments.

Some Musical Lefties – singers, songwriters, musicians all:

• Phil Collins

• Kurt Cobain

• Bela Fleck

• Glenn Frey

• Paul McCartney

• Peter Nero

• Lou Rawls

George Michael, left-handed British pop idol, was near-sighted and color-blind, and introverted. He’s quoted:  “The whole idea of being a physically attractive personality never really occurred to me.”

• To spot a lefthanded artist or painter, look for the direction of his or her shading. Most shade lines of the lefties artists go from top left to bottom right.

• For much faster starts and more momentum off the block, it is advised that left-footed sprinters begin with their right leg back and left arm forward.

• Carl Philipp Emanuel (CPE) Bach
• Ludwig Van Beethoven
• John Cage
• Cole Porter
• Sergei (or Sergey) Prokofiev
• Sergei (or Sergey)  Rachmaninoff
• Maurice Ravel
• Robert Schumann

Cole (Albert) Porter (1891-1964) is an American composer and songwriter. Unlike most successful Broadway composers, he wrote both the lyrics and the music for his songs. His musicals include Fifty Million Frenchmen, Anything Goes and Can-Can. His numerous hit songs include “Night and Day,” “I Get a Kick out of You” and “I’ve Got You Under my skin.” He also composed scores for films from the 1930s to the 1950s.

Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre. He achieved success in the 1920s, and by the 1930s he was one of the major songwriters for the Broadway.

After a serious horseback riding accident in 1937, he continued to work despite constant pain. In 1947 he made a triumphant comeback with his most successful musical, Kiss Me, Kate.

If interested for profiles of other classical music composers, please visit Mozart and Classical Music.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

In 1993, left-handed U.S. president Bill Clinton chose left-handed Ruth Bader Ginsburg to be his first Supreme Court nominee. Supreme Court Justice Ruth ader Binsburg was confirmed as the 107th justice to the high court.

Ruth Joan Bader Ginsburg is born on March 15, 1933, in Brooklyn, New York. She is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton.

The second female justice (after Sandra Day O’Connor) and the first Jewish female justice, Ginsburg too the oath of office August 10, 1993.

She is an advocate for the equal citizenship status of women and men as a constitutional principle. She was a professor at Rutgers School of Law—Newark and Columbia Law School. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Forbes named her among the 100 Most Powerful Women in 2009.

References:

• Members of the Supreme Court of the United States. Retrieved April 26, 2010.

• The 100 Most Powerful Women. Forbes.com. August 19, 2009.

Albert Einstein, Physicist

Albert Einstein, Theoretical Physicist, famous for the Theory of Relativity

It’s not easy to write about someone whose life and works have been written numerous times over.

Albert Einstein (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955), was a German-born physicist who discovered the theory of general relativity, that affected a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics. He received the 1921Nobel Prize in Physics “for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect”. Earlier in his career, he thought that the Newtonian mechanics was no longer sufficient to hold on the laws of classical mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. His scientific pursuits led to the development of his special theory of relativity.

Einstein also investigated the thermal properties of light that laid the foundation of the photon theory of light. Around 1917, Albert Einstein applied the general theory of relativity to model the structure of the universe.

Related articles:

Albert Einstein Biography

Albert Einstein as Philosopher of Science

Image Credit:  F Schmutzer, Wikimedia Commons

NZ Golfer Sir Robert “Bob” Charles

Sir Robert James Charles, ONZ, KNZM, CBE, is born 14 on March 1936, in Carterton, New Zealand. He is a professional golfer whose achievements rank him among the most successful left-handed golfers of all time. He is the first lefty to win a golf major, then winning more than 70 titles, beating his age twice during a tournament as a 71 year-old.

It was at the 1963 Houston Classic that he became the first lefty to win on the PGA tour.