Starring Mary Martin as Maria and Theodore Bikel as Captain
von Trapp, the original Broadway production of The Sound
of Music premiered at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on November
16, 1959, where it won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical
and Best Leading Actress. It later moved to the Mark Hellinger,
where it would end its lauded run on June 15, 1963 after 1,443
performances.
Leslie Allen Jordan (April 29, 1955 – October 24, 2022)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Leslie Jordan, the actor whose wry
Southern drawl and versatility made him a comedy and drama
standout on TV series including “Will & Grace” and “American
Horror Story,” has died. The Emmy-winner, whose videos turned
him into a social media star during the pandemic.
Jordan died after his car hit the side of a building in Hollywood
after having experienced a possible medical episode which led
to the crash. He was declared dead at the scene.
Jordan appeared as one of four guest panelists on July 28,
2022, on the Gutfeld! TV show on Fox News.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson is retiring from full-time racing and will
turn his focus toward spending time with family.
He figures his future schedule will include no more than
10 bucket-list events, but the 47-year-old had no idea
Monday what that schedule will look like. He turned
47 September 17th.
ED DANAHUE
Sofia Loren is 88 years young today.
As of 2022, Loren is one of the last surviving major
stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema and
is the only remaining living person on AFI ‘s list.
Encouraged to enroll in acting lessons after entering
a beauty pageant, Loren began her film career at age
sixteen in 1950.
Loren’s performance as Cesira in the film Two Women
(1961) directed by Vittorio De Sica won her the Academy
Award for Best Actress, making her the first actor to win
an Oscar for a non-English-language performance.
She holds the record for having earned seven David
di Donatello Awards for Best Actress. She has won
five special Golden Globes (including the Cecil B.
DeMille Award), a BAFTA Award, a Laurel Award, a
Grammy Award, the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the
Venice Film Festival and the Best Actress Award at the
Cannes Film Festival. In 1991, she received the Academy
Honorary Award for lifetime achievements.
John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. (1902 – 1968)
Writer John Steinbeck was presented the U.S. Medal of Freedom
on September 14, 1964. Steinbeck had already received numerous
other honors and awards for his writing, including the 1962 Nobel
Prize and a 1939 Pulitzer Prize for Grapes of Wrath.
Steinbeck, a native Californian, studied writing intermittently at
Stanford between 1920 and 1925 but never graduated. He moved
to New York and worked as a manual laborer and journalist while
writing his first two novels, which were not successful. He married
in 1930 and moved back to California with his wife. His father, a government official in Salinas County, gave the couple a house to
live in while Steinbeck continued writing.
His first novel, Tortilla Flat, about the comic antics of several
rootless drifters who share a house in California, was published
in 1935. The novel became a financial success.
