Saturday, November 21, 2009

Birthday Suits, That Girl Those Girls

1694 Voltaire, Enlightment philosopher, writer, progressive. Candide is his work that's most familiar to modern audiences having been filmed, adapted, and put on lists like this one as well as being adapted into a popular and oft-revived comic operetta. Kristin Chenoweth doing "Glitter and Be Gay" is theater heaven.
1912 Eleanor Powell, queen of tap. Broadway Rhythm it's got me Everybody...



1938 Marlo Thomas, That Girl. Yes, that one.
1941 Juliet Mills, Globe nominated film actress (Avanti!) best known for TV roles. She was a cougar before they had a word for it, marrying hunky Maxwell Caulfield when she was 39 and he was 21, before he'd even made Grease 2. They're still married, going on thirty years now. Today's generation might know her best as witchy Tabitha from her long campy run on daytime soap Passions.
1943 Brigitte Broch, favored production designer of both Baz Luhrmann (Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge!) and Alejandro González Iñárritu (Powder Keg, Babel, 21 Grams, Amores Perros). Oscar winner (Moulin Rouge!)
1944 Harold Ramis actor/writer/director/ghostbuster
1945 Goldie Hawn, giggler
1952 Lorna Luft daughter of high maintenance legend, half sister of high maintenance legend. 'my mother! my sister! my mother! my sister!' *slap*
1956 Cherry Jones theater giant, tv president, film cameoist (seriously... where are the bigger roles?) and right on awesome gay activist. Most famously, she's the original Sister Aloysius in Doubt. Check out how many big names she had to beat for her Tony statue below. Curiously both of her Tony Awards are for Oscar-loved film roles from two-time winners: Olivia de Havilland in The Heiress (1949) and Meryl Streep in Doubt (2008).



1965 Björk, genius
1984 Jena Malone actress, Jake Gyllenhaal makeout partner. Currently onscreen riding Ben Foster in her birthday suit in The Messenger.

5 comments:

Kevin said...

Get on aim.

Jeff said...

your comment about Bjork was spot on! happy birhday genius!

Ross said...

Along with the Golden Globe nomination, Juliet Mills won an Emmy for 'QBVII' and was nominated for an Emmy for her most famous role in 'Nanny and the Professor.'

MrW said...

Two more, even though they may be better known for their television work: Nicolette Sheridan (*1963 - it shouldn't have been too hard finding a birthday suit image of her) and Alexander Siddig (*1965 - best in show in 'Syriana', at least as far as my memory of the film serves).

adri said...

I love Eleanor Powell! She has one of the best smiles in film, sparkling and joyful. Of all Fred Astaire's dance partners on screen, she was the one who was his equal as a dancer. I like it, that her being so good, and sometimes better, delighted him. That's one of his traits as a superlative partner, that he was so appreciative of the wonderful individual qualities of the women he danced with.

You can see in this clip that they take turns doing the "boy/girl" bits - for example in the turns where she taps and he puts his leg back in a mini-arabesque and lets her turn him. With his other partners. he's be doing the tapping. But they're equals, so they take turns in doing all the bits. Such fun. And they both love dancing so much.