If they were still alive....

...today would be the birthday of the following notables:


Albert Einstein was born 132 years ago.  He was the father of modern day physics.  Here he is (above) in 1904, aged 25...say...he wasn't bad-looking, was he?  And I'm really digging his outfit...very "fashion forward" for '04.  And here he is (below) at his 72nd birthday party in 1951.  Rumor has had it for decades that he and Marilyn Monroe had a fling at about that time....just pause for a moment....and imagine that pairing!  Talk about "fun couples"!!





                                                      (Above:  Diane Arbus)
Ground-breaking, brilliant photographer Diane Arbus would be 88.  Arbus's "fly-on-the-wall" style of absurdist/realist portraiture captured "ordinary" New Yorkers just being themselves.  And rarely has ordinary been so bizarre.  Her legacy is "the woman who photographed freaks"...but she was so much more than that.  Her black and white, square portraits are so full of depth and texture.  She had a singular way of creating little "snapshot dramas" with one frame of film.  She was the textbook "tortured artist," and took her own life at the age of 48, in her small apartment at The Westbeth, the complex of city-subsidized housing for artists that, miraculously, is still extant, despite the neighborhood's (The Meatpacking District) explosion of "hipness".  She remains the building's most famous former denizen.


(Pictured left:  Ketcham with his son....yes, named "Dennis")
Hank Ketcham, the "father" of  Dennis the Menace, would turn 90.  He created, wrote and drew the cartoon from 1951 to 1994 when he retired, until his death 7 years later.









Broadway/TV glamour girl Anita Morris would be 68 today.  She first achieved fame in the original Broadway cast of the musical Nine (her role was played in the recent film version (BOMB) by Penelope Cruz).  Sadly, she died at the age of 50, after a valiant, 15-year battle with ovarian cancer.

***************************************************


And 59 years ago today, one of the first co-hosts of NBC's brand new Today Show (he debuted a year after the show did, in 1953, at the tender age of one) was born in French Cameroon.  He was christened J. Fred Muggs.  And in the "WHO KNEW???" category....he's still ALIVE!  Yes, J. Fred lives outside Tampa, Florida, happily and comfortably retired, along with his girlfriend, Phoebe B. Beebe (I am not making this up!).  Between you and me, I find this news rather shocking!  And did you know that J. Fred's co-host, Dave Garroway, hated him, and was instrumental in getting him fired from the show--for upstaging him with his simian hijinks?  I think Fred should have shown him a thing or two and ripped his face off.

Here he is, wreaking havoc on another show, called Make the Connection, hosted by Gene Rayburn.  Now that I think of it, maybe Dave Garroway had a point....can you imagine doing a live TV broadcast every morning with a crazed chimpanzee?  And Fred was on that show for 4 years!  He was hugely popular, and was/is credited with helping to convince vast numbers of people to invest in their first TV sets.  But more importantly:  I wonder why Phoebe B. Beebe never took Fred's last name?