If they were alive....

....today would be the birthday of the following notables--it's an all-boys party again today:



Freddie Bartholomew would be 87!  Holy Cow!  I can't wrap my head around that one....little David Copperfield?  The adorable Little Lord Fauntleroy?  The perky kid in Captains Courageous?  Eighty Seven?  Maybe it's hard to believe because he sort of just disappeared as he hit puberty and fell out of the public spotlight, forever locking "little Freddie" in our collective conscious.  He was a fine little actor, and remarkably un-cloying and overly "precious".  He held his own against some of the top actors of the 1930's--Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable, Tyrone Power, Fredric March....and even Greta Garbo (in Anna Karenina).  Who ever saw a photo of him as an adult?  I hadn't, until I just went and found one....this is him in 1992, just weeks before he died at the age of 67, looking jolly and hale.  Happy birthday, Freddie...you did a fine job, I'd say....








Charles Starrett would be 108.  Not very well remembered today, but in the early 1930's, he was one of the handsomest B-movie heroes around.  He ambled into Westerns (though he was, in fact, a wealthy Massachusetts heir) and actually became one filmdom's most popular Western heroes, "The Durango Kid," a series in which he starred as The Kid in over 100 films until 1952, when he retired from the screen to roll around in some of his serious dough.

 Dirk Bogarde  would be 90.  Bogarde was a hugely talented, somewhat temperamental actor, born in London in 1921.  He is perhaps better remembered in the U.K. than the U.S, though he made several Hollywood films that did respectable business in the States.  It would seem that his finest performance, the crowning achievement to his long, wildly varied career, was his performance as "Aschenbach" in Luchino Visconti's film version of the Thomas Mann novella, A Death In Venice.  His slow, heartbreaking "walking death" through the crumbling world around him in Venice is startling; a voyeur's peek into the sad existence of a tormented, lonely man.  Bogarde moved more into the realm of writing, becoming perhaps the most prolific actor to chronicle his own life in print---penning no less than TEN memoirs and autobiographies in his lifetime!  There's an hour-long documentary on him, generously padded with interviews, clips, etc.--it's quite interesting, if you're willing to commit to an hour (it's split into 6 parts).  Here is the first one...if you want more, the other links are at Youtube:

And it's the 121st birthday of Paul Whiteman, the "King of Jazz," himself.  Whiteman (who was a white man) was given that moniker in the 1920's--or he bestowed it upon himself---the stories vary.  In any case, it's a bit of a misnomer.  Paul Whiteman was certainly one of (if not the) most popular band leader(s) of the late 1920's through the late 1940's.  He was there on the ground floor as jazz was becoming all the rage.  But listening to his music today, his style isn't what we now know as "jazz".  His is more of a "groundwork" style for what was to become the "big band" sound in the late 1930's.  He was certainly innovative, and brilliantly intuitive on what he thought would and what would not work.  He was great at spotting talent, too (Bing Crosby, for starters, whom Whiteman gave his first big break).  The voluminous bandleader (who tipped the scales well north of the 300 mark) was enormously popular among audiences, both live and on the radio.  He sold millions of records, and even starred in several big musical films (King of Jazz, 1930 and Strike Up the Band, 1940, for example).  Whether or not he was, in fact, the "king," his music is mighty nice to listen to, and he made well over 1,000 records for you to choose from.  Here he is, leading up his band on the exceedingly peppy number, "Happy Feet," with Bing and the two other "Rhythm Boys" on vocals.  If this one don't getcha toe a-tappin', well you better start drinking some of that "nerve tonic!"  This is hot stuff, daddy-o!