If they were still alive today...

....these notables would be celebrating their birthday:




William Shakespeare would be 447.  Few would argue his placement as history's greatest dramatist in any language.  A few interesting bits of trivia about him:

• Did you know that none of his original manuscripts survive?  They were written sketchily, with an eye toward performance, rather than posterity.
• And furthermore, none of his plays were published during his lifetime.  36 of his plays were transcribed by two of his actors, who published them in 1623 in what is known as The First Folio.
• Shakespeare not only was born on this date---he also died on this date, in 1616, at the age of 52.  Miguel Cervantes, author of Don Quixote also died on the same day.

James Buchanan would be 220.  He was the president who occupied office just before Abraham Lincoln, and his accomplishments were completely overshadowed by Lincoln's.  Buchanan is (to date) the only bachelor president in American history.  Several presidential scholars state that he was also America's only gay president.  He lived for 23 years with another man, William Rufus Devane King, who was vice-president under Franklin Pierce.  King is (to date) the only unmarried vice-president in U.S. history.  The families of both King and Buchanan destroyed their correspondence upon their deaths, leaving to conjecture the true nature of their relationship.

William Rufus Devane King, Buchanan's longtime roommate.

Ruggiero Leoncavallo would be 154.  He composed one of the greatest, and certainly most popular operas ever written, I Pagliacci.  At first glance, he might be considered something of a "one-trick pony," in that he never composed another opera that achieved general public acclaim.  He did write a version of La Boheme, which suffers greatly by comparison with the competing version by Giacomo Puccini, which is perhaps the most popular opera of all time.  In studying I Pagliacci, it's most surprising to find that he was not a prolific composer, as his writing seems so fully-realized, sophisticated and  beautifully formed.  The famous aria "Vesti la giubba," which was recorded by Enrico Caruso just after the turn of the 20th century, became the first million-selling record and remains a very recognizable tune, even to non-lovers of opera.


Jeez....listen to this one, too! Franco Corelli was such a great singer!





Sandra Dee would be 69.  She was the perfect juvenile lead actress for the late 1950's-early 1960's.  Her romance with--and marriage to--bobby-sox idol, Bobby Darin, was tailor-made for the tabloids and fan magazines.  Her pert, pretty, seemingly-virginal image, it turns out, was merely a mask for a complicated, tormented young woman, whose life spiraled into a vortex of anorexia and drug and alcohol abuse.  She spent her final years a virtual shut-in.  Though they were divorced when he died at the age of 37, it's said that she never got over him.  She died of kidney failure at the age of 62.