If they were still alive....

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

Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff would be 138.  Among other things, his lush, sweeping style of composition is often used as theme music in "romantic" films, notably the wonderful and oft-overlooked modern classic, Somewhere in Time, with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour (1980).  His "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini Op. 43, Variation XVIII" is interwoven, unforgettably.  Here is the great Artur Rubinstein playing a portion of it:



"The Man of 1,000 Faces," Lon Chaney would be 128.  The son of deaf parents, Chaney became one of the great actors of the silent film era, perhaps most famously playing the "phantom of the opera" in the first film version of the famed French tale.  He was incredibly versatile, appearing almost completely different-looking/acting in every one of his films.  He died prematurely, at the age of 47, of complications from lung cancer.  Here is the famous scene where the phantom's mask is ripped away:



Great Broadway star Laurette Taylor would be either 127 or 128---sources vary.  She was "The Actor's Actor" and is often cited by "old-timers" as being the greatest actress of them all.  Her career was much impeded by her alcoholism, and she only made a few silent films, so there isn't much record of what all the fuss was about.  But I've spoken to people who saw her in perhaps her greatest stage triumph, creating the role of "Amanda Wingfield" in the 1944 premiere of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, and they say that she was incandescently magnificent.  Williams wrote of her:  "There was a radiance about her art which I can compare only to the greatest lines of poetry, and which gave me the same shock of revelation as if the air about us had been momentarily broken through by light from some clear space beyond us."  These are the only two extended film appearances that are known to exist of Laurette Taylor:  Peg O'My Heart in 1922, and a very rare film excerpt of her doing a screen test in 1938:





Crotchety, curmudgeonly ol' Wallace Beery would be 126.  He pretty much played the same role throughout his long and very busy career--and that role was (by most accounts), basically, himself.  He gave many memorable performances in some unforgettable classics, such as Dinner at Eight, Grand Hotel, and The Champ, for which he won the Best Actor Oscar in 1931 (tying with Fredric March for his performance in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde).  Did you know that he was once married....to Gloria Swanson (1916-1919)??  How's that for an odd couple? (that's them, below...what's up with Gloria's dog-collar??).

Eddy Duchin would be 102.  The dashing, showy and very talented pianist and bandleader was immensely popular in the 1930's and 40's, with a style at the keyboard that was something of a predecessor for Liberace's (though, certainly, not quite that showy!).  He died tragically young, at the age of 40, of leukemia.  His life story, The Eddy Duchin Story, was filmed in 1957, with Tyrone Power in the title role (rather fictionalized, but still a pretty good movie).  There was a "mini-scandal" in the 1930's when one of his recordings with his orchestra, "Ol' Man Mose," supposedly contained some filthy lyrics!  His girl singer, Patricia Norman, is supposed to sing the lyric, "Oh, bucket, bucket, bucket!" but word got out that she actually said a word starting with "f" that rhymes with "bucket"...and you can hear some of the musicians laughing after she says it...you be the judge!  Here it is:




Speaking of filthy music, blues singer Lucille Bogan would be 114.  The anthology of her songs from the 20's and 30's is, perhaps, the only album of music from that era that actually contains a "parental warning" on the front of it!  Her songs (many of which she wrote herself) WERE shocking...and still are!  With titles like "Shave 'Em Dry," "Sloppy Drunk Blues" and "B.D. Woman's Blues"--the "B.D." stands for "bull dyke".  Here's the unexpurgated version of "Shave 'Em Dry"...not for family audiences..and this is from 1935!!





Mary Miles Minter would be 109.  Sweet, innocent and virginal little Mary was Mary Pickford's chief rival in the late 19-teens and early 1920's, with her sweet face and golden sausage curls.  But her career ended suddenly and scandalously, when it was revealed that she was not-so-pure after all, and was having a dalliance with a much-older gentleman, a director named William Desmond Taylor.  When Taylor was found on the floor of his Hollywood apartment--shot to death, her florid love letters to him were found in his closet, and were somehow leaked to the press, single-handedly nailing shut her once-flourishing film career.  She became something of a fabled Hollywood recluse, living in Norma Desmond style in a decaying mansion, with her notoriously nasty mother, Charlotte.  Charlotte, you see, is still considered today to be the #1 suspect in the murder--a case that remains today, still officially unsolved.  There's an excellent book about the case, written about 20 years ago but updated a few years ago, called A Cast of Killers.  Very interesting book...here's the link to get it on Amazon, if you're interested in learning more about this, one of Hollywood's great unsolved mysteries:

Tragic Taylor (above); Bad Charlotte (below)