birthday Archives - Page 15 of 50

Composer David Foster turns 70

Betty Boop musical?!

Usually, I write the 70th birthday thing for people whose work/life I admire greatly. Occasionally, it’s about people I don’t like at all. I’m just fascinated by the frequency of David Foster in the liner notes I’ve read.

His Wikipedia page notes that he has been a record “producer for Chaka Khan, Alice Cooper, Christina Aguilera, Andrea Bocelli, Toni Braxton, Michael Bublé, Chicago, Natalie Cole, Celine Dion, Kenny G, Josh Groban, Brandy Norwood, Whitney Houston, Jennifer Lopez, Kenny Rogers, Seal, Rod Stewart, Jake Zyrus, Donna Summer, Olivia Newton-John, Madonna, Mary J. Blige, Michael Jackson, Peter Cetera, Cheryl Lynn, Blake Shelton, and Barbra Streisand.” Also the Corrs, Kenny Loggins, and a bunch more.

He often wrote or co-wrote songs on the albums he produced. In 1985, Rolling Stone magazine named Foster the “master of … bombastic pop kitsch.” I would not argue that.

David Foster is a Canadian who has been married five times. He married Katharine McPhee of American Idol fame on June 28, 2019. He has five biological daughters, plus a bunch of step-kids.

“I believe that everyone gets three rounds in their life.” He was first “a studio musician, arranger, and recording artist. His second round was becoming one of the most successful songwriters and record producers in history — shepherding albums that have collectively sold in the hundreds of millions.

“This period of his four-decade career also found him creating The David Foster Foundation and volunteering his time and talent to over 400 charities, as well as becoming a household name as a performer throughout Asia where he tours annually.

“For his third round, Foster is gearing up to take on Broadway with several projects. These include writing the music for a new musical about the iconic, animated character Betty Boop, which will be directed by Tony Award-winner Jerry Mitchell.

“He is writing the music for a musical based on the Amy Bloom novel and New York Times bestseller Lucky Us, directed by Tony Award-nominee Sheryl Kaller. Foster is also developing a scripted narrative one-man show based on the story of his career that he will perform himself.” Meanwhile, he’ll be doing a North American tour in 2020.

LISTEN

Wildflower – Skylark
After The Love Has Gone – Earth, Wind & Fire
Talk to Ya Later – The Tubes
She’s A Beauty – The Tubes

Breakdown Dead Ahead – Boz Scaggs
JoJo Boz Scaggs
Look What You’ve Done To Me – Boz Scaggs

Tears Are Not Enough – Northern Lights, a group of Canadian artists such as Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Bryan Adams, and others in similar fashion to the UK’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” and the USA’s “We Are the World”.

Hard to Say I’m Sorry – Chicago
Love Me Tomorrow – Chicago
Stay The Night– Chicago
You’re the Inspiration – Chicago
Glory of Love – Peter Cetera

Love Theme from St. Elmo’s Fire – David Foster
St Elmo’s Fire (Man In Motion) – John Parr
The Price Of Love– Roger Daltrey (“The Secret Of My Success”, 1987)
I Have Nothing – Whitney Houston (The Bodyguard, 1992)

There’s a ton more, but you get the idea. David Foster turns 70 today.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli PM, 70

accused of meddling with an Israeli telecom company merger

When I looked at a list of all of the people turning 70 in 2019, I had decided NOT to write about Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister.

Then, in February 2019, he was indicted on one case of bribery and two cases of fraud and breach of trust. This involves allegedly planning to help a newspaper disadvantage its competition to get good press in return. Also, he is accused of meddling with an Israeli telecom company merger in exchange for positive coverage on its news site. The prime minister, in the midst of a tough election contest, denied any wrongdoing.

The guy living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue started insinuating himself into the Israeli electoral process. This is possibly beyond what his base was looking for.

In the election of April 9, Bibi seemed set to win a fifth term after vowing to annex the West Bank, part of a so-called American peace plan.

The huge problem is that millions of Palestinians live in the area captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. The Palestinians want to make it part of their future state. This campaign promise is sure to raise tensions in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The right-wing Likud party of Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t win enough seats to govern. He attempted to form a coalition government, but it failed. By late May, the Israeli Knesset (parliament) voted to dissolve itself and redo the election.

Try, try again

Ahead of Israeli’s do-over election in September, the Prime Minister faced opposition from the left and the right.

President Rivlin tasked Netanyahu with forming a government when unity talks With Benny Gantz’s Kahol Lavan reached a stalemate.

There COULD be a third round of voting if this doesn’t work out, and as of this writing, here’s no real government. What are Netanyahu’s recent liabilities? They may be:

-criminal allegations, and the sense that a win could get him immunity.
-the American’s apparently-canceled wish to meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani as the Israeli prime minister insisted that Iran was developing its nuclear program

Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that Israeli officials “played” his ex-boss. He warned that a “healthy amount of skepticism” is needed in dealings with Israel’s prime minister.

“They did that with the president on a couple of occasions, to persuade him that ‘We’re the good guys, they’re the bad guys,’” Tillerson said, according to the Harvard Gazette. “We later exposed it to the president so he understood, ‘You’ve been played.'”

Benjamin Netanyahu turns 70.

Sigourney Weaver turns 70

Journeyer

Given the relatively few roles of hers that I’ve actually seen, I’ve nevertheless felt as though I’ve watched Sigourney Weaver in lots of films.

The first movie she was in, I’ve viewed several times, a non-speaking part as a date for Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) in Annie Hall (1977).

Then I went to see Alien (1979). OMG. She was fierce and strong and smart, and that was very appealing. No doubt that her character, Ripley, is one of the most significant female protagonists in all of cinema. I never watched any of the sequels – there were at least three – but I’m glad I saw the original. She did reprise Ripley briefly on the TV show Full Frontal with Samantha Bee in 2019.

In Ghostbusters (1984), Sigourney held her own as Dana in the mostly male film. I saw the sequel (1989) to this, but honestly, I’m not remembering it that much.

The performer played a real person, Dian Fossey, in Gorillas in the Mist (1988), a woman studying the primates and trying to stop their decimation. She was nominated for an Academy Award and won the Golden Globe for Best Actress for this role. She’s become a supporter of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund and is now its honorary chairwoman.

Sigourney is the mean boss in Working Girl (1988). I know we’re supposed to root for the Melanie Griffith character over the conniving boss stealing her ideas, but Weaver, Oscar-nominated, was such a good villain! The Golden Globes picked as best supporting actress, meaning she won BOTH GG acting awards in the same year.

I loved Dave (1993), even though the Constitutional premise is absurd. Sigourney plays the First Lady, estranged from President Bill Mitchell (Kevin Kline). The White House staff use his doppelganger Dave (Kevin Kline) to cover up the fact that Mitchell had a stroke.

My, but The Ice Storm (1997) was depressingly good at portraying suburban ennui. She won the BAFTA Award – think British Oscars – for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.

Sigourney played The Warden in Holes (2003), and the voice of the ship’s computer in WALL-E (2008).

I wish I had seen the performer, trained at the Yale University School of Drama, on stage. She was a 1985 Tony nominee as Best Featured Actress In A Play in Hurlyburly.

On television, she’s hosted Saturday Night Live twice; I saw the 1986 episode but not the one in 2010. I’ve heard her speak fondly about her father, the late Sylvester L. Weaver Jr., better known as Pat. He virtually pioneered the very concepts of morning and late-night television programming in creating both the Today Show (1952) and Tonight! (1953).

Sigourney and Pat went to the Academy Awards together in 1987, when she was nominated for Best Actress for Aliens; she lost to Marlee Matlin in Children of a Lesser God.

Susan Alexandra “Sigourney” Weaver took her first name from a minor character in The Great Gatsby. My spellcheck does not like that first name, wanting to change it to Journeyer, which would also be appropriate.

She received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in December 1999. Sigourney Weaver turns 70 today. Read this June 2019 interview in PARADE.

Baseball’s Bill James turns 70

sabermetrics

Bill James is quite a noteworthy personage in baseball. No, he doesn’t throw a 95 mph fastball or hit 30 home runs. His approach to baseball is to scientifically analyze the game to figure out why some teams win and some lose.

As someone who used to read the backs of baseball cards, I know the game has always been driven by numbers. James, though, uses what he calls sabermetrics, named for the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR). He came up with several categories that others hadn’t concocted; you can see them in the Wikipedia article.

“James began self-publishing an annual book… beginning in 1977. The first edition, titled ‘1977 Baseball Abstract: Featuring 18 categories of statistical information that you just can’t find anywhere else,’ presented 68 pages of in-depth statistics compiled from James’s study of box scores from the preceding season and was offered for sale through a small advertisement in The Sporting News. Seventy-five people purchased the booklet.” Eventually, Bill James found different outlets to present his broader look at statistics.

“Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane began applying sabermetric principles to running his low-budget team in the early 2000s, to notable effect, as chronicled in Michael Lewis’ book Moneyball.” I did see the Moneyball movie, with Brad Pitt.

“In 2003, James was hired by a former reader, John Henry, the new owner of the Boston Red Sox… During his time with the [team, he] has received four World Series rings for the team’s 2004, 2007, 2013, and 2018 victories.”

In the office where I write this purple prose, on the closest bookshelf, resides The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (1985). It’s a reference book, suitable for a librarian. James provides “an overview of professional baseball decade by decade, along with rankings of the top 100 players at each position.” The book has been updated a couple times, most recently in 2001.

Bill James is more of a geek than I am. He turns 70 on October 5.

Annie Leibovitz turns 70

Visual brilliance

For decades, I had been mispronouncing the last name of photographer Annie Leibovitz. I can even tell you when I figured it out, in December 2011, watching JEOPARDY! of course. One of the contestants gave the response, “Who is Annie Leibowitz?” with a W rather than a V. It is a common mistake, Alex Trebek explained.

Still, I should have figured it out. I had been looking at her work since the 1970s, when she was first staff photographer at Rolling Stone before she became chief photographer in 1973 at the age of 23. She had a “look”, maybe her choice of lighting, that seemed distinctive to me.

She took lots of pictures of the Rolling Stones when they were on tour. Bette Midler in a bed of roses after she starred in the 1979 film The Rose was iconic. Her most famous magazine cover may have been taken on December 8, 1980, of a nude John Lennon lying next to his clothed wife Yoko Ono, taken hours before his murder.

VF

In 1983, Annie Leibovitz she moved to Vanity Fair. Her most noted photo at that magazine was likely a 1991 cover shot showing this actress Demi Moore nude, holding her pregnant belly. In 2003, the magazine noted that her name had become synonymous with the magazine’s “visual brilliance.” In those twenty years, she shot “104 covers and countless portraits for the magazine. In this 24-page portfolio…, V.F. honors the art of America’s most famous photographer.”

Among her other photographs is the one on Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” album showing the Boss’ rear end. For Vogue’s millennium special issue, she grouped 13 historic supermodels to shoot the gatefold cover.

In 1991 she had her first museum exhibition at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, a rare honor for a living photographer.

In 2014 Annie Leibovitz discussed Nine Assignments that Shaped Her Career. “Leibovitz said some of her most important work was a series of photos she took of her apparently abusive partner, essayist Susan Sontag. She said Sontag had extremely high expectations for the photos, which Leibovitz found frustrating. After Sontag died of Myelodysplastic syndrome in 2004, Leibovitz looked back at photos and said she was proud.”

She is teaching photographyonline . In a 2017 issue of Rolling Stone, she looked back on her legendary career.

Anna-Lou “Annie” Leibovitz turns 70 today.