Frank Beacham's Journal

Danny Kaye was born 111 years ago today

Danny Kaye was born 111 years ago today.

An actor, singer, dancer and comedian, Kaye’s performances featured physical comedy, idiosyncratic pantomimes and rapid-fire nonsense songs. He starred in 17 movies, notably The Kid from Brooklyn (1946), The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947), The Inspector General (1949), Hans Christian Andersen (1952), White Christmas (1954) and The Court Jester (1956).

Kaye’s films were popular, especially his bravura performances of patter songs and favorites such as "Inchworm" and "The Ugly Duckling." He was the first ambassador-at-large of UNICEF in 1954 and received the French Legion of Honor in 1986 for his years of work with the organization.

Kaye died in 1987 at 74 years old.

Here, Kaye and Gene Kelly dance and sing on the Danny Kaye Show

In 1962, Chubby Checker went back to #1 on the U.S. singles chart with “The Twist.” It was the second time

In 1962, Chubby Checker went back to #1 on the U.S. singles chart with “The Twist.”

The song first went to #11 in Sept, 1960 and became the only record in American chart history to top the charts on two separate occasions.

In the photo, Chubby Checker does The Twist in 2011 with Hallie Sabb, left, and Carrie McGill-Tisdaleon on family property he played on as a child in Spring Gully, South Carolina.

Above photo by Tracy Glantz

Alvin Ailey was born 91 years ago today

Judith Jamison, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Alvin Ailey

Photo by Jack Vartoogian

Alvin Ailey was born 91 years ago today.

An African-American choreographer and activist who founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York City, Ailey is credited with popularizing modern dance and revolutionizing African-American participation in 20th century concert dance. His company gained the nickname "Cultural Ambassador to the World" because of its extensive international touring.

Ailey's choreographic masterpiece, Revelations, is believed to be the best known and most often seen modern dance performance.

In 1977, Ailey was awarded the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP. He received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1988, just one year before his death. In 2014, President Barack Obama selected Ailey to be a posthumous recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Here is Ailey’s Revelations

Cab Calloway was born 114 years ago today

Cab Calloway was born 114 years ago today.

A jazz singer and bandleader, Calloway is strongly associated with the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York City, where he was a regular performer.

Calloway was a master of energetic scat singing and led one of the most popular big bands in the U.S. from the start of the 1930s through to the late 1940s. His band featured performers including trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie and Adolphus "Doc" Cheatham, saxophonists Ben Webster and Leon "Chu" Berry, New Orleans guitar ace, Danny Barker, and bassist, Milt Hinton.

Calloway continued to perform until his death in 1994 at the age of 86.

Here, Calloway performs Minnie the Moocher

The Nutcracker ballet, with a score by Tchaikovsky, premiered in St. Petersburg, Russia on this day in 1892 — 129 years ago

For many, it is hard to imagine the holiday season without the cultural feast of glittering fairies, toys and sweets that come alive with the dancing and music of “The Nutcracker.”

The Nutcracker ballet, with a score by Tchaikovsky, premiered in St. Petersburg, Russia on this day in 1892 — 129 years ago.

It might never have happened. Tchaikovsky’s parents sent him to law school because they didn’t consider music an acceptable profession. Later, he quit a legal job to attend the St. Petersburg Conservatory, the foundation of an illustrious career that included “Swan Lake” and “Sleeping Beauty.”

The “Nutcracker” tale isn’t entirely Russian, though. It’s based on an 1816 story, “Nutcracker and Mouse King,” by the German writer E. T. A. Hoffmann, and it was adapted and popularized by the French writer, Alexandre Dumas, in 1844 as “The Tale of a Nutcracker.”

Decades later, the St. Petersburg Opera hired Tchaikovsky to write music for a ballet based on the later version. No performances today faithfully follow the staging first done in St. Petersburg.

Tchaikovsky’s scores are among the most famous in ballet, and they lend much of the magic to the holiday fairy tale that ends happily ever after.

Thanks New York Times

Betty Grable, celebrated for having the most beautiful legs in Hollywood, was born 105 years ago today

Betty Grable, celebrated for having the most beautiful legs in Hollywood, was born 105 years ago today.

An actress, dancer and singer, Grable’s iconic bathing suit poster made her the #1 pin-up girl of the World War II era. It was later included in the Life magazine project "100 Photos That Changed the World."

Hosiery specialists of the era often noted the ideal proportions of her legs as thigh (18.5 inches), calf (12 inches) and ankle (7.5 inches). Grable's legs were famously insured by her studio for $1,000,000 with Lloyds of London.

Grable appeared in several smash-hit musical films in the 1940s. The most notable was Mother Wore Tights in 1947 with frequent co-star, Dan Dailey. She came to prominence in 1939 when she signed with 20th Century-Fox and signed on to appear opposite, Ethel Merman, in the Broadway musical, Du Barry Was a Lady.

But it was not until she was called back to Hollywood to replace Fox's musical queen, Alice Faye, in Down Argentine Way, that she became a household name.

Throughout her career, Grable was typecast in her stereotype-musical film roles. When her career faltered in the 1950s, she found it hard to reinvent herself as a serious actress.

In 1958, she appeared as herself on The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour with then husband, Harry James, in an episode entitled, "Lucy Wins A Racehorse.”

During her heyday in the 1940s, she had several nicknames during her career. They included "the girl with the million dollar legs," "the quick-silver blonde," "the queen of the Hollywood musical" and "the darling of the forties."

Grable died in 1973 at age 56 of lung cancer.

In 1962 — 59 years ago this week — New York’s Playboy Club opened its doors on East 59th Street

In 1962 — 59 years ago this week — New York’s Playboy Club opened its doors on East 59th Street with a rollicking $100-a-plate benefit for the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation.

“Nothing Stays Those Bunnies,” read the headline in Billboard, accompanied by a photo of Bunny Wanda chiming the call for Playboy Breakfast.

Opening-night talent included a quartet doing vocal impressions of jazz and pop singers — Tony Bennett caught the act of a Tony Bennett impersonator.

The club, complete with mood lights on each floor and “technomated” murals in which lights on buildings actually flashed, was a beacon to a certain kind of “Mad Men”-era businessman or those who sought to live like one.

It also attracted the attention of Gloria Steinem, who went undercover as a Bunny for a 1963 exposé.

By the mid-’80s, the club had closed.

Thanks New York Times!

Sammy Davis, Jr. was born 96 years ago today

Sammy Davis Jr, 1986

Photo by Allan Warren

Sammy Davis, Jr. was born 96 years ago today.

Primarily a dancer and singer, Davis also had many acting roles on stage and screen, and was noted for his impersonations of actors and other celebrities.

At the age of three, Davis began his career in vaudeville with his father and Will Mastin as the Will Mastin Trio, which toured nationally. After military service, Davis returned to the trio. He became an overnight sensation following a nightclub performance at Ciro's after the 1951 Academy Awards. With the trio, he became a recording artist.

In 1954, Davis lost his left eye in an automobile accident, and several years later, he converted to Judaism. Davis' film career began as a child in 1933. In 1960, he appeared in the first Rat Pack film, Ocean's 11.

After a starring role on Broadway in 1956's Mr. Wonderful, Davis returned to the stage in 1964's Golden Boy, and in 1966 had his own TV variety show, The Sammy Davis Jr. Show.

Davis' career slowed in the late 1960s, but he had a hit record with "The Candy Man" in 1972 and became a star in Las Vegas, earning him the nickname "Mister Show Business."

As an African-American, Davis was the victim of racism throughout his life and was a large financial supporter of the civil rights movement. He had a complex relationship with the African-American community, and drew criticism after physically embracing President Richard M. Nixon in 1972.

One day on a golf course with Jack Benny, he was asked what his handicap was. "Handicap?" he asked. "Talk about handicap — I'm a one-eyed Negro Jew." This was to become a signature comment, recounted in his autobiography, and in countless articles.

After reuniting with Sinatra and Dean Martin in 1987, Davis toured with them and Liza Minnelli internationally, before he died of throat cancer in 1990. He died in debt to the Internal Revenue Service, and his estate was the subject of legal battles.

Davis was awarded the Spingarn Medal by the NAACP. He was the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 1987

Here, Sammy Davis Jr. performs “Mr. Bojangles”

Steve Rubell, co-owner of New York’s Studio 54 night club, was born 78 years ago today

Steve Rubell with Bianca Jagger at Studio 54, 1978

Steve Rubell, co-owner of New York’s Studio 54 night club, was born 78 years ago today.

Rubell and his brother, Don, spent their childhoods with their parents in Brooklyn. His father worked for the U.S. Postal Service and later became a tennis pro. Rubell attended Wingate High School, and was also an avid tennis player, but decided against playing professionally.

Entering Syracuse University, Rubell had the intention of becoming a dentist, but failed his courses and switched majors, studying finance and history. He was reportedly not a good student but managed to complete his studies, going on to complete a Master's degree in Finance.

While attending college, Rubell met Ian Schrager, who became a lifelong friend and business partner. Rubell joined the National Guard, returning to New York after a tour of duty in a military intelligence unit. He worked at a brokerage firm after his return.

Rubell then decided to start his own business and opened two Steak Lofts restaurants: one in Queens, New York, and the other in New Haven, Connecticut. Rubell and Schrager opened two clubs, one in Boston with John Addison from La Jardin, the other, called The Enchanted Garden, in Queens in 1975, which later became Douglaston Manor.

In April, 1977, they opened Studio 54 in the old CBS television studio on West 54th Street that the network was selling. Rubell became a familiar face in front of the building, turning people down at the door and only letting in those who met his specific standards.

He also dealt with the club's celebrity patrons, ensuring that they were thrown lavish parties. His tactics worked, and the club made $7 million during its first year.

In December, 1978, Studio 54 was raided after Rubell was quoted as saying that only the Mafia made more money than the club brought in.

In June, 1979, Rubell and Schrager were charged with tax evasion, obstruction of justice and conspiracy for reportedly skimming nearly $2.5 million in unreported income from the club's receipts, in a system Rubell called "cash-in, cash-out and skim."

Police reports state that cash and receipts were in the building and were hidden in the ceiling sections of Rubell's office, where both he and Schrager worked. A second raid occurred in December, 1979.

The pair hired Roy Cohn to defend them, but on January 18, 1980, they were sentenced to three and a half years in prison and a $20,000 fine each for the tax evasion charge. On February 4, 1980, Rubell and Schrager went to prison and Studio 54 was sold in November of that year for $4.75 million.

In January, 1981, Rubell and Schrager were released from prison after handing over the names of other club owners involved in tax evasion. Once released, Rubell and Schrager purchased the Executive Hotel on Madison Ave and renamed it Morgan's.

Rubell later opened the Palladium, a large dance club famous for displaying art by Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol, and considered central to the New York club scene in the 1980s. In 1998, the Palladium was demolished so that New York University dorms could be built in its place.

Mike Myers played the part of Steve Rubell in the movie, 54, much to Rubell's relatives' protest after the movie portrayed him as an overly sleazy gay man and an alcoholic junkie with mob connections. Rubell has also been the topic of an episode of Biography titled, Steve Rubell: Lord of the Disco.

In 1985, after discovering he had contracted AIDS, Rubell (who was closeted for most of his life) began taking AZT, but his illness was furthered by his continued drug usage and drinking, which affected his already compromised immune system.

Rubell died on July 25, 1989, with the official cause of death listed as hepatitis.

Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring premiered on this day in 1944 — 76 years ago

Aaron Copland, working by candlelight in his studio in the Berkshires, 1946

Copland’s American Spring premiered 76 years ago today

Photo by Victor Kraft

Born and raised in the same urban environment that produced Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern and George and Ira Gershwin, American composer Aaron Copland was trained in the classics but steeped in the jazz and popular Jewish music that surrounded him in childhood.

As a young composer, his stated aim was to write music that would "make you feel like you were alive on the streets of Brooklyn."

Ironically, it was music that evoked the rural American heartland that made Copland famous.

One such work — arguably his greatest — was the score for the ballet Appalachian Spring, which became one of the most recognizable and beloved pieces of American music ever written almost immediately following its world premiere on this day in 1944 — 76 years ago.

The score for Appalachian Spring was commissioned in 1942 to accompany a ballet being choreographed by a young Martha Graham.

Copland would know the work only as "Ballet for Martha" throughout its composition, having no guidance other than that the ballet would have some sort of a "frontier" theme.

In fact, the name Appalachian Spring and the setting of western Pennsylvania would be decided on only after Copland had completed his score.

Yet somehow, without having had any idea of doing so, Copland had composed a work that audiences and critics alike found brilliantly evocative of the specific time and place referenced in the title.

The most recognizable passage of Appalachian Spring is the portion Aaron Copland adapted from the Shaker song, "Simple Gifts" — "'This a gift to be simple, 'tis a gift to be free" — which was largely unfamiliar to Americans prior to Copland's adaptation.

Copland's artful incorporation of the folk tradition with his distinctly modern sensibility is what made Appalachian Spring the transcendent work that it is.

In its review of the October 30, 1944, premiere, the New York Times praised all elements of the "shining and joyous" work: the choreography by Martha Graham; the set design by the Isamu Noguchi; and the score by Aaron Copland, which it called "the fullest, loveliest and most deeply poetical of all his theater scores....It is, as the saying goes, a natural."

Though written expressly for the ballet and for only 13 instrumentalists — a limitation dictated by the size of the orchestra pit at the Library of Congress where the premiere was held — Appalachian Spring was soon adapted into an orchestral suite, which is the form in which it became widely popular.

Appalachian Spring was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1945.

Copland and his music is perhaps more connected to the folk era of the 1960s than one might think.

In his book, Bob Dylan in America, Sean Wilenz connected the dots between the American Communist world of the 1930s, the Beat Generation literary movement of the 1950s and the folk music era of the 1960s.

Copland, who was very close to Charles Seeger, Pete’s father, wrote the film score in 1939 for Of Mice and Men, the John Steinbeck novella, for director Lewis Milestone.

Young Jack Kerouac saw that movie in high school and later wrote about it in Chorus 54 of his poetry book, Mexico City Blues.

Bob Dylan was greatly influenced by Kerouac’s "breathless, dynamic bop phrases," and called Mexico City Blues the first poetry to speak to him in his own American language.

Kerouac showed deep understanding for lower working class life and appreciation for Steinbeck’s writing about the box cars of American trains — a trait shared by Dylan.

Pete Seeger, who got among the first permits to sing folk music in Washington Square Park, was — with Earl Robinson and Alan Lomax — directly connected to the leftist political movements of the 1930s.

When Dylan reached Greenwich Village in 1961, the Gaslight — where he played — had earlier alternated folk musicians with beat poets. Among those poets with Allen Ginsberg.

Even so, Ginsberg and Dylan would become close. Dylan taught Ginsberg to play his harmonium and influenced the poet to perform musically in his later years.

From 1963 until Ginsberg’s death, he and Dylan would work and travel together, influencing each other with their talents.

Dylan gave Ginsberg the money to purchase a Uher tape recorder on which he composed Wichita Vortex Sutra, the great antiwar lament of the Vietnam era.

Dylan acknowledged his debt to the beats for his classic song, Chimes of Freedom.

"Making music out of nature's sights and sounds had attracted Dylan before in his mystical song Lay Down Your Weary Tune, just as Jack Kerouac had tried to render the ocean's roar as poetry in his book, Big Sur, published in 1962," said Wilentz. "Chimes of Freedom was far outside the old politics of left and right and black and white."

Thanks History.com and Sean Wilenz

Aaron Copland, 1946

Photo by Irving Penn