BIRTHDAYS OF
THE FAMOUS AND INFAMOUS - AUGUST 30TH
1797 - Mary Wollstonecraft
Shelley (London England) - Major claims to fame: Not properly educated; slept around; kept
getting knocked up out of wedlock; eventually married an already-married poet
whose wife was pregnant then later drowned herself when she got pregnant by
someone else; stayed married even though husband kept producing spawn with
multitudes of other women; wrote Frankenstein,
which only contained one line about the whole electrifying part that was
something akin to "And then he was alive."
1893 - Huey P Long (Winn Parish, LA)
- Major
claims to fame: Famous American communist who advocated Sharing the Wealth;
Obama in a tweed suit and more hair; assassinated …. Bummer.
1907 - Fred MacMurray (Kankakee, IL) -
Major claims to fame: Actor who starred in such educational
classics as Double Indemnity, My Three Sons, and Girls Gone Wild; contrary to early Disney fans' convictions, he was
not shaggy, could not bark, and did not
invent Flubber (though he may have been its son)
1909 - Joan Blondell - (New York City) -
Major claims to fame: Actress; real name was Rose but
apparently liked Joan better (and here we ask, "Why? Why why why???"); Starred in a gazillion
films but best known for her role as Lottie Hatfield in the late-sixties TV show
Here Come the Brides; held out a
hotel window by her ankles at the hands of then-husband Mike Todd (pre his Liz
Taylor obsession) … Good lord, I hope she was clothed at the time.
1918 - Ted Williams - (San Diego, CA) - Major
claims to fame: Had too many nicknames and aliases so he was probably a
criminal on the lam; called "The Greatest Hitter of All Time" by his
multitude of ex-wives; earned some wicked pissah looking medals in the
military; had some minor success with a baseball team called the Boston Red
Sox.
1943 - Jean-Claude Killy (Saint-Cloud,
France) - Major claims to fame: Has
hyphen in his name; dropped out of school to ski; picked for the '62 World
Championship team and didn't know it so kept skiing and broke his leg; won some
Olympic medals in '68; most famous for NOT being Spider Sabich, a US skier also
at the '68 Olympics who was shot to death by his disgruntled French girlfriend
(who just happened to be the wife of
famous and beloved American singer Andy Williams).
1953 - Robert Parish - (Shreveport, LA)
- Major claims to fame: Tall…. Very,
very, very tall; rumored to have played a little bit of pro basketball for a
team called the Boston Celtics; nicknamed The Chief after the silent Native
American giant in the movie One Flew Over
the Cuckoo's Nest; as far as my research could tell, never smothered anyone
with a pillow nor threw a toilet through a window.
Happy birthday, all!
