1865 Birthday of , durable musical comedy actor from the 1870s to the 1930s. Her appearances include Roberta, Forty-Five Minutes From Broadway, and Fiddle-dee-dee.
1907 Birthday of , bandleader who epitomizes Harlem in the 1920s, and who occasionally appears on Broadway. Appearances include in 1953, and in 1967.
1912 Stop Thief don't steal all the laughs! and William Boyd lead the cast in the comedy by . It runs for 149 performances at the Gaiety Theatre in New York.
1914 It's Hello Broadway from creator-director . The cast, including the leads and , bring on and strike the sets, speeding up the pace of the revue.
1917 ' comedy is compared by the critics to the satire of , and later receives the first Pulitzer Prize for Drama. A modern young woman asks the title question when she decides to take a mate. , , and star.
1918 World War I dogfighters inspire a craze for flying. The first musical to deal with flyers, Going Up, opens at the Liberty Theatre and runs 351 performances, with , , and .
1928 Broadway has one of its biggest nights ever, as eight separate shows open on Christmas Day: , , , , , , , and .
1934 's play opens at the Plymouth Theatre and stays 229 performances, starring .
1939 's drama gets its U.S. premiere, with a cast featuring . It runs 156 performances at the Lyceum Theatre.
1940 Opening night for and 's hard-bitten musical, , starring and, in the title role, , in his first (and last) Broadway lead. He is soon snapped up by Hollywood. Pal Joey stays 374 performances, but gets a longer run .
1977 Actor, director, producer, screenwriter, and composer Charlie Chaplin dies in Switzerland at age 88. In 2012, and use Charlie Chaplin's life as the subject for the Broadway musical .
1999 Tony n' Tina's Wedding gives its 4,000th performance Off-Broadway. The interactive comedy includes an Italian-American wedding and a sit down reception with a meal.
2008 Singer and actor , whose exotic, sex-kitten persona and sultry, purring vocal delivery was unlike anything that had come before her, dies at age 81. Kitt was a best-selling recording artist, a Tony-nominated stage actor (for and ), a sex symbol, a paragon of both high art and high camp, and the author of three autobiographies.
2012 Les Mis茅rables, the star-studded film adaptation of by , , and , opens in theatres. Directed by Tim Hooper, it stars as Jean Valjean, Russell Crowe as Javert, and as Fantine. Hathaway receives an Academy Award for her performance.
2014 casts a spell across the nation as the film adaptation of and 's classic musical Into the Woods hits movie theatres. Directed by , the film stars Streep as the Witch with as the Baker, Emily Blunt as the Baker's Wife, and as Cinderella.
More of Today's Birthdays: (1884-1967). (1899-1957). (1905-2000). (1906-1998). Quentin Crisp (1908-1999). (1924-1975).
