�뵺�� Vault's Today in Theatre History: February 9

1865 Birthday of Beatrice Stella Tanner, better known by her stage name . She has a long correspondence with playwright and appears in many of his plays, including originating the role of Eliza Doolittle in .

1926 and have a hit with the campy potboiler . stars as a Mississippi nightclub singer who ruins the life of a rising young attorney who falls for her, but realizes in the end that she loves him, too. It runs 461 performances at the Belasco Theatre and is made into a film with .

1931 The romance between poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett is dramatized in , which stars and . The production runs 370 performances at the Empire Theatre.

1962 Already convicted, a man searches for a Signpost to Murder to prove his innocence. Monte Doyle's thriller runs 419 performances at the Cambridge Theatre in London. Derek Farr and Margaret Lockwood star.

1966 Singer-entertainer dies at age 82. She appeared in numerous revues, including Ziegfeld Follies of 1909 and .

1972 British actor-director Robert Atkins dies at age 85. He performed in and directed many Shakespearean productions for .

1979 , once a major star of London's West End, dies at age 90. Among the many revues she starred in was On With the Dance, with book and lyrics by .

1984 and play mother and daughter in , and 's musical about a family that runs a roller-skating rink. Rivera wins her first Tony Award for the role. The show runs 204 performances at the Martin Beck Theatre.

1988 and star in , 's drama about greed in the Reagan/Thatcher era. It runs just 15 performances at the Royale Theatre.

2007 British stage actor , who played Jean-Paul Marat in and Henry Higgins in the 1976 Broadway revival of , dies at age 72.

2011 and star in 's The Children's Hour at the Comedy Theatre in London. Knightley and Moss play two women who run a girls�� boarding school in 1930s New England and become entangled in a story of deceit, shame, and courage when a schoolgirl's whispers trigger a chain of events with extraordinary consequences.

2016 The world premiere of 's Prodigal Son opens Off-Broadway at . Timothée Chalamet stars as a teenage boy from the Bronx who is suddenly thrown into the world of a private school in New Hampshire. co-stars as the boy's teacher.

2017 Three-time Tony Award winner returns to Broadway in a revival of ’s musical at the Palace Theatre. Close once again plays Norma Desmond, the role for which she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical in the show's .

More of Today's Birthdays: (1866-1945). (1891-1958). (1892-1978). (1909-1955). Barry Mann (b. 1939). (b. 1942). (b. 1945). Henry Krieger (b. 1945). (b. 1949). Ciarán Hinds (b. 1953). (b. 1974). Tom Hiddleston (b. 1981).