Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft

Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, 1797–1851, English author; daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft . In 1814 she fell in love with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley , accompanied him abroad, and after the death of his first wife in 1816 was married to him. Her most notable contribution to literature is her novel of terror, Frankenstein, published in 1818. It is the story of a German student who learns the secret of infusing life into inanimate matter and creates a monster that ultimately destroys him. Included among her other novels are Valperga(1823), The Last Man (1826), and the partly autobiographical Lodore (1835). After Shelley's death in 1822, she devoted herself to caring for her aged father and educating her only surviving child, Percy Florence Shelley. In 1839–40 she edited her husband's works.
See her journal (ed. by F. L. Jones, 1947); her letters (ed. by M. Spark and D. Stamford, 1953); biographies by M. Spark (1951, repr. 1988), N. B. Gerson (1973), and M. Seymour (2001); C. Gordon, Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley (2015); studies by W. A. Walling (1972), E. Sunstein (1989), and R. Montillo (2013).

August 30

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley author (1797)

Huey Long politician (1893)

Roy Wilkins civil-rights leader (1901)

Fred MacMurray actor (1908)

Ted Williams baseball player (1918)

Warren Buffett financial executive (1930)

Jacques-Louis David

Pronunciation: [zhäk-lwE´ dävEd´]
1748–1825, French painter.

David was the virtual art dictator of France for a generation. Extending beyond painting, his influence determined the course of fashion, furniture design, and interior decoration and was reflected in the development of moral philosophy. His art was a sudden and decisive break with tradition, and from this break “modern art” is dated.

David was the virtual art dictator of France for a generation. Extending beyond painting, his influence determined the course of fashion, furniture design, and interior decoration and was reflected in the development of moral philosophy. His art was a sudden and decisive break with tradition, and from this break “modern art” is dated.

David studied with Vien, and after winning the Prix de Rome (which had been refused him four times, causing him to attempt suicide by starvation) he accompanied Vien to Italy in 1775. His pursuit of the antique, nurtured by his time in Rome, directed the classical revival in French art. He borrowed classical forms and motifs, predominantly from sculpture, to illustrate a sense of virtue he mistakenly attributed to the ancient Romans. Consumed by a desire for perfection and by a passion for the political ideals of the French Revolution, David imposed a fierce discipline on the expression of sentiment in his work. This inhibition resulted in a distinct coldness and rationalism of approach.

David's reputation was made by the Salon of 1784. In that year he produced his first masterwork, The Oath of the Horatii (Louvre). This work and his celebrated Death of Socrates(1787; Metropolitan Mus.) as well as Lictors Bringing to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons (1789; Louvre) were themes appropriate to the political climate of the time. They secured for David vast popularity and success. David was admitted to the Académie royale in 1780 and worked as court painter to the king.
As a powerful republican David, upon being elected to the revolutionary Convention, voted for the king's death and for the dissolution of the Académie royale both in France and in Rome. In his paintings of the Revolution's martyrs, especially in his Marat (1793; Brussels), his iron control is softened and the tragic portraits are moving and dignified. The artist was imprisoned for a time at the end of the Reign of Terror.
David emerged to become First Painter to the emperor and foremost recorder of Napoleonic events (e.g., Napoleon Crossing the Saint Bernard Pass, 1800; Coronation of Napoleon and Josephine, 1805–07; and The Distribution of the Eagles, 1810) and a sensitive portraitist (Mme Récamier,1800; Louvre). In this period David reached the height of his influence, but his painting, more than ever the embodiment of neoclassical theory, was again static and deadened in feeling. The Battle of the Romans and Sabines (1799; Louvre) vivified the battle by the use of physically frozen figures.
During the Restoration David spent his last years in Brussels. As a portraitist he was at his most distinguished, although he belittled this painting genre. Using living, rather than sculptured models, he allowed his spontaneous sentiment to be revealed. In these last years his portraits, such as Antoine Mongez and His Wife Angelica (1812; Lille) and Bernard(1820; Louvre) are enormously vital and in them the seeds of the new romanticism are clearly discernible.
Bibliography:
See D. L. Dowd, Pageant-Master of the Republic (1948); J. Lindsay, Death of the Hero (1960); Warren Roberts, Jacques Louis David, Revolutionary Artist (1989).
Who2. Copyright © 1998-2006 by Who2?, LLC. All rights reserved.

Lao Tzu Laozi

(Chinese: also Lao Tse, Lao Tu, Lao-Tzu, Lao-Tsu, Laotze, Lao Zi, Laocius, and other variations) was a philosopher of ancient China, and is a central figure in Taoism (also spelled “Daoism”). Laozi literally means “old master”, and is generally considered honorific. Laozi is revered as a deity in most religious forms of Taoism

August 30

Baseball great Ted Williams born (1918); HBD Warren Buffett (1930); Thurgood Marshall becomes 1st African-American Supreme Court Justice (1967); HBD Cameron Diaz (1972); Guion Bluford becomes 1st African-American in space (1983).

Greta Thunberg

(born 3 January 2003) is a Swedish climate activist. In 2018, she initiated the School strike for climate movement and spoke at the United Nations Climate Change conference to denounced world leaders for their inaction.

August 29

Jean Auguste Ingres painter (1780)

Ingrid Bergman actress (1915)

Charlie Parker musician (1920)

Dinah Washington singer (1924)

Slobodan Milosevic political leader (1941)

Michael Jackson pop musician (1958)

John Locke

Pronunciation: [lok]
1632–1704, English philosopher, founder of British empiricism.

Locke summed up the Enlightenmentin his belief in the middle class and its right to freedom of conscience and right to property, in his faith in science, and in his confidence in the goodness of humanity. His influence upon philosophy and political theory has been incalculable.

Educated at Christ Church College, Oxford, he became (1660) a lecturer there in Greek, rhetoric, and philosophy. He studied medicine, and his acquaintance with scientific practice had a strong influence upon his philosophical thought and method. In 1666, Locke met Anthony Ashley Cooper, the future 1st earl of Shaftesbury, and soon became his friend, physician, and adviser. After 1667, Locke had minor diplomatic and civil posts, most of them through Shaftesbury. In 1675, after Shaftesbury had lost his offices, Locke left England for France, where he met French leaders in science and philosophy.
Returning to England in 1679, he soon retired to Oxford, where he stayed quietly until, suspected of radicalism by the government, he went to Holland and remained there several years (1683–89). In Holland he completed the famous Essay Concerning Human Understanding(1690), which was published in complete form after his return to England at the accession of William and Mary to the English throne. In the same year he published his Two Treatises on Civil Government; part of this work justifies the Glorious Revolution of 1688, but much of it was written earlier. His fame increased, and he became known in England and on the Continent as the leading philosopher of freedom.
Philosophy
In the Essay Concerning Human Understanding Locke examines the nature of the human mind and the process by which it knows the world. Repudiating the traditional doctrine of innate ideas, Locke believed that the mind is born blank, a tabula rasaupon which the world describes itself through the experience of the five senses. Knowledge arising from sensation is perfected by reflection, thus enabling humans to arrive at such ideas as space, time, and infinity.
Locke distinguished the primary qualities of things (e.g., solidity, extension, number) from their secondary qualities (e.g., color, sound). These latter qualities he held to be produced by the impact of the world on the sense organs. Behind this curtain of sensation the world itself is colorless and silent. Science is possible, Locke maintained, because the primary world affects the sense organs mechanically, thus producing ideas that faithfully represent reality. The clear, common-sense style of the Essay concealed many unexplored assumptions that the later empiricists George Berkeley and David Humewould contest, but the problems that Locke set forth have occupied philosophy in one way or another ever since.
Political Theory
Locke is most renowned for his political theory. Contradicting Thomas Hobbes, Locke believed that the original state of nature was happy and characterized by reason and tolerance. In that state all people were equal and independent, and none had a right to harm another's “life, health, liberty, or possessions.” The state was formed by social contract because in the state of nature each was his own judge, and there was no protection against those who lived outside the law of nature. The state should be guided by natural law.
Rights of property are very important, because each person has a right to the product of his or her labor. Locke forecast the labor theory of value. The policy of governmental checks and balances, as delineated in the Constitution of the United States, was set down by Locke, as was the doctrine that revolution in some circumstances is not only a right but an obligation. At Shaftesbury's behest, he contributed to the Fundamental Constitutions for the Carolinas; the colony's proprietors, however, never implemented the document.
Ethical Theory
Locke based his ethical theories upon belief in the natural goodness of humanity. The inevitable pursuit of happiness and pleasure, when conducted rationally, leads to cooperation, and in the long run private happiness and the general welfare coincide. Immediate pleasures must give way to a prudent regard for ultimate good, including reward in the afterlife. He argued for broad religious freedom in three separate essays on toleration but excepted atheism and Roman Catholicism, which he felt should be legislated against as inimical to religion and the state. In his essay The Reasonableness of Christianity(1695), he emphasized the ethical aspect of Christianity against dogma.
Bibliography:
See biographies by M. W. Cranston (1957) and Richard Aaron (3d ed. 1971); R. S. Woolhouse, Locke's Philosophy of Science and Knowledge(1971); J. W. Gough, ed., John Locke's Political Philosophy; Eight Essays (2d ed. 1973); Edward Tagart, Locke's Writings and Philosophy Historically Considered (1977); R. W. Grant, John Locke's Liberalism (1987).
Who2. Copyright © 1998-2006 by Who2?, LLC. All rights reserved.

August 29

Casablanca actress Ingrid Bergman born, dies (1915, 1982); Senator John McCain born (1936); Michael Jackson born (1958); Netflix is founded (1997); Hurricane Katrina makes landfall in US, kills ~1,800 (2005).

August 28

Black teenager Emmett Till is brutally lynched for allegedly flirting with a white woman (1955); MLK delivers ‘I Have a Dream’ speech in DC (1963); HBD Shania Twain (1965); HBD LeAnn Rimes (1982); Prince Charles and Princess Diana divorce (1996).

August 28

Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton religious leader (1774)

Charles Boyer actor (1899)

Bruno Bettelheim psychologist (1903)

Roger Tory Peterson ornithologist (1908)

Robertson Davies writer (1913)

Jason Priestley actor (1969)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

1749–1832, German poet, dramatist, novelist, and scientist, b. Frankfurt.

One of the great masters of world literature, his genius embraced most fields of human endeavor; his art and thought are epitomized in his great dramatic poem Faust.

Early Life and Works
Goethe describes his happy and sheltered childhood in his autobiography, Dichtung und Wahrheit (1811-33). In 1765 he went to Leipzig to study law. There he spent his time in the usual student dissipations, which perhaps contributed to a hemorrhage that required a long convalescence at Frankfurt. His earliest lyric poems, set to music, were published in 1769. In 1770-71 he completed his law studies at Strasbourg, where the acquaintance of Herder filled him with enthusiasm for Shakespeare, for Germany's medieval past, and for the German folk song.

Goethe's lyric poems for Friederike Brion, daughter of the pastor of nearby Sesenheim, were written at this time as new texts for folk-song melodies. Among the lasting influences of Goethe's youth were J. J. Rousseau and Spinoza, who appealed to Goethe's mystic and poetic feeling for nature in its ever-changing aspects. It was in this period that Goethe began his lifelong study of animals and plants and his research in biological morphology.
Goethe first attracted public notice with the drama Götz von Berlichingen(1773) (see Berlichingen, Götz von), a pure product of Sturm und Drang. Still more important was the epistolary novel Die Leiden des jungen Werthers(1774, tr. The Sorrows of Young Werther, 1957) which Goethe, on the verge of suicide, wrote after his unrequited love for Charlotte Buff. Werther gave him immediate fame and was widely translated. While the writing had helped Goethe regain stability, the novel's effect on the public was the opposite; it encouraged morbid sensibility.
The Weimar Years
Contemporary Applications of Glass
In 1775, Goethe was invited to visit Charles Augustus, duke of Saxe-Weimar, at whose court he was to spend the rest of his life. For ten years Goethe was chief minister of state at Weimar. He later retained only the directorship of the state theater and the scientific institutions.
Italian and French Influences
A trip to Italy (1786-88) fired his enthusiasm for the classical ideal, as Goethe tells us in his travel account Die italienische Reise (1816) and in Winckelmann und sein Jahrhundert[Winckelmann and his century] (1805). Also written under the classical impact were the historical drama Egmont (1788), well known for Beethoven's incidental music; Römische Elegien (1788); the psychological drama Torquato Tasso(1789); the domestic epic Hermann und Dorothea (1797); and the final, poetic version (1787) of the drama Iphigenie auf Tauris.
In 1792 Goethe accompanied Duke Charles Augustus as official historian in the allied campaign against revolutionary France. He appreciated the principles of the French Revolution but resented the methods employed. A reformer in his own small state, Goethe wished to see social change accomplished from above. Later he refused to share in the patriotic fervor that swept Germany during the Napoleonic Wars.
Novels and Poetry
His novel Die Wahlverwandtschaften(1809, tr. Elective Affinities, 1963) is one of his most significant novels, but perhaps his best-known work in that genre is the Wilhelm Meister series. The novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre[the apprenticeship of Wilhelm Meister] (1796), became the prototype of the German Bildungsroman, or novel of character development. In 1829 the last installment of Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre [Wilhelm Meister's journeyman years], a series of episodes, was published.
His most enduring work, indeed, one of the peaks of world literature, is the dramatic poem Faust. The first part was published in 1808, the second shortly after Goethe's death. Goethe recast the traditional Faust legend and made it one of the greatest poetic and philosophic creations the world possesses. His main departure from the original is no doubt the salvation of Faust, the erring seeker, in the mystic last scene of the second part.
Many women passed through Goethe's life, with Charlotte von Stein probably the most intellectual of them. He married (1806) Christiane Vulpius (1765-1816), who had borne him a son. Goethe's unsuccessful marriage offer (1822) to young Ulrike von Levetzow inspired his poems Trilogie der Leidenschaft [trilogy of passion]. Westöstlicher Diwan (1819), a collection of Goethe's finest lyric poetry, was inspired by his young friend Marianne von Willemer, who figures as Suleika in the cycle. The Diwan strikes a new note in German poetry, introducing Eastern elements derived from Goethe's reading of the Persian poet Hafiz.
Other Accomplishments
Increasingly aloof from national, political, or even literary partisanship, Goethe became more and more the Olympian divinity, to whose shrine at Weimar all Europe flocked. The variety and extent of his accomplishments and activities were monumental. Goethe knew French, English, Italian, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew and translated works by Diderot, Voltaire, Cellini, Byron, and others. His approach to science was one of sensuous experience and poetic intuition. Well known is his stubborn attack on Newton's theory of light in Zur Farbenlehre (1810). A corresponding treatise on acoustics remained unfinished.
An accomplished amateur musician, Goethe conducted instrumental and vocal ensembles and directed opera performances in Weimar. His search for an operatic composer with whom he could collaborate failed; although many of his operetta librettos were composed, none achieved lasting fame. Goethe's exquisite lyrical poems, often inspired by existing songs, challenged contemporary composers to give their best in music, and such songs as "Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt" [only the lonely heart], "Kennst du das Land" [know'st thou the land], and Erlkönig were among the song texts most often set to music.
Goethe's aim was to make his life a concrete example of the full range of human potential, and he succeeded as few others did. The friendship of Friedrich von Schiller and his death (1805) made a deep impression on Goethe. He is buried, alongside Schiller, in the ducal crypt at Weimar. The opinions of Goethe are recorded not only in his own writings but also in conversations recorded by his secretary J. P. Eckermann and in extensive correspondence with the composer Zelter and with Schiller, Byron, Carlyle, Manzoni, and others. It would be difficult to overestimate Goethe's influence on the subsequent history of German literature.
Bibliography:
The bulk of Goethe's work is immense; the most recent complete edition is the so-called Weimar edition (133 vol. in 140, 1887-1919). Most of his works have been translated into English, notably by Thomas Carlyle. Biographies and literary studies are numerous; for bibliographies see Eugene Oswald, Goethe in England and America (2d ed. 1909), and A. J. Dickson, Goethe in England, 1909-1949 (1951). The following biographies may be mentioned: G. H. Lewes (1855), James Sime (1888), Friedrich Gundolf (1916, in German), and J. G. Robertson (1927); Ludwig Lewisohn, ed., Goethe: The Story of a Man (1949). See also Conversations of Goethe by Johann Peter Eckermann, John Oxenford, tr., Havelock Ellis (1998).
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Lyndon B. Johnson

1908–1973, Lyndon Baines Johnson was born in Stonewall, Tex., on Aug. 27, 1908.

On both sides of his family he had a political heritage mingled with a Baptist background of preachers and teachers. Both his father and his paternal grandfather served in the Texas House of Representatives.

After his graduation from Southwest Texas State Teachers College, Johnson taught school for two years. He went to Washington in 1932 as secretary to Rep. Richard M. Kleberg. During this time, he married Claudia Alta Taylor, known as "Lady Bird." They had two children: Lynda Bird and Luci Baines.

Today's Birthdays

August 27

Lyndon B. Johnson

1908–1973, Lyndon Baines Johnson was born in Stonewall, Tex., on Aug. 27, 1908.

On both sides of his family he had a political heritage mingled with a Baptist background of preachers and teachers. Both his father and his paternal grandfather served in the Texas House of Representatives.

After his graduation from Southwest Texas State Teachers College, Johnson taught school for two years. He went to Washington in 1932 as secretary to Rep. Richard M. Kleberg. During this time, he married Claudia Alta Taylor, known as "Lady Bird." They had two children: Lynda Bird and Luci Baines.

In 1935, Johnson became Texas administrator for the National Youth Administration. Two years later, he was elected to Congress as an all-out supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and served until 1949. He was the first member of Congress to enlist in the armed forces after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He served in the Navy in the Pacific and won a Silver Star.
Johnson was elected to the Senate in 1948 after he had captured the Democratic nomination by only 87 votes. He was 40 years old. He became the Senate Democratic leader in 1953. A heart attack in 1955 threatened to end his political career, but he recovered fully and resumed his duties.
At the height of his power as Senate leader, Johnson sought the Democratic nomination for president in 1960. When he lost to John F. Kennedy, he surprised even some of his closest associates by accepting second place on the ticket. Johnson was riding in another car in the motorcade when Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. He took the oath of office in the presidential jet on the Dallas airfield. With Johnson's insistent backing, Congress finally adopted a far-reaching civil-rights bill, a voting-rights bill, a Medicare program for the aged, and measures to improve education and conservation. Congress also began what Johnson described as "an all-out war" on poverty.
Amassing a record-breaking majority of nearly 16 million votes, Johnson was elected president in his own right in 1964, defeating Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona. The double tragedy of a war in Southeast Asia and urban riots at home marked Johnson's last two years in office. Faced with disunity in the nation and challenges within his own party, Johnson surprised the country on March 31, 1968, with the announcement that he would not be a candidate for re-election. He died of a heart attack suffered at his LBJ Ranch on Jan. 22, 1973.
Bibliography:
Lyndon B. Johnson
Who2. Copyright © 1998-2006 by Who2?, LLC. All rights reserved.

Also Born on August 27

Charles G. Dawes statesman (1865)

Theodore Dreiser writer (1871)

Man Ray photographer, painter, (1890)

C.S. Forester novelist (1899)

Frank Leahy football coach (1908)

Tom Ford fashion designer, film director (1961)

August 27

Krakatoa volcano eruption is largest in recorded history, kills ~40,000 (1883); President Lyndon B. Johnson born (1908); Guinness Book of World Records first published (1955); RIP W.E.B. Du Bois (1963); RIP American vaudevillian Gracie Allen (1964).

August 26

Mother Teresa born (1910); 19th Amendment, granting US women right to vote, takes effect (1920); First televised Major League Baseball game (1939); RIP aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh (1974).

Henry David Thoreau

 (July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862) American author, poet, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, philosopher, and leading transcendentalist. He is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay, Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state

Sean Connery

Did you know...
... that today is 007 Day? On the birthday of Sean Connery, considered one of the best of all the actors in the James Bond movie series, do a little spying of your own. Connery was born on August 25, 1930, in Edinburgh, Scotland. Happy birthday, Sean!

August 23

Actor River Phoenix born (1970); Salad Bowl strike begins; largest farmworker strike in US history (1970); HBD Kobe Bryant (1978); HBD 12-time Olympic swimming medalist Natalie Coughlin (1982); World Wide Web opens to the public (1991).

Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker (née Rothschild; August 22, 1893 – June 7, 1967) was an American poet, writer, critic, and satirist based in New York; she was best known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th-century urban foibles.

Dorothy Parker

Born Dorothy Rothschild
August 22, 1893
Long Branch, New Jersey, U.S.DiedJune 7, 1967(aged 73)
New York City, U.S.OccupationAuthor, poet, critic, screenwriterNationalityAmericanGenrePoetry, satire, short storiesLiterary movementAmerican modernismNotable worksEnough Rope, Sunset Gun, Star Light, Star Bright--, A Star Is BornNotable awardsO. Henry Award 
1929 
Spouses

Edwin Pond Parker II
(m. 1917; div. 1928)

Alan Campbell
(m. 1934; div. 1947)

(m. 1950; died 1963)

Websitewww.dorothyparker.com
From a conflicted and unhappy childhood, Parker rose to acclaim, both for her literary works published in such magazines as The New Yorker and as a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table. Following the breakup of the circle, Parker traveled to Hollywood to pursue screenwriting. Her successes there, including two Academy Award nominations, were curtailed when her involvement in left-wing politics resulted in her being placed on the Hollywood blacklist.
Dismissive of her own talents, she deplored her reputation as a "wisecracker". Nevertheless, both her literary output and reputation for sharp wit have endured.

Claude Debussy

Did you know...
... that today is the Birthday of Claude Debussy (1862)? This French composer was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His major works included Clair de lune, Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, the opera Pelleas et Melisande, and La Mer.

August 22

1st America’s Cup yacht race (1851); American poet Dorothy Parker born (1893); HBD Cadillac Motor Co. (1902); Althea Gibson is 1st African-American to compete in US national tennis tournament (1950); Black Panther Party founder Huey Newton is murdered (1989).

August 21

Nat Turner leads slave rebellion (1831); Mona Lisa stolen from Louvre, is recovered 2 years later (1911); Basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain born (1936); Hawaii becomes 50th US state (1959); HBD Usain Bolt (1986)

August 20

Oliver Hazard Perry

1785–1819, American naval officer, born in South Kingstown, Rhode Island; brother of Matthew Calbraith Perry.

Appointed a midshipman in 1799, he served in the Tripolitan War, was promoted to lieutenant (1807), and from 1807 to 1809 was engaged in building gunboats. In the War of 1812 he was commissioned to build, equip, and man a fleet at Erie, Pa. On Sept. 10, 1813, Perry's fleet left Put-in-Bay, Ohio, and met a slightly inferior British force. In the subsequent battle, the battle of Lake Erie, Perry's flagship, the Lawrence, was reduced to ruins, but he transferred his flag to the Niagara and shortly forced the British to surrender. His report of the battle sent to Gen. William H. Harrison—"We have met the enemy and they are ours"—has become famous. The victory, which made Perry a national hero, gave the United States control of Lake Erie and helped pave the way for Harrison's victory in the battle of the Thames River, in which Perry participated. After the war he served as a captain in the Mediterranean. Later, on a mission to Venezuela, he contracted yellow fever, died, and was buried in Trinidad. His body was later brought to Newport, R.I., where a monument was erected to him. A memorial to Perry at Put-in-Bay, built 1912–15, was made a national monument in 1936.

See biography by C. J. Dutton (1935); C. O. Paullin, ed., The Battle of Lake Erie (1918); C. S. Forester, The Age of Fighting Sail (1956).
Who2. Copyright © 1998-2006 by Who2?, LLC. All rights reserved.

Also Born on August 20

Benjamin Harrison23rd U.S. President (1833)

Eero Saarinenarchitect (1910)

George J. Mitchellpublic official (1933)

Connie ChungTV news reporter (1946)

August 20

First around-the-world telegram sent (1911); Valley of the Dolls author Jacqueline Susann is born (1918); Leon Trotsky fatally wounded in Mexico (1940); NASA launches Viking 1 probe toward Mars (1975); RIP comedian Jerry Lewis (2017).

August 19

John Dryden poet, dramatist, and critic (1631)

Orville Wright aviation pioneer (1871)

Coco Chanel fashion designer (1883)

Ogden Nash poet (1902)

Malcolm Forbespublisher/multimillionaire (1919)

Willie Shoemaker jockey (1931)

Matthew Perry actor (1969)

Bill Clinton

August 19

William Jefferson Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III in Hope, Ark., on August 19, 1946.

His father died before he was born, and he was originally named William Jefferson Blythe 4th, but after his mother remarried, he assumed the surname of his stepfather. After graduating from Georgetown Univ. (1968), attending Oxford Univ. as a Rhodes scholar (1968–70), and receiving a law degree from Yale Univ. (1973), Clinton returned to his home state, where he was a lawyer and (1974–76) law professor. In 1974 he was an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives. Two years later, he was elected Arkansas's attorney general, and in 1978 he won the Arkansas governorship, becoming the nation's youngest governor. Defeated for reelection in 1980, he regained the governorship in 1982 and retained it in two subsequent elections. Generally regarded as a moderate Democrat, he headed the centrist Democratic Leadership Council from 1990 to 1991.

In 1992, Clinton won the Democratic presidential nomination after a primary campaign in which his character and private life were repeatedly questioned and, with running mate Senator Al Gore of Tennessee, went on to win the election, garnering 43% of the national vote in defeating Republican incumbent George H. W. Bush and independent H. Ross Perot. By his election, he became the first president born after World War II to serve in the office and the first to lead the country in the post–cold war era.

In his first year in office, Clinton won passage of a national service program and of tax increases and spending cuts to reduce the federal deficit. He also proposed major changes in the U.S. health-care system that ultimately would have provided health-insurance coverage to most Americans. Clinton was unable to overcome widespread opposition to changes in the health-care system, however, and in a major policy defeat, failed to win passage of his plan. After this failure, his proposed programs were never as sweeping. The president's wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, whom he married in 1975, played a more visibly active role in her husband's first term than most first ladies; she was particularly prominent in his attempt to revamp the health-care system.
In 1994, Clinton sent U.S. forces to Haiti as part of the negotiated restoration of Jean-Bertrand Aristide's presidency. He also withdrew U.S. forces from Somalia (1994), where while helping to avert famine they had suffered casualties in a futile effort to capture a Somali warlord. Clinton promoted peace negotiations in the Middle East, which bore fruit in important agreements, and in the former Yugoslavia, which led to a peace agreement in late 1995. He also restored U.S. diplomatic relations with Vietnam in 1995.
After the Democratic party lost control of both houses of Congress in Nov., 1994, in elections that were regarded as a strong rebuff to the president, Clinton appeared to have lost some of his political initiative. He was often criticized for vacillating on issues; at the same time, he was embroiled in conflict with sometimes radically conservative Republicans in Congress, whose goals in education, Medicare, and other areas often were at odds with his own. In 1995 and 1996, congressional Republicans and Clinton clashed over budget and deficit-reduction priorities, leading to two partial federal government shutdowns. Perceived as the victor in those conflicts, Clinton regained some of his standing with the public. Allegations of improper activities by the Clintons relating to Whitewaterpersisted but were not proved, despite congressional and independent counsel investigations.
By 1996, Clinton had succeeded in characterizing the Republican agenda as extremist while himself adopting many aspects of it. Forced to compromise on such items as welfare reform in order to assure passage of any change, Republicans passed bills that often seemed as much part of the president's program as their own. The welfare bill that he signed at the end of his term revolutionized the system, requiring that recipients work, while providing them with various subsidies to aid in the transition. Clinton won renomination by his party unopposed in 1996. Benefiting from a basically healthy economy, he handily won reelection in Nov., 1996, garnering 49% of the vote against Republican candidate Bob Dole and Reform party candidate Ross Perot, and became the first Democratic president since Franklin Roosevelt to win two terms at the polls.
In 1997, Clinton and the Republicans agreed on a deal that combined tax cuts and reductions in spending to produce the first balanced federal budget in three decades. The president now seemed to have mastered the art of employing incremental, rather than large-scale, governmental action to effect change, leaving the Republicans, with their announced mandate for fundamental change, to appear visionary and extreme. Having taken the center, and with stock markets continuing to boom and unemployment low, Clinton enjoyed high popularity, presiding over an enormous national surge in prosperity and innovation.
At the beginning of 1998, however, ongoing investigations into his past actions engulfed him in the Lewinsky scandal, and for the rest of the year American politics were convulsed by the struggle between the president and his Republican accusers, which led to his impeachment on Dec. 20. He thus became the first elected president to be impeached (Andrew Johnson, the only other chief executive to be impeached, fell heir to the office when Pres. Lincoln was assassinated). It was apparent, however, that much of the public, while fascinated by the scandal, held the impeachment drive to be partisan and irrelevant to national affairs. In Jan., 1999, two impeachment counts were tried in the Senate, which on Feb. 12 acquitted Clinton. In the year following, U.S. domestic politics returned to something like normality, although the looming campaign for the 2000 presidential election began to overshadow Clinton's presidency. During both his terms Clinton took an active interest in environmental preservation, and by 2000 he had set aside more than three million acres (1.25 million hectares) of land in wilderness or national monuments, protecting more acreage in the lower 48 states than any other president.
The late 1990s saw a number of foreign-policy successes and setbacks for President Clinton. He continued to work for permanent peace in the Middle East, and his administration helped foster accords between the Palestinians and Israel in 1997 and 1999, but further negotiations in 2000 proved unsuccessful. Iraq's Saddam Hussein increased his resistance to UN weapons inspections in the late 1990s, leading to U.S. and British air attacks in late 1998; attacks continued at a lower level throughout much of 1999 while the issue of weapons inspections remained unresolved. In Apr.–June, 1999, a breakdown in an attempt to achieve a negotiated settlement in Kosovosparked a 78-day U.S.-led NATO air war that forced Yugoslavia (now Serbia and Montenegro) to cede control of the province, but not before Yugoslav forces had made refugees of millions and killed several thousand.
The second term of Clinton's presidency saw a pronounced effort to use international trade agreeements to foster political changes in countries throughout the world, including Russia, China (with whom he established normal trade relations in 2000), Korea, Vietnam, and Indonesia. While global trade flourished, Clinton's hopes that trade would lead to democratization and improved human rights policies in a number of countries by and large failed to be realized. In 1997 the Clinton administration had won ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention (signed 1993), but it refused to join in a major international treaty banning land mines. The Republican-dominated Senate narrowly rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in late 1999 in a major policy setback; in late 2000, Clinton made the United States a party to the 1998 Rome Treaty on the establishment of an International Criminal Court for war crimes.
Clinton benefited during his entire presidency from a strong economy, leading the country during an unprecedented period of economic expansion and, with some partisan critics giving credit to skill and some to luck, making a steady national prosperity the hallmark of his administrations. He left office having revived and strengthened the national Democratic party, which he guided toward more centrist positions, emphasizing fiscal responsibility, championing the middle class, and reversing many of the public's negative stereotypes regarding the party's liberal stance. Although Vice President Al Gore failed to win the 2000 presidential election, he won a plurality of the popular vote, and the party scored some gains in Congress, especially the Senate. The president's pardoning, however, of more than 100 people on his last day in office sparked one final controversy. Several persons he pardoned were well connnected and even notorious but not apparently deserving, and even Clinton supporters and appointees were openly critical. Charges that pardons were obtained through bribery, however, appeared to be unfounded.
No one major accomplishment or program marked Clinton's terms in office; his many real achievements were mainly incremental, and were often overshadowed by setbacks. However, through his extraordinary ability to relate to ordinary Americans, his intelligence and wit, and his skill in manipulating the media, he maintained an unusual level of popularity and a high approval rating throughout most of two terms in office. Nonetheless, the Lewinsky scandal, in particular, permanently marred his presidency. This was so although the sexual affair at its core was neither unique for Clinton, who had had other extramarital liaisons, nor for the office, some of the earlier holders of which had engaged in similar, although much less publicized, behavior.
As he left office, Clinton faced mountains of legal bills and continued threats of legal action. The youngest former president since Theodore Roosevelt, he established his presidential library in Little Rock, Ark., and, moving to New York where his wife was now a senator, opened an office in Harlem. He remained an influential and generally popular figure.
Bibliography:
See J. Brummett, Highwire (1994); E. Drew, On the Edge (1994) and Showdown (1996); D. Maraniss, First in His Class (1995); R. A. Posner, An Affair of State (1999); J. Klein, The Natural (2002).
Who2. Copyright © 1998-2006 by Who2?, LLC. All rights reserved.

August 19

Fashion designer Coco Chanel born (1883); Indianapolis Motor Speedway, home of the Indianapolis 500, hosts first race (1909); HBD president Bill Clinton (1946); RIP comedian Groucho Marx (1977); Operation Iraqi Freedom is ended (2010).

Rosalynn Carter

Did you know...
... that today is the birthday of Rosalynn Carter  (1927). Rosalynn Carter (born Eleanor Rosalynn Smith) is the wife of the former President of the United States Jimmy Carter and served as the First Lady of the United States from 1977 to 1981. She has been a leading advocate for numerous causes, perhaps most prominently for mental health research. Have a wonderful day, Rosalynn!

Virginia Dare

1587, first white child of English parents to be born in America.

She was the daughter of Ananias and Elenor Dare, members of Sir Walter Raleigh's ill-fated colony that settled Roanoke Island on the North Carolina coast. Since no trace remained of the colony when the relief expedition reached Roanoke in 1591, the child's fate is not known.

Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

 (February 28, 1533 – September 13, 1592) (Age 59) One of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance, known for popularizing the essay as a literary genre and is popularly thought of as the father of Modern skepticism.

Davy Crockett

Did you know...
... that today is Davy Crockett's Birthday (1786)? Davy Crockett, American frontiersman and politician, became famous for larger-than-life exploits popularized by stage plays and almanacs. After his death, he continued to be credited with brazen acts of mythical proportion. These led to television and movie portrayals, and he became one of the best-known American folk heroes.

August 16

Gold is discovered in Canada’s Yukon Territory, sparks Klondike Fever (1896); RIP Babe Ruth (1948); Sports Illustrated is first published (1954); HBD Madonna (1958); RIP Elvis Presley (1977); RIP Aretha Franklin (2018).

August 16

Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell
(February 21, 1903 –  January 14, 1977) A French-Cuban author, based at first in France and later in the USA, who became famous for her published journals, which span more than 60 years, beginning when she was 11 years old and ending shortly before her death. Nin is also famous for her erotic literature, and short stories. 

August 15

Chick-fil-A has once again been named the top limited-service restaurant chain in the country, its fourth year in a row claiming the top spot on the American Customer Satisfaction Index.  

August 14

Ernest Everett Justbiologist, educator (1883)

Russell Bakercolumnist (1925)

Steve Martinactor (1945)

Danielle Steelauthor (1947)

Magic Johnsonbasketball player (1959)

Halle Berryactress, model (1966)

John Galsworthy

Pronunciation: [gôlz´wûrðE, galz´–]
1867–1933, English novelist and dramatist.

Winner of the 1932 Nobel Prize in Literature, he is best remembered for his series of novels tracing the history of the wealthy Forsyte family from the 1880s to the 1920s. Of an old and rich family, Galsworthy spent his youth in relative leisure, studied at Oxford, was called to the bar in 1890, and in 1894 began a period of extensive travel. After the publication of his first novel, Jocelyn (1898), he devoted himself entirely to writing. The bulk of his fiction deals with the fortunes of the Forsytes, an upper-middle-class family—complacent, acquisitive, snobbish, and ruled by money. His attitude towards them was not unsympathetic, and he created several memorable characters, notably Soames Forsyte, “the man of property,” who treats even his wife as a possession. The Forsyte novels are grouped in three trilogies. The first of these, The Forsyte Saga (1922), includes The Man of Property (1906), In Chancery (1920), and To Let (1921). The second trilogy, A Modern Comedy(1928), includes The White Monkey(1924), The Silver Spoon (1926), and Swan Song (1928). The third group, End of the Chapter (1934), includes Maid in Waiting (1931), Flowering Wilderness (1932), and One More River (1933). Galsworthy also wrote a series of dramas concerned with various social problems. Although their impartiality makes them less than exciting, the plays were remarkably successful. They include The Silver Box (1906), Strife (1909), Justice (1910), The Pigeon (1912), The Skin Game (1920), Loyalties (1922), and Escape (1926).

August 14

HBD Steve Martin (1945); HBD Magic Johnson (1959); HBD Halle Berry (1966); Blackout in US, Canada affects 53 million (2003, see photos); US embassy in Cuba opens for 1st time in 54 years (2015).

August 13

Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes conquers Aztecs, ending Aztec Empire (1521); Sharpshooter Annie Oakley born (1860); Fidel Castro born (1926); Construction of the Berlin Wall begins (1961); RIP baseball great Mickey Mantle (1995).

August 12

Egyptian queen Cleopatra dies by suicide (30 BCE); RIP James Bond creator Ian Fleming (1964); IBM personal computer is released (1981); Largest ever Tyrannosaurus rex discovered (1990); RIP Hollywood icon Lauren Bacall (2014).

August 11

Jerry Falwell

1933–2007, American fundamentalist Baptist pastor, born in Lynchburg, Virginia.

A popular preacher, Falwell began (1968) airing his services on television on a program that was later named “The Old-Time Gospel Hour.” Falwell founded (1979) and led (1979–87) the Moral Majority, an organization devoted to reestablishing traditional religious values in the national consciousness through support of conservative political candidates (see also fundamentalism). Falwell headed the Liberty Alliance (est. 1991).

See W. H. Capps, The New Religious Right (1990).

Who2. Copyright © 1998-2006 by Who2?, LLC. All rights reserved.

Also Born on August 11

Friedrich Ludwig Jahnfather of gymnastics (1778)

Robert Ingersollorator (1833)

Carrie Jacobs Bondsongwriter (1862)

Louise Boganpoet and critic (1897)

Lloyd Nolanactor (1902)

Alex Haleyauthor (1921)

Steve Wozniakentrepreneur (1950)

August 9

US drops atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing 40,000+ (1945); Whitney Houston born (1963); Actress Sharon Tate, 4 others are murdered by Manson Family (1969); Gerald Ford becomes US President as Richard Nixon resigns (1974); RIP musician Jerry Garcia (1995).

August 9

Izaak Walton writer (1593)

Amedeo Avogadro physicist (1776)

William Fowler nuclear astrophysicist (1911)

Bob Cousy basketball player (1928)

Whitney Houston singer (1963)

Jean Piaget

Pronunciation: [zhäNpyä´jA]
1896–1980, Swiss psychologist, known for his research in developmental psychology.

After receiving a degree in zoology from the Univ. of Neuchâtel (1918), Piaget's interests shifted to psychology. He studied under C. G. Jung and Eugen Bleuler in Zürich, and then in Paris at the Sorbonne. There, he worked with Alfred Binet in the administration of intelligence tests to children. In reviewing the tests, Piaget became interested in the types of mistakes children of various ages were likely to make. After returning to Switzerland in 1921, Piaget began to study intensively the reasoning processes of children at various ages. In 1929, he became professor of child psychology at the Univ. of Geneva, where he remained until his death, also serving as professor of psychology at the Univ. of Lausanne (1937–54). Piaget theorized that cognitive development proceeds in four genetically determined stages that always follow the same sequential order. Although best known for his groundbreaking work in developmental psychology, Piaget wrote on a number of other topics as well. Influenced by the French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, Piaget's Structuralism (1970) focussed on the applications of dialectics and structuralism in the behavioral sciences. He also attempted a synthesis of physics, biology, psychology, and epistemology, published as Biology and Knowledge(1971). A prolific writer, Piaget's writings also include The Child's Conception of the World (tr. 1929), The Moral Judgment of the Child (tr. 1932), The Language and Thought of the Child (tr. of 3d ed. 1962), Genetic Epistemology (tr. 1970), and The Development of Thought (tr. 1977).

August 8

Thomas Edison patents the mimeograph (1876); HBD Dustin Hoffman (1937); RIP writer Shirley Jackson (1965); President Nixon announces his resignation (1974); HBD Roger Federer (1981).

August 7

Nobel Peace Prize winner Ralph Bunche born (1904); HBD actress Charlize Theron (1975); Operation Desert Shield preps US to enter Gulf War (1990); US embassies in Kenya & Tanzania are bombed, killing 224 and wounding 4,500 (1998); RIP journalist Peter Jennings (2005).

August 6

Actress Lucille Ball born (1911); Pop artist Andy Warhol born (1928); US drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing 70,000 (1945); Voting Rights Act signed (1965); Curiosity rover lands on Mars (2012).

August 5

Mayflower departs from England to New World (1620); Space pioneer Neil Armstrong born (1930); RIP Marilyn Monroe (1962); US, UK, and Soviet Union sign Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963).

Marilyn Monroe

1926–62, American movie actress, b. Los Angeles as Norma Jean Baker or Norma Jeane Mortenson. Raised in orphanages after 1935 and first married at 14, Monroe, who began her career as a pin-up model, became a world-famous sex symbol and, after her death, a Hollywood legend. She was noted for her distinctively breathy singing style and seductive film roles, and she was also a superb light comedienne. At first patronized by critics, she studied acting and won more challenging roles. Her death from a barbituate overdose at age 36, a possible suicide, only increased her mystique. Her films include Niagara(1952), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes(1953), The Seven-Year Itch (1955), Bus Stop (1956), Some Like It Hot (1959), and The Misfits (1960). Monroe's second husband was Joe DiMaggio ; her third, Arthur Miller .
See the controversial study by Norman Mailer (1973) and the play After the Fall(1963) by Arthur Miller; S. Buchthal and B. Comment. ed., Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters (2010) and L. Banner, ed., MM—Personal: From the Private Archive of Marilyn Monroe(2011); biographies by F. L. Guiles (1969), G. McCann (1988), M. Zolotow (rev. ed. 1990), C. E. Rollyson (1993), D. Spoto (1993), B. Leaming (1998), and L. Banner (2012); J. Meyers, The Genius and the Goddess: Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe (2010); study by S. Churchwell (2005).

August 2

Declaration of Independence is signed (1776); American actress Myrna Loy born (1905); RIP Alexander Graham Bell (1922); Author and activist James Baldwin born (1924); Iraq invades Kuwait, leading to Gulf War (1990).

August 1

Moby-Dick author Herman Melville born (1819); RIP American frontierswoman Calamity Jane (1903); HBD rapper Coolio (1963); Sniper kills 14, wounds 31 at University of Texas (1966); MTV launches, Video Killed the Radio Star is first video (1981).

Harold Prince

Harold Prince, Giant of the Broadway Stage, Dies at 91

BY ROBERT SIMONSON

JUL 31, 2019

The producer and director helped transform the Broadway landscape with shows such as Company, Sweeney Todd, and The Phantom of the Opera.

Harold Prince, who topped his significant achievements as a producer in the 1950s and 1960s to become one of the most prominent stage directors of the 20th century, ultimately taking home 21 Tony Awards, died July 31. He was 91.
Mr. Prince, known as Hal to all in the theatre trade, worked well into his ninth decade. He remains represented on Broadway with his long-running production of The Phantom of the Opera. That Andrew Lloyd Webbermusical is probably the Prince credit best known to the general theatregoing public. But to aficionados and historians, his singular artistic achievement was the groundbreaking string of Stephen Sondheim musicals he staged in the 1970s. (The future collaborators first met on the opening night of South Pacific.) Their shows—Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Pacific Overtures, and Sweeney Todd—are widely considered to be among the most significant landmarks of musical theatre, shows that changed the face of the art form.

Lonny Price, James Weissenbach, Ann Morrison, George Furth, Harold Prince and Stephen Sondheim

Mr. Prince and Sondheim broke after the disastrous reception of the 1981 musical Merrily We Roll Along, which ended their artistic winning streak. They did not work together again until the 2003 Chicago and Washington, D.C., productions of Sondheim’s Bounce, a show that never reached Broadway (but did eventually find a home Off-Broadway, as Road Show, directed by John Doyle).
Mr. Prince’s producing credits during the first half of his career would have been enough to earn him a place in theatre history. Like his contemporaries Emanuel Azenberg and Bernard Gersten, he began his working life as a stage manager, manning shows like Call Me Madam and Wonderful Town. In 1954, at the age of 26, he produced his first Broadway musical, teaming with Frederick Brisson and Robert E. Griffith: The Pajama Game, written by the new team of Jerry Ross and Richard Adler. A romantic comedy set in a pajama factory, where the lady union boss and the factory manager fall in love, it was a hit and won the Tony Award for Best Musical—Mr. Prince’s first such award. He would win many more.
He stuck with Adler and Ross for Damn Yankees, which became as big a smash as Pajama Game, winning him another Tony. In 1957, he scored a lesser hit, but made a historical mark, with West Side Story, Leonard Bernstein’s poetic treatment of gang and race warfare in Manhattan.

Carol Lawrence and Larry Kert in a promotional photo for West Side Story. Martha Swope/©NYPL for the Performing Arts

He continued to rack up hits: Fiorello!:Take Her, She’s Mine; Tenderloin; and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. The biggest of all was Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick’s Fiddler on the Roof, which opened in 1964 and ran for more than 3,000 performances. The smash provided Mr. Prince with financial security and allowed him to experiment over the next years, both as a producer and a director. He was given the opportunity to direct serious plays by T. Edward Hambleton, the artistic director of the Phoenix Theatre. He later formed the New Phoenix Repertory Company with Hambleton in 1972.
As a producer, Mr. Prince was known for his keen financial mind: “I am known as a man who is tight with a buck,” he once said—and for being on hand. While a production was being put together, he could be found in the rehearsal hall and the theatre. Unlike David Merrick, who would produce several shows at once, Mr. Prince would attack one show at a time. According to Stuart W. Little’s book The Playmakers, he would spend six months deciding on a project and a year getting it on the stage. His care with money and management led to an unusual percentage of successes. By 1969, his 16 produced shows had shown a combined profit of $13 million.
With Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick’s She Loves Me in 1963, Mr. Prince made the leap to directing, piloting the simple love story (based on the Miklos Laszlo play Parfumerie) into a modest hit and earning his first Tony nomination as a director. With 1966’s Cabaret, he proved She Loves Me had not been a fluke. The musical based on the Berlin stories of Christopher Isherwood (and the play I Am a Camera) proved to be one of the most durable musicals of all time.
His career directing work by composer-lyricist Sondheim began when he suggested to playwright George Furththat he turn a series of comic sketches about modern marriage into a musical. Sondheim was asked to write the songs, and Prince would direct. The episodic, conceptual musical centered on Bobby, an unmarried bachelor whose best friends are all married couples of various levels of happiness and sanity. The director brought in set designer Boris Aronson, who created an abstract chrome and glass assemblage of compartments that helped to define Company’s message, and a young Michael Bennett to do the choreography.
Mr. Prince would play an equally pivotal role in the evolution of Sondheim and James Goldman’s Follies, which would become, under the director’s guidance, an ambitious examination of the abandonment of youth’s ideals through the prism of the death of a bygone musical entertainment. Set in an abandoned theatre where a reunion of Ziegfeld-like artists have gathered, the show operated on several levels, using both contemporary and traditional musical styles as well as a lavish costume and scenic palette.

Larry Kert and company in Company.

In 1973, Mr. Prince and Sondheim teamed on A Little Night Music, a chamber musical dramatization of the Ingmar Bergman film Smiles of a Summer Night. Pacific Overturesfollowed in 1976, and Prince’s production borrowed heavily from Eastern artistic modes. The duo’s greatest collaboration arguably came with 1979’s Sweeney Todd, a churning, operatic melodrama based on a penny-dreadful story about a murderous, vengeful barber and his meat-pie-making mistress and accomplice. Mr. Prince again elicited a striking set design, this time from Eugene Lee.
The same year as Sweeney Todd, he directed his first Andrew Lloyd Webber show: Evita, a histrionic, romantic telling of the life of Argentine first lady Eva Perón. His highly stylized production contained many iconic images still well remembered by theatre audiences.
Sondheim and Mr. Prince's next project, Merrily We Roll Along, provoked a rupture in the partnership. Based on a backwards-running comedy by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart about the disillusionment of three artist friends, Mr. Prince struggled to find the appropriate concept for the piece. He cast it with college-age kids, whom he clothed in sweatshirts emblazoned with the names of their characters. He also chose to open the show on Broadway rather than out of town, allowing the newspapers to follow the venture’s travails. Critics hated the show, and it closed in 16 performances. “I had a lot of guilt about that show, because I couldn’t envision it,” he later said. “And they were all kids and I loved them a lot. My daughter was in it. She was the youngest in the company. I felt like I had let them down.”
Soon after, Mr. Prince told Sondheim he felt their collaboration had “run out of steam.” They didn’t work together again for more than 20 years.
In the late 1980s, he stopped producing to concentrate solely on directing. “I stopped for a very good reason,” he said. “I stopped on the grounds that I was sick of reading ‘Producer-Comma-Director.’ I wanted people to know I’m a director. It somehow seemed I was muddying the waters some.”
READ: How Hal Prince Created Masterpiece After Masterpiece for Broadway
Harold Smith Prince was born in New York City on January 30, 1928, into a German Jewish family. After college at the University of Pennsylvania, he went to work for legendary director George Abbott as a gofer when he was 20. He would thereafter often cite Abbott as a career role model, not least of all for his longevity. According to some accounts, he encountered Sondheim not long afterwards. Later on, he would sport a full beard, which, along with the eyeglasses forever propped on his high forehead, became his physical trademark.
It was T. Edward Hambleton of the Phoenix Theater who first gave Prince a chance to direct. The show was a New York State Council of the Arts touring company of Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker. “I grabbed it, sent it off around the state with Sada Thompson and Sylvia Sidney.”

Stephen Sondheim and Hal PrinceWalter McBride

Restless and quick-witted, Mr. Prince was known for his energy, his enthusiasm, and for his rapid style of talk. “He’s going like wildfire all the time,” said actor and Sweeney Todd alum George Hearn. “It’s exciting to be around that mind.” In rehearsal, he could be forceful to the point of brutality. Playwright Terrence McNally, who wrote the libretto of the Prince-directed Kiss of the Spider Woman, once said, “Hal only negotiates through force.”
EXTENDED Q&A: Hal Prince on His History-Making Musicals
Mr. Prince's final Broadway achievement was a fitting one: Manhattan Theatre Club's Prince of Broadway, co-directed with Susan Stroman, which looked back at his decades of hits even as its young cast looked forward to the future of the art form that Prince had such a hand in shaping.
He is survived by his wife Judy Chaplin, daughter of Hollywood composer and producer Saul Chaplin, and daughter Daisy Prince and son Charles Prince, as well as grandchildren Phoebe, Lucy, and Felix. As per his wishes, there will be no funeral. A celebration of his life with the theatrical community will be held this fall.
Flip through the shows he brought to Broadway below:

41 PLAYBILLS HAL PRINCE BROUGHT TO BROADWAY

 

41 Playbills Hal Prince Brought to Broadway

41 PHOTOS

The Pajama Game

West Side Story

Fiorello!

Tenderloin

A Call on Kuprin

Take Her, She's Mine

A Family Affair

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

She Loves Me

Fiddler on the Roof

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HAROLD PRINCE