August 6

August 6 is the birthdate of actress Lucille Ball. She and Desi Arnaz formed Desilu Productions in 1950 to sell their vaudeville act as a TV series to CBS. The project premiered in 1951 as “I Love Lucy.” Desi/Lucy divorced in 1960, but in 1962 Lucy became president of Desilu, the first woman to run a major television studio. The company produced or filmed many other TV series, including Our Miss Brooks, The Untouchables, Make Room for Daddy, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Andy Griffith Show, My Three Sons, I Spy, Star Trek and Mission: Impossible. Desilu was sold and merged into Paramount Pictures in 1967.

August 5

August 5 is the birthdate of film director and actor John Huston. Born in Nevada, Missouri, he wrote the screenplays for most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are classics, including: The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), Key Largo (1948), The Asphalt Jungle (1950), The African Queen (1951), The Red Badge of Courage (1951), Moby Dick (1956), The Misfits (1961), and The Man Who Would Be King (1975). He acted in at least 28 films, memorably as the corrupt Noah Cross (pictured) in Roman Polanski’s “Chinatown” (1974).

August 4

August 4 is the birthdate of Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong, all-time master of the cornet and trumpet and (later) a unique vocalist. He had many hit recordings from the 1920s onward, including "Stardust," "What a Wonderful World," "When the Saints Go Marching In," "Dream a Little Dream of Me," "Ain't Misbehavin'," "Stompin' at the Savoy" and (in 1964) “Hello, Dolly!” He had a unique tone and an unmatched talent for melodic improvisation, and it was largely because of Armstrong that the trumpet emerged as a solo instrument in jazz and is used widely today.

August 3

August 3 is Tony Bennett’s birthday – he’s a mind-boggling 86. Tony recorded his first hit song in 1951. By 1979, his career had floundered, he nearly died of a cocaine overdose, and the IRS was trying to seize his home in L.A. But beginning in 1990, he staged a successful career comeback with the help of his son, Danny. His 1992 recording “Perfectly Frank,” a collection of 24 standards in tribute to Frank Sinatra, went gold and earned a Grammy Award. IMHO, it’s one of the greatest collections of songs from the Great American Songbook.

August 2

August 2 is the birthdate of Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, French sculptor and designer of the Statue of Liberty. While traveling in the Middle East in 1855-56, he discovered his passion for large-scale public monuments and colossal sculptures when he visited the Sphinx and Pyramids of Giza in Egypt. In 1865, he began supporting Edouard de Laboulaye’s proposal to present a monument representing freedom and democracy to the United States, and in 1870 began designing "Liberty Enlightening the World." Bartholdi oversaw the complete assembly of the statue (made from sheets of copper) in 1886.

August 1

August 1 is the birthday of the great Herman Melville, American novelist, short story writer and poet, known for his masterpiece, Moby-Dick (1851). He enjoyed early success with Typee (1846), a travel adventure, but his popularity quickly waned. He was a forgotten figure when he died in 1891. Moby Dick’s tale of the wandering Ishmael, the obsessed Captain Ahab and the enigmatic white whale explores many fundamental themes, including the nature of good and evil and the existence of God. When the book was published, Melville wrote to Nathaniel Hawthorne, “I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb.”

July 31

July 31 is the birthday of Milton Friedman, economist and Nobel laureate. His political philosophy promoted the free market economic system and minimal government intervention. In his book Capitalism and Freedom (1962) he advocated a volunteer military, freely floating exchange rates, abolition of medical licenses, a negative income tax and education vouchers. In recent years Friedman’s libertarian and laissez-faire views have met with fierce challenges.

July 30

July 30 is the birthday of alto saxophonist David Sanborn, who is 67. He grew up in Kirkwood, Missouri, and began playing the saxophone at a young age on a doctor's advice to strengthen his weakened chest muscles and improve his breathing, which had been compromised by polio. Since the 1980s Sanborn has been influential in the areas of pop, R&B and crossover. It may be noted that Mr. Sanborn was the single, overwhelming reason why certain persons took up playing the saxophone in the late 1980s.

July 29

July 29 is the birthdate of Alexis de Tocqueville, French political thinker and historian best known for Democracy in America (two volumes, 1835, 1840), which he wrote partly to help his countrymen understand their position between a fading aristocracy and an emerging democratic order. He toured the United States in the 1830s, when market forces, westward expansion and Jacksonian democracy were changing the nation. He focused on the balance between the liberty of the individual and equality within society, and he viewed equality as an unstoppable force in modern life.

July 28

July 28 is the birthdate of English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. He is considered an early Modern poet, a daring innovator in a period of traditional (Victorian) verse. His poetry is notable for the use of “sprung rhythm” (unconventional metre), stunning imagery and intricate use of language and rhyme. He died of typhoid fever at age 44.