Today's Famous Birthdays

[IceWizard]

Phil Silvers
(born Phillip Silver; May 11, 1911 – November 1, 1985)

was an American entertainer and comedic actor, known as "The King of Chutzpah". His career as
a professional entertainer spanned nearly sixty years. He achieved major popularity when he starred
in The Phil Silvers Show, a 1950s sitcom set on a U.S. Army post in which he played
Master Sergeant Ernest (Ernie) Bilko. He also starred in the films It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)
and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966). He was a winner of two Primetime
Emmy Awards for his work on The Phil Silvers Show and two Tony Awards for his performances in
Top Banana and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. He also wrote the original lyrics
to the jazz standard "Nancy (with the Laughing Face)". Born Philip Silver in Brooklyn, New York, in
the working-class Brownsville neighborhood, he was the eighth and youngest child of Russian Jewish
immigrants, Saul and Sarah (née Handler) Silver. His siblings were
Lillian, Harry, Jack, Saul, Pearl, Michael, and Reuben Silver. His father, a sheet metal worker,
helped build the early New York skyscrapers.









Denver Dell Pyle
(May 11, 1920 – December 25, 1997)

was an American film and television actor and director. He was well known for a number of TV roles
from the 1960s through the 1980s, including his portrayal of Briscoe Darling in several episodes
of The Andy Griffith Show, as Jesse Duke in The Dukes of Hazzard from 1979 to 1985, as Mad Jack
in the NBC television series The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams, and as the titular character's father,
Buck Webb, in CBS's The Doris Day Show. In many of his roles, he portrayed either authority figures,
or gruff, demanding father figures, often as comic relief. Perhaps his most memorable film role was
that of Texas Ranger Frank Hamer in the movie Bonnie and Clyde (1967), as the lawman who
relentlessly chased down and finally killed the notorious duo in an ambush. Pyle was born in
Bethune, Colorado on May 11, 1920, to farmer Ben H. Pyle and his wife Maude; His brother, Willis,
was an animator known for his work with Walt Disney Animation Studios and UPA.









Douglas Osborne McClure
(May 11, 1935 – February 5, 1995)

was an American actor whose career in film and television extended from the 1950s to the 1990s.
He is best known for his role as the cowboy Trampas during the entire run from 1962 to 1971 of
the series The Virginian and mayor turned police chief Kyle Applegate on Out of this World.









Irving Berlin
(born Israel Beilin; May 11, 1888 – September 22, 1989)

was an American composer and lyricist. His music forms a large part of the Great American Songbook.
Born in Imperial Russia, Berlin arrived in the United States at the age of five. He published his first song,
"Marie from Sunny Italy", in 1907, receiving 33 cents for the publishing rights, and became known for
international hits, such as 1911's "Alexander's Ragtime Band". Composer George Gershwin called him
"the greatest songwriter that has ever lived",: 117  and composer Jerome Kern concluded that
"Irving Berlin has no place in American music—he is American music."









Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol gcYC
(11 May 1904 – 23 January 1989),

known as Salvador Dalí was a Spanish surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise
draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarre images in his work. Salvador Dalí was born on
11 May 1904, at 8:45 am, on the first floor of Carrer Monturiol, 20 in the town of Figueres, in
the Empordà region, close to the French border in Catalonia, Spain. Dalí's older brother, who
had also been named Salvador (born 12 October 1901), had died of gastroenteritis nine months
earlier, on 1 August 1903. His father, Salvador Luca Rafael Aniceto Dalí Cusí (1872–1950) was
a middle-class lawyer and notary,[12] an anti-clerical atheist and Catalan federalist, whose
strict disciplinary approach was tempered by his wife, Felipa Domènech Ferrés (1874–1921),
who encouraged her son's artistic endeavors.








Foster Brooks
(May 11, 1912 – December 20, 2001)

was an American actor and comedian best known for his portrayal of a lovable drunk in nightclub
performances and television programs. Brooks was born in Louisville, Kentucky on May 11, 1912,
to Edna and Pleasant M. Brooks. He had seven brothers. His career started in radio, notably with
station WHAS (AM) in Louisville. He was a staff announcer, and his deep baritone voice was also
well-suited for singing. Brooks gained fame for his reporting of the Ohio River flood of 1937, where
he was featured on emergency broadcasts by WHAS and also WSM (AM) from Nashville, Tennessee.
In 1952, Brooks appeared on local TV in a short-lived spoof of Gene Autry and his "Singing Cowboys".









Martha Conrad Quinn
(born May 11, 1959)

is an American actress and radio and television personality, best known as one of the original
video jockeys on MTV (along with Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter, and J. J. Jackson).
Quinn had spent much of her time at New York University doing two things: performing in
TV commercials (McDonald's, Country Time Lemonade, Clearasil, Campbell's Soup) and working
at WNYU-FM, the college radio station. Quinn was born in Albany, New York, the daughter of
Nina Pattison, a retirement counselor, and David Quinn, an attorney. She is the stepdaughter of
personal finance columnist Jane Bryant Quinn, and has two older brothers and a younger
half-brother. Prior to joining MTV, Quinn graduated from Ossining High School in 1977,
and NYU in 1981.