The Man Who Came to Dinner

And the greatest British adventurer you’ve never heard of. To Alexander Woollcott , for reasons that are nobody’s business.

Gene Stratton-Porter’s portrait of an Eastern Screech Owl.

Julia Marlowe, The Folger Shakespeare Library

Photographer Gene Stratton-Porter was born on August 17, 1863.

Shakespearean actress Julia Marlowe was born on August 17, 1866, in England.

Actress Mae West was born on August 17, 1893.

Actor Monty Wooley was born on August 17, 1888.

Travel writer Vivienne de Watteville was born on August 17, 1900, in the United Kingdom. She is the author of

two books Africa: Out in the Blue (1927) and Speak to the Earth: Wanderings and Reflections Among Elephants and Mountains(1935).

Hemingway’s original manuscript for the short story The Snows of Kilimanjaro included an epithet from Speak to the Earth. Here is a link to an article about her in The Telegraph called On the trail of the greatest female British adventurer you’ve never heard of by Anthony Peregrine.

L: Vivienne de Watteville. R: Publicity photo of Monty Wooley from a stage presentation of his most famous role in *The Man Who Came to Dinner* at the Plymouth Theater.

Photograph by Lida Moser, “Judy and the Boys (Mimicry).”1961, from *The New York Times* obituary, published September 2, 2014 courtesy Alida Anderson Art Projects.

Photographer Lida Moser was born on August 17, 1920. See more of her work National Gallery of Art Linda Moser Archive or the photographic estate holder of Moser’s work Alida Anderson Art Projects.

Parts of the Face: French Vocabulary Lesson 1961 Larry Rivers 1923–2002 Purchased 1962 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/T00522

Expressionist artist Larry Rivers was born on August 17, 1923. Neither here nor there, but he has been a favorite of mine ever since a wonderful painting teacher named Fred Lynch showed me a thick book of his paintings in 1999.

Jazz tenor saxophonist Ike Quebec was born on August 17, 1918.

Also born on August 17th:

Davy Crockett, 1786; movie producer Samuel Goldwyn, 1882; actor Robert de Niro, 1943; and lead singer of the Go-Gos Belinda Carlisle, 1958.

For today:

Lucky number: 5

Magic Eight Ball says: Don’t count on it.

Robert De Niro movie to watch: Goodfellas

Closing Thoughts: Vacation. It’s all you ever wanted.