MILESTONES: October 4, birthdays for Susan Sarandon, Derrick Rose, Alicia Silverstone

October 4, 2018 Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Susan Sarandon. Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP

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NOTABLE PEOPLE born on this day include actor ARMOND ASSANTE, who was born in 1949; actress CAITRIONA BALFE, who was born in 1979; actor ABRAHAM BENRUBI, who was born in 1969; author JACKIE COLLINS, who was born in 1941; actress RACHEL LEIGH COOK, who was born in 1979; singer and actor CLIFTON DAVIS, who was born in 1945; former U.S. Secretary of Defense CHUCK HAGEL, who was born in 1946; actress DAKOTA JOHNSON, who was born in 1989; former baseball player and manager TONY LA RUSSA JR., who was born in 1944; novelist ANNE RICE, who was born in 1941; basketball player DERRICK ROSE, who was born in 1988; Oscar-winning actress SUSAN SARANDON, who was born in New York in 1946; actress ALICIA SILVERSTONE, who was born in 1976; Oscar-winning actor CRISTOPHER WALTZ, who was born in 1956; and baseball manager and former player JIMMY WILLIAMS, who was born in 1943.

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“THE ALVIN SHOW” PREMIERED ON THIS DAY IN 1961. The prime-time cartoon was based on Ross Bagdasarian’s novelty group the Chipmunks, which began as recordings with speeded-up vocals. In the series, the three chipmunks, Alvin, Simon, and Theodore, sang and had adventures with their songwriter-manager, David Seville. “Alvin” was more successful as a Saturday-morning cartoon. It returned in reruns in 1979, prompted a sequel, “Alvin and the Chipmunks,” in 1983, and inspired a series of feature films.

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THE GREGORIAN CALENDAR WAS ADJUSTED ON THIS DAY IN 1582. Pope Gregory XIII issued a bulletin that decreed that the day following Thursday, Oct 4, 1582, should be Friday, Oct 15, 1582, thus correcting the Julian calendar, then 10 days out of date relative to the seasons. This reform was effective in most Catholic countries. The Julian calendar continued in use in Britain and the American colonies until 1752, in Russia until 1918 and in Greece until 1923.

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THE ISLAND OF CORSICA WAS LIBERATED ON THIS DAY IN 1943. The island became the first French territory in Europe freed from Nazi control when Free French troops entered the city of Bastia in the culmination of a French uprising that had begun on the island on Sept. 19.

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BUSTER KEATON WAS BORN ON THIS DAY IN 1895. Born Joseph Francis Keaton, Buster Keaton (supposedly nicknamed by Harry Houdini) was one of America’s greatest filmmakers. He became a star on the vaudeville stage by age 6, but moved on to films at age 21, costarring in several comic shorts with Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle and then starring in, writing, directing and producing his own shorts — which featured improbable stunts and physical gags along with Keaton’s deadpan expression. His full-length silent films are regarded as masterpieces of American comedy, especially “Sherlock, Jr.” and the Civil War epic “The General” — both of which are on the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry. Alcoholism and troubled relations with the MGM studio sidelined his career in the 1930s and ’40s, but he later began a quieter career writing gags, making comic cameos in such films as “Around the World in Eighty Days,” appearing on TV’s “Candid Camera” and even performing as a clown in Paris’s Cirque Medrano. Keaton died in 1966 in California.

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Special thanks to “Chase’s Calendar of Events” and Brooklyn Public Library.

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“Knowledge is like a garden: If it is not cultivated, it cannot be harvested.” — Guinean saying