Who2 Editorial Blog

Notes and Commentary from the Editors

Monday, January 12, 2009

Telly Savalas Was Born in 1922, Not 1924

We had 1924 as the birth year for Telly Savalas, but our friends at Answers.com asked us to double-check the date.

We did, by writing to CMG Worldwide, the management company that runs the official Telly Savalas website and manages his image for his estate. Their reply:

Hello, thank you for your inquiry on Telly Savalas. I have confirmed his birthdate was Jan. 21, 1922.

Thank you for you time and concern.

Regards,
Matt Graves
CMG Worldwide, Inc.

Telly may have fudged the date a bit during his career, as so many other actors have done. His NY Times obituary, for instance, says 1924. And various sources note that he died in 1994 just one day after his "70th" birthday.

But we're comfortable with that confirmation from CMG Worldwide, and have changed our official word to 1922.

(Heh! Nice coincidence: Doris Day made the exact same fudge -- from 1924 to 1922.)

Labels: Disputed Birth Dates, Doris Day, Matt Graves, Telly Savalas

Posted by Mr. Holznagel at 8:19 AM Share on Facebook 0 comments

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Steven Spielberg, That Sly Dog, Was Born in 1946

Our friends at Answers.com asked us to take a closer look at the birth year of director Steven Spielberg.

Who2 says 1946, but many sources online say 1947. Spielberg himself often led people to believe he was born in 1947. (Even the great Roger Ebert wrote a 50th birthday tribute to the director in 1997.)

So which year is correct?

Fortunately, a ton of legwork on this was done by Professor Joseph McBride for his 1997 book Steven Spielberg: A Biography.

McBride did some digging in Cincinnati, Spielberg's home town, and found that his birth certificate reads 1946. He found a December 1946 birth announcement from a Cincinnati paper, The American Israelite. He also looked into high school and college records, all of which had Spielberg born in 1946. So that pretty much seals it.

(Seems like Cincinnatians have a thing for lying about their age. We just cleared up the age of actress Doris Day -- born in Cincy in 1922, not 1924 as she claimed for years.)

McBride notes that a Los Angeles Times writer sniffed Spielberg out in 1981 by looking at his college records, but that Spielberg refused comment.

The assumption made by McBride (and others) is that Spielberg shaved a year off his age to seem like even more of a wunderkind than he already was. That fits a pattern of other tales Spielberg told about his early years in the business. He was young by any standard when he signed a directing contract with Universal Studios in 1969, but apparently felt age 21 sounded even better.

Bottom line: We stand by 1946 for Spielberg's year of birth, with a salute to Prof. McBride for all his work.

Snopes.com has probably the best take on the issue of phony biographies, quoting George Burns: "Most of what I say is true. The rest is show business."

Labels: Disputed Birth Dates, Doris Day, George Burns, Roger Ebert, Steven Spielberg

Posted by Mr. Holznagel at 6:44 AM Share on Facebook 0 comments

Saturday, November 08, 2008

Doris and Dorothy Day: Sisters in Confusion

Actress Doris Day and activist Dorothy Day have little in common besides similar names -- and the challenges they pose to anyone trying to document the details of their early lives.

The trouble spots are Doris's name and age, and Dorothy's daughter's birthdate.

Doris first. A.E. Hotchner's Doris Day: Her Own Story (William and Morrow, 1975), written with Doris' cooperation, offers this testimony: "I was born Doris Kappelhoff" (p. 18). But Garry McGee's Doris Day -- Sentimental Journey (McFarland & Co., 2006) says she was named Doris Mary Anne von Kappelhoff: "The 'von' was eliminated...shortly after Doris's birth" (p. 6).

Philip Kaufman's giant 626-page biography, Doris Day: The Untold Story of the Girl Next Door (Virgin Books, 2008), gives her father's name as William Kappelhoff (no "von") and her name as simply Doris Kappelhoff. Kaufman also firmly states her birth year as 1922 -- two years before the more commonly-accepted year of 1924.

(As longtime Who2 readers know, when someone in the entertainment business has two possible birth years, we tend to give more weight to the older year. Actors and actresses in particular have plenty of incentive to make themselves seem younger than they are, and little incentive to seem older.)

Now on to Dorothy. Biographers, sainthood advocates and most Internet sites seem settled on 3 March 1927, as the birthdate of her daughter, Tamar. Until, that is, you consult the curator of the extensive Dorothy Day archives at Marquette University.

"There are numerous documents supporting 1926 as the year of Tamar's birth," archivist Phillip Runkel tells Who2. "Also, we know that Dorothy asked her to wait until she turned 18 before she got married, and that marriage occurred in April 1944. Dorothy refers many times in her diaries and appointment books to the 4th of March as Tamar's birthday." Dorothy's autobiography, The Long Loneliness (Harper & Row, 1952) isn't much help. She's vague on the year, the only clue being her mention of the 1927 execution of Sacco and Vanzetti happening after Tamar's birth, but it's hard to tell how long.

So for Dorothy Day we'll buck the Tamar tide, trust the guy with the primary sources at his fingertips, and cast our lot with 4 March 1926 as Tamar's birthdate.

As for Dorothy's name: We'll stick with her own testimony of Doris Kappelhoff for her name, but side with biographer Kaufman for her birth year of 1922.

(Thanks to Hollywood and Religion Desk editor Hans Holznagel for this post.)

Labels: Disputed Birth Dates, Doris Day, Dorothy Day, Tamar Day

Posted by Mr. Holznagel at 9:19 AM Share on Facebook 1 comments

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