Birthdays: February 2008 Archives

...the glorious Bernadette Peters!!!

Why we love her? Anyone who has ever seen her in concert or on the Broadway stage knows that she is one of the great divas of her time. A two-time Tony winner, her stage triumphs have included "Annie Get Your Gun," "Sunday in the Park With George," "Song and Dance," "Into the Woods" and "Gypsy" (I love her Mama Rose and think it ranks right up there with Merman's).

Happy birthday and best wishes to this great talent...

...the legendary actress and activist is still going strong and that is a good thing for us all. With HIV-AIDS still a major problem here and everywhere despite advances in treatment, Dame Elizabeth continues to fight the good fight and raise millions for research and care as she has done for 25 years. The photo at right is from mid-December when Elizabeth took to the stage for the first time since the early 80s for a benefit performance of "Love Letters" with James Earl Jones.

She's had an epic life with seven husbands (including Richard Burton twice), four children, many grandchildren, two best actress Oscars, a humanitarian Oscar, and has been named a Dame of the British Empire, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Kennedy Center Honors and the AFI Award.

Then there are those 50-plus movies including such classics as "Giant," "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" "A Place in the Sun," "Raintree County," "National Velvet," "Father of the Bride," "Suddenly Last Summer," and my fave "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (that's her with gorgeous leading man Paul Newman, above).

And she's always been a friend of gays dating back to her youth and her close friendship with Montgomery Clift as well as with her "Giant" co-stars Rock Hudson and James Dean. She also had a life-long friendship with Roddy McDowell who she met on one of her first films, "Lassie Coime Home."

There really ain't nothing like this Dame...

...Tony winner Stockard Channing, who turned 64 years old today!

Why we love her: She was Rizzo in "Grease" for starters. And for those who can remember, she was also "The Girl Most Likely To..." and first-rate (and Oscar-nominated) for her role in "Six Degrees of Separation." She's also a two-time Emmy winner who had a lengthy run on "The West Wing" and was wonderful and wacky on the criminally-cancelled sitcom "Out of Practice."

Why we really love her: Stockard has always embraced queer-friendly projects including her Emmy winning roile as Judy Shepard in "The Matthew Shepard Story," the mother of a teenage lesbian in "The Truth About Jane," and the wife of a man who comes out of the closet in "Jack."

She's also appeared in such gay faves as "The First Wives Club," "To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar" and "Heartburn." I also recommend you check out Stockard's delicious performance in the little-seen Bette Midler flick "Isn't She Great." The Divine Miss M played novelist Jacqueline Susanne in the movie and was fine, but it was hard not to think about how good Channing would have been in that role. As it is, she steals the film...not an easy thing when Bette Midler is involved.

...the sensational Judith Light! The Emmy winning actress and beloved gay icon turns 59 today.

Why we love her: There's all the great television characters like Claire Meade on "Ugly Betty," Karen Woleck on "One Life to Live" and, of course, Angela on "Who's the Boss." But her best performance, in my opinion, will be seen later this year when "Save Me" hits theaters. Judith, playing a woman who runs an ex-gay ministry, is so superb, so heartbreaking, that I think she is worthy of an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress.

Let the campaign begin!

But most of all, as a gay man, I love her for being an unflinching straight ally to the gay community. She has worked tirelessly for AIDS awareness since the mid-80s and that work has grown to all kinds of LGBT causes for which she serves on boards and appears at events and, always, she speaks from her very big heart.

...Broadway legend Elaine Stritch!

The Tony winner turns 83 today. She's still going strong, winning her second Emmy last fall for her role as Alec Baldwin's mother on "30 Rock." If you haven't seen Elaine Stritch sing "Ladies Who Lunch," you are missing out on greatness. She sings in on the DVD or CD of her great one-woman show "Elaine Stritch at Liberty" the mixes songs with deeply personal stories. To see her sing the song at the height of her powers, get ahold of the original Broadway soundtrack of "Company."