Good Morning All. Some Birthday Celebrities born on February 3:
1809 Felix Mendelssohn, composer (Germany; died 1847)
1811 Horace Greeley, newspaper editor and presidential candidate (Amherst, NH; died 1872)
1821 Elizabeth Blackwell, first woman physician (near Bristol, England; died 1910)
1874 Gertrude Stein, writer/critic (Allegheny, PA; died 1946)
1894 Norman Rockwell, artist/illustrator (New York, NY; died 1978)
1907 James Michener, novelist (New York, NY; died 1997)
1918 Joey Bishop, actor (Bronx, NY)
1940 Fran Tarkenton, football quarterback (Richmond, VA)
1944 Blythe Danner, actress (Philadelphia, PA)
1945 Bob Griese, football quarterback and sportscaster (Evansville, IN)
1950 Morgan Fairchild, actress (Dallas, TX)
In memory of Norman Rockwell:
Some trivia about James Michener from an interview conducted in 1997 by Kira Albin, two months prior to Michener's death.
"Rumor has it that Michener uses an army of researchers to gather background material for each of his epic novels, which average around 900 pages each. The fact is that he achieved his massive work with the help of only three secretaries. "People don't believe it, but it's absolutely true," says John Kings, Michener's editorial assistant since 1972. Adds Michener, "I think [people] would be shocked if they knew how hard I have to work to turn out these books, which seem to the average spectator so easy to do."
Michener, an orphan, was adopted shortly after birth by Mabel Michener, a poverty-stricken widow with two other children. The family lived in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, surviving with few resources and often little to eat. Michener's classmates and even a teacher tormented him about his unpressed secondhand clothes and toeless sneakers with broken, knotted laces.
According to John Hayes, author of James A. Michener: A Biography (The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1984), Mabel was Michener's birth mother, but being unwed, she used the adoption story to protect them both. Michener holds to the adoption version but no longer discusses the subject.
Michener's financial hardships during childhood affected his attitude toward money for the rest of his life. Despite his wealth resulting from literary success, he has always feared ending up in the poorhouse. He spends little money on himself beyond the bare necessities. "He lives like he was on social security," says Herman Silverman, a successful businessman and close friend of Michener for over 50 years. "He doesn't spend money on fancy homes or good food. He lives in a regular tract house that's probably not worth more than $200,000." Adds Silverman, "He's very generous with places he wants to be generous with."
The generosity to which Silverman refers adds up to over $100 million. Recipients of Michener's philanthropy include a variety of public institutions such as libraries, museums, and universities. As a firm believer in education he gave $30 million to the University of Texas at Austin for the establishment of a creative writing program. Several million more have gone to the creation of the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, formerly a jailhouse built in 1860. Reportedly, Michener did not want the building named after him, though he is immensely proud of the museum and what it has to offer. One wing is named for his third wife, Mari Sabusawa Michener, who died of cancer in 1994.
Everybody's askin' me,
