DECEMBER 3rd

On this date in:
1818	Illinois was admitted to the union as the 21st state.
1828	Andrew Jackson was elected the seventh president of the United States.
1857	Novelist Joseph Conrad was born in Berdychiv, Poland.
1947	"A Streetcar Named Desire" by Tennessee Williams opened on Broadway.
1948	The House Un-American Activities Committee announced that former Communist spy Whittaker Chambers had produced microfilm of secret documents hidden inside a pumpkin on his Maryland farm.
1964	Police arrested some 800 students at the University of California at Berkeley, one day after the students stormed the administration building and staged a massive sit-in.
1965	The album "Rubber Soul" by the Beatles was released.
1967	Surgeons in Cape Town, South Africa, led by Dr. Christiaan Barnard, performed the first human heart transplant. Louis Washkansky lived 18 days with the new heart.
1967	The 20th Century Limited, the famed luxury train, completed its final run from New York City to Chicago.
1979	Eleven people were killed in a crush of fans at Cincinnati's Riverfront Coliseum before a rock concert by The Who.
1989	East German Communist leader Egon Krenz, the ruling Politburo and the party's Central Committee resigned.
1994	Elizabeth Glaser, who became an AIDS activist after she and her two children were infected with HIV via a blood transfusion, died at age 47.
1997	South Korea struck a deal with the International Monetary Fund for a $55 billion bailout of its foundering economy.
1999	Scientists failed to make contact with the Mars Polar Lander after it began its fiery descent toward the red planet; the spacecraft was presumed destroyed.
2006	Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez won re-election.

Article of the day

A Streetcar Named Desire opens on Broadway

On this day in 1947, Marlon Brando's famous cry of "STELLA!" first booms across a Broadway stage, electrifying the audience at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre during the first-ever performance of Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire.

The 23-year-old Brando played the rough, working-class Polish-American Stanley Kowalski, whose violent clash with Blanche DuBois (played on Broadway by Jessica Tandy), a Southern belle with a dark past, is at the center of Williams' famous drama. Blanche comes to stay with her sister Stella (Kim Hunter), Stanley's wife, at their home in the French Quarter of New Orleans; she and Stanley immediately despise each other. In the climactic scene, Stanley rapes Blanche, causing her to lose her fragile grip on sanity; the play ends with her being led away in a straitjacket.

Streetcar, produced by Irene Mayer Selznick and directed by Elia Kazan, shocked mid-century audiences with its frank depiction of sexuality and brutality onstage. When the curtain went down on opening night, there was a moment of stunned silence before the crowd erupted into a round of applause that lasted 30 minutes. On December 17, the cast left New York to go on the road. The show would run for more than 800 performances, turning the charismatic Brando into an overnight star. Tandy won a Tony Award for her performance, and Williams was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

In 1951, Kazan made Streetcar into a movie. Brando, Hunter and Karl Malden (as Stanley's friend and Blanche's love interest) reprised their roles. The role of Blanche went to Vivien Leigh, the scenery-chewing star of Gone with the Wind. Controversy flared when the Catholic Legion of Decency threatened to condemn the film unless the explicitly sexual scenes--including the climactic rape--were removed. When Williams, who wrote the screenplay, refused to take out the rape, the Legion insisted that Stanley be punished onscreen. As a result, the movie (but not the play) ends with Stella leaving Stanley.

A Streetcar Named Desire earned 12 Oscar nominations, including acting nods for each of its four leads. The movie won for Best Art Direction, and Leigh, Hunter and Malden all took home awards; Brando lost to Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen.

Today Birthdays

Brendan Fraser turns 40 years old today.

AP Photo/ Wong Maye-E Actor Brendan Fraser ("The Mummy" films) turns 40 years old today.

83 Ferlin Husky Country singer 81 Andy Williams Singer 78 Jean-Luc Godard Director 77 Jaye P. Morgan Singer ("The Gong Show") 67 Mary Alice Actress 60 Ozzy Osbourne Rock singer (Black Sabbath) 59 Heather Menzies Actress 54 Paul Gregg Country musician (Restless Heart) 53 Steven Culp Actor 48 Julianne Moore Actress 48 Daryl Hannah Actress 40 Montell Jordan R&B singer 39 Royale Watkins Actor, comedian 38 Paul Byrd Baseball player 35 Bruno Campos Actor 35 Holly Marie Combs Actress ("Charmed") 33 Lauren Roman Actress 29 Daniel Bedingfield Singer 28 Anna Chlumsky Actress ("My Girl" movies) 27 Brian Bonsall Actor 23 Amanda Seyfried Actress ("Mamma Mia," "Big Love") 21 Michael Angarano Actor