Nov 28: Hope Lange (1931) US Actress. This wholesome, blond, left-handed actress made her film debut in the 1956 Marilyn Monroe (not a lefty, despite people saying she was) vehicle Bus Stop but scored her first real triumph the following year with an Oscar-nominated performance in the film version of Grace Metalious's then controversial novel Peyton Place. Although she appeared in a number of successful films after that--The Young Lions (1958), The Best of Everything (with Joan Crawford, in 1959), Death Wish (1974)--she ingratiated herself with an entire generation of TV viewers with her Emmy-winning performance in the sweet-natured hit series The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, which ran from 1968 to 1970.
Vin Scully (1927) US sports announcer. At Catholic school in the 1930s, Scully was regularly punished by the nuns whenever he tried to write with his left hand. One too many whacks with the ruler left his hand looking "chopped up" when he came home from school one day. His parents called the doctor, who in turn wrote a letter to the nuns at Scully's school. "He went through a great deal of reasoning," Scully said later, "as to why they shouldn't try to change me and among other things, he pointed out that it perhaps could cause me to stutter. Then he finished up the letter by saying something to the effect, 'and besides, dear Sisters, why would you want to change God's will?" The nuns relented.
Chuck Mangione (1940) US musician. The Grammy Award-winning trumpeter and jazz composer is most famous for his megahit "Feels So Good"--"the song that put my daughters through college." Ironically, Mangione first took up the trumpet in his youth after seeing the film Young Man with a Horn, based on the life of another left-handed jazz great, Bix Beiderbecke.
Andrew McCarthy (1962) US actor. Teen heartthrob of the eighties, famous for his youthful roles, especially in adolescent amgst films: St. Elmo's Fire (1985), Pretty in Pink (1986), Less Than Zero (1987), and others. Two of his most successful films were the comedies Mannequin (1987) and Weekend at Bernie's (1989), both of which precipitated sequels.
Ben Stiller (1965) US comedian-actor. Stiller's mother, Anne Meara (of the comedy team Stiller and Meara), is also left-handed (her birthday is Sept.20)
Ridley Scott (1937) British film director. When Ridley Scott's Blade Runner was first released in 1982, a large number of prominent critics excoriated it. The film, they said, was obtuse, grim, self-conscious, and, good God, what is with all that endless rain, soot, and cobalt blue smokiness. Audiences, who initially lined up expecting another Harrison-Ford-dashing-to-the-rescue pic, were hardly more generous. What many people failed to appreciate on first viewing was that the film--which would launch a revolution in ever visual art form, from rock videos to computer graphics to major motion pictures--was one of the most staggeringly beautiful ever made, right from its first zooming shot of the wrecked skyline of L.A. pierced by fleeting towers of shocking orange flames. The critics, as the film's reputation increased and its influence became widespread, began to abandon their original opinions and rethink their earlier denunciations. Left-handers are often in love with what they see, enraptured by the sheer experience of sight. It's one of the reasons they count among their ranks some of the most authoritative and powerful artists in history. Scott is no exception. Admittedly, he's made fiilms whose scripts--either by misdesign or because of later interference--have left a lot, an awful lot, to be desired: Legend in 1985 and 1492: Conquest of Paradise in 1992 are the two most obvious examples. Yet going to a Ridley Scott film specifically for the script seems as pointless as checking out a Matisse painting to see how the frame was put together. Among his other films are The Duelists (1977), Alien (1979), Someone to Watch Over Me (1987), Thelma and Louise (1991), and G.I. Jane (1997).
Richard Pryor (1940) US Comedian. "Man, you can run when you're on fire," Richard Pryor told audiences after the 1980 accident in which, while freebasing cocaine, he suffered third degree burns covering one half of his body. Audiences laughed--albeit nervously--just as they had been laughing nervously at Pryor's stage routines for years, since he first started nightclub work in the 1960s. Pryor makes people nervous. His comedy is distinctly left-handed: it breaks boundaries. It doesn't break boundaries in polite increments: it breaks them by decimating them.
Lou Rawls (1936) US Singer. The left-handed, Grammy Award-winning rhythm and blues singer is best known for his 1976 hit "You'll Never Find (Another Love Like Mine)."
Treat Williams (1951) US Actor. Williams made his film debut as a falsetto-voiced detective in a gay bathhouse in the 1976 film version of Terrence McNally's play The Ritz. The film was a failure but five years later his career took an upward turn after his shattering performance as a New York City cop turned Justice Department informant in Sidney Lumet's critically acclaimed Prince of the City. He has also appeared in the films The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper, The Men's Club, and Dead Heat.
