On this Day April 23
• In 1564, the greatest writer in the English language, William Shakespeare, was born in Stratford-upon-Avon. Third of the eight children of a tanner, he married Anne Hathaway when she was three months pregnant, moved to London, and became an actor-shareholder in a troupe called the Lord Chamberlain`s Men. He`s variously been accused of homosexuality, stealing other people`s works, and not existing at all. Authorship of his plays and poems has been attributed to Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, Walter Raleigh, and even Queen Elizabeth I, while analysis of his six known signatures suggests he had “scriveners palsy” – writer`s cramp. A citizen of Massachusetts once told Prime Minister Gladstone, “Shakespeare was a great man. Why, I doubt if there are six his equal in the whole of Boston.”
• In1925, Sam Goldwyn married Frances Howard, a 21-year-old actress, three weeks after meeting her at a Park Avenue party. Though the millionaire producer had twice declined to cast her in his films, he proposed only a couple of days after their meeting. When she stalled, he made her mind up for her by getting his press office to run reports in the New York papers saying, “Sam Goldwyn to wed flapper!” His best man, who`d been told Sam didn`t want publicity, was surprised by the posse of pressmen at the Jersey City Hall. Innocently Goldwyn asked, “Can I control the press?”