HORATIO ALGER, American author, minister, born (d: 1899) a 19^th century American author who wrote approximately 135 “dime novels.” Many of his works have been described as “rags-to-riches” stories, illustrating how down-and-out boys might be able to achieve the American Dream of wealth and success through hard work, courage, determination and concern for others.

This widely-held view involves a significant simplification, as Alger's characters do not typically achieve extreme wealth; rather they attain middle-class security, stability, and a solid reputation — that is, their efforts are rewarded with a place in society, not domination of it. He is noted as a significant figure in the history of American cultural and social ideals, even though his novels are rarely read these days. As bestsellers in their own time, Alger's books rivaled those of Mark Twain's in popularity.

In 1866 Horatio Alger moved from Brewster, Mass., where he had been a Unitarian minister, to New York City. The experiences gained in his effort to improve the condition of street boys in that famous city of “lights and shadows” became the raw material of his books that he wrote for boys. By leading exemplary lives, struggling valiantly against poverty and adversity, Alger’s heroes gain wealth and honor. His juvenile fiction, particularly the Luck and Pluck and Tattered Tom series, was amazingly popular and left a strong mark upon the character of a generation of American youth.

What no one knew at the time, however, was the reason for Alger’s arrival in New York, not to mention an interesting correlative to his atavistic concern for boys. Back in Brewster, a special parish investigating committee of the Unitarian church had charged their minister with “gross immorality and a most heinous crime, a crime of no less magnitude than the abominable and revolting crime of familiarity with boys.” Considering what Alger had been accused of doming to two lads named John Clark and Thomas S. Crocker before he hightailed it out of Brewster, is it any wonder that his first boys’ book was called Ragged Dick?

CHARLES NELSON REILLY, American actor was born on this date (d. 2007); An American actor, comedian, director and drama teacher known for his comedic roles in movies, children's television, animated cartoons and as a panelist on the game show Match Game. Reilly did not publicly proclaim his sexuality until his one-man show Save It for the Stage.

However, much like fellow game-show regular Paul Lynde of the same era, Reilly played up a campy on-screen persona. In many episodes of Match Game, he would lampoon himself by briefly affecting a deep voice and self-consciously describing how "butch" he was. He mentioned in a 2002 interview with Entertainment Tonight that he felt no need to note this and that he never purposefully hid his sexuality from anyone.

Patrick Hughes III, a set decorator and dresser, was Reilly's domestic partner; the two met backstage while Reilly was appearing on the game show Battlestars. They lived in Beverly Hills. This writer had the privilege of traveling with Reilly, who was this writer's MFA. mentor, when he toured withThe Belle of Amherst, that he directed with Julie Harris in the role of Emily Dickenson. He was a kind and generous friend.

On May 25, 2007, Reilly died at his home from complications from pneumonia after a year-long illness.

RIP TAYLOR, American actor, born; an openly gay American actor and comedian. Taylor is known for his high-voiced yells, zany hair (which is a toupée), and bushy handlebar mustache over a perpetual toothy grin. He always enters a venue tossing handfuls of confetti from a paper bag onto his audience and laughing hysterically, while the band plays his theme song, "Happy Days Are Here Again." Taylor's comedic style includes horrible puns, often in conjunction with props (for example, holding up a plastic fish full of holes and exclaiming "Holy Mackerel!") and miming along to novelty records (including the works of Spike Jones). If he gets little or no reaction following one of his jokes, he stops for a moment and yells at the audience: "I don't dance, folks! This is it!" Or, "Hello? Can you people hear me?"  Taylor, 83 today, is married to Rusty Rowe.

EDMUND WHITE, American author, born; an American novelist, short-story writer and critic. He is a member of the faculty of Princeton University's Program in Creative Writing. White's best-known work is A Boy's Own Story, the first volume of an autobiographical-fiction series that continued with The Beautiful Room Is Empty and The Farewell Symphony, describing stages in the life of a Gay man from boyhood to middle age. Several characters in these latter two novels are recognizably based on well-known individuals from White's New York-centered literary and artistic milieu.

An earlier novel Nocturnes for the King of Naples (1978) and a later novel The Married Man (2000) are also gay-themed and draw heavily on White's own life. In 2006 he published a nonfiction autobiography entitled My Lives. It is unusual in that it is organized by theme, rather than chronologically. White's autobiographical works are frank and unapologetic about his promiscuity and his HIV-positive status. In Paris, in 1984, he was closely involved in the foundation of the French HIV/AIDS NGO AIDES. 

Though he is openly Gay himself, not all of his works center on Gay themes. His debut Forgetting Elena (1973) is set on an imaginary island. The novel can be read as commenting on Gay culture, but only in a highly coded and indirect manner. Caracole (1985) centers on heterosexual characters, relationships, and desires. Fanny: A Fiction (2003) is a historical novel about Frances Trollope and Frances Wright. White's play Terre Haute (2006) portrays discussions that take place when a prisoner based on Timothy McVeigh is visited by a writer based on Gore Vidal. (In real life McVeigh and Vidal corresponded but did not meet.)  He was co-author, with Charles Silverstein, of The Joy of Gay Sex (1977).

White has been influential as a literary and cultural critic, particularly on Gay issues and has become something of an eminence grise in Gay lit culture. He has received many awards and distinctions; among these, he is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et de Lettres, and a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Today is the birthday of the British MP CLIVE BETTS.  Born in Sheffield as Clive James Charles Betts, he was made an opposition whip under Tony Blair in 1996, and after the 1997 general election entered the government as an Assistant Whip. He was promoted in 1998 to full Whip, with the title of Lord Commissioner to the Treasury, but like the majority of whips at that time was dropped from the government after the 2001 general election. Since 2002, Betts has been a Member of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister Select Committee. Since the 2005 general election he has also been a member of the Finance and Services Committee. He was outed by a newspaper in February of 2003.

Today is the birthday of the British dancer, director and choreographer MATTHEW BOURNE.  Bourne was born in Walthamstow, London. He studied at the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance in London, where he was awarded a B.A. in Dance Theatre. In addition to founding and choreographing for his own companies he has collaborated in theatre productions, working with actors including Nigel Hawthorne, Dawn French and Jonathan Pryce. Since his final Broadway performance as a dancer in January 1999, he's dedicated himself to working as a director/ choreographer.

His choreographed works include Overlap Lovers (1987), Town And Country (1991), Deadly Serious (1992), Nutcracker (1992), Highland Fling (1994), the all-male Swan Lake (1995), Cinderella (1997), Oliver! (1997), The Car Man (a version of Carmen with a homoerotic The Postman Always Rings Twice twist) (2000), Play Without Words (2003), Mary Poppins (2004), which won an Olivier Award, Edward Scissorhands (2005), and a dance adaptation of Oscar Wilde's The Picture Of Dorian Gray (2008)

In 2004 he was made an Order of the British Empire O.B.E.

Today is the birthday of the American actor, comic and producer JASON STUART.  Born in the the Bronx, New York and raised in Los Angeles, Stuart has many productions to his credit including the albums I'm Jason Stuart...Jealous? and Gay Comedy Without a Dress (2001) and appearances in various films including A Day Without A Mexican (2004), Coffee Date (2005), and Ghosts Never Sleep (2005).

Stuart has been nominated for a Gay International Film Award for Best Supporting Actor in the film Coffee Date. He also produced and starred in his own totally improvised independent film, 10 Attitudes, an award-winning romantic comedy that was successful both in the U.S. and abroad. Stuart also acted in a remake of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum, playing the villain. He was a featured actor in Birth of a Nation (2016).

Stuart has supported the LGBT community by performing at countless benefits for issues from AIDS to the homeless. He is the chairman of the first ever Screen Actors Guild LGBT Committee, and chairs the comedy shows for Lifeworks Mentoring Program.

Today is … National Rubber Ducky Day...celebrated in Washington State. It is also National Public Radio Day, according to the Consumer Electronics Association. Inventor Lee Deforest successfully arranged the world's first radio broadcast on Jan. 13, 1910. The broadcast consisted of music from the Metropolitan Opera in New York, N.Y.

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