American composer JOHN STRAUSS was born (d: 2011); An Emmy-award winning composer and music editor who wrote the theme music for Car 54 Where Are You? and The Phil Silvers Show. Strauss won an Emmy for sound editing for a TV movie about Howard Hughes and a Grammy for producing the Amadeus movie soundtrack album. But he is best known for the Car 54 theme, which is reportedly based on the second movement of Mozart’s G major Piano Trio (K. 564). Who knew?

Speaking of who knew…the New York Times obit for him when Strauss passed at the age of 90 had this paragraph: “Mr. Strauss’s marriage to actress Charlotte Rae ended in divorce. His partner afterward, Lionel Friedman, died in 2003” . Unless anyone can show me where “Lionel” is a woman’s name, it seemed to…um…stand out for me.