MICHAEL C. MOORE | VIEWPOINT: You say it's your birthday? You're in good company

For the last few years, I've been posting, on Facebook, a daily list of birthday greetings — mostly celebrities and cultural and historical figures, with that day's Birthday Facebook Friends tacked on — that draw as many comments as anything else I do.

People, I guess, enjoy seeing who they share a birthday with. It's somehow buoying to know you were born in the same square on the calendar as King Kong Bundy, or Chico Marx, or Hermione Gingold.

Well, anything that makes your special day even more special, even the tiniest little bit more special, makes it worth the time it takes to do it each morning. I'm just that kind of guy.

In recent months, though, I've thought about calling quits on the birthday list and moving on to something else. But every time I broach the idea of dumping it, I get barked at like I'm walking through the neighbor's back yard after dark. "People like getting wished a happy birthday first thing in the morning," they say. "They like being on a list with people like Zasu Pitts and Ernie DiGregorio."

So, I haven't quit.

That's not the only reason, though. I like the weird mix of people you get in each day's list — last Sunday's, for example, ranged from John Milton, the "Paradise Lost" author who was born in 1608, to boyish heartthrob Donnie Osmond, who was born in 1957 and, somehow, has never really grown up.

A random list of people who happened to be born on the same day is compelling proof that it really does take all kinds to fill the freeways.

And there's another reason I'm holding on to the birthday list, even though its compilation cuts into my beauty rest. I like the historical perspective it can bring: If one person looks at the list, wonders to themselves "Who in tarnation is Billy Bremner?, and is intrigued enough to punch the English guitarist (Rockpile, the Pretenders) up on Google, then I've done my job.

The birthday girl from Dec. 9 who really made me think, though, was Margaret Hamilton. I can almost hear many of you saying, "Who?"

Hamilton was a schoolteacher turned actress who played one of the most iconic roles in film history — the Wicked Witch of the West in 1939's "The Wizard of Oz." I've seen the film dozens and dozens of times, and she still frightens me. Today's kids are conditioned to huge, noisy, computer-generated scares, and monsters created by special-effects and CGI wizards. But there aren't many who don't at least cringe, or hide their eyes, at every cackle from Hamilton's green-skinned, fireball-wielding Witch.

That is, the kids who actually have seen "The Wizard of Oz." It's amazing how many haven't. They've memorized all 23 "Harry Potter" films (OK, maybe there weren't quite that many), but they've never even been exposed to what some (including me) consider the greatest film of all time.

Even though Hamilton didn't sing "Over the Rainbow," or "If I Only Had a Brain" — or anything else in the film, come to think of it — she was perhaps even more integral to film than Judy Garland or Ray Bolger. Without a truly harrowing Witch — from that first image of her morphing from Miss Gulch and flying through the twister right through to her "Oh, what a world!" demise — "The Wizard of Oz" wouldn't have been nearly as wonderful.

But most people never give Hamilton a second thought. They don't know about the pain she endured to play the role, from the second it was offered to her and she realized that her job would be to scare the bejeezes out of the children she so loved. And talk about typecasting: Imagine being Hamilton after "The Wizard of Oz," how often she was asked to make appearances and "be the Witch."

The injuries she suffered during the filming of her fiery departure from Munchkinland — burns to her face and hands when the trap door that was supposed to drop her out of the firestorm malfunctioned and put her out of action for six weeks — were slightly better documented. At least, she got more sympathy than her stunt double, Betty Danko, who was burned during the filming of the "Surrender Dorothy" scene.

After "The Wizard of Oz," Hamilton worried about how her tremendously effective portrayal of the Witch of the West might affect, and possibly scar, children who saw the film. Years later, she appeared on "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood" in a segment that allowed her to explain that she was only doing her job, being the best Witch she could be. Fred Rogers probably marveled, as only he could, as she applied the makeup that transformed her from kindly schoolteacher to that most wicked of all witches.

During and after a career that included more than 70 films and dozens of TV and radio jobs, she continued to be an advocate for children and animals — featuring a stint on the Beverly Hills Board of Education (and including, presumably, Cowardly Lions) until she died in 1985, featuring a stint on the Beverly Hills Board of Education.

But it's her green skin, her command of flying monkeys and her torment of poor Dorothy Gale that made her immortal. (Her "I'll get you, my pretty ... and your little dog, too!" line is ranked 99th on the American Film Institute's list of most memorable movie quotes.) A quick Google session, though, shows you that she was so much more than just a mean ol' witch.

Margaret Hamilton is just one example of why I like the birthday list, and why I'll keep doing it. A birthday is a good day to remember, and to think a little about, somebody you might not normally consider.

So, happy birthday, Margaret.

And, if you're wondering, Zasu Pitts' birthday is coming up on Jan. 3.
