Birthdays: Gaetano Donizetti, Busby Berkeley, C.S. Lewis,
Louisa May Alcott, Chuck Mangione, Vin Scully, Yakima Canutt, Gary Shandling,
Cathy Moriarity, Don Cheadle, Joel Coen is 62, Jacques Chirac, Howie Mandell,
Susee “Chapstick” Chafee, Anna Faris is 40
1915- In the first years of animated films, one artist like
Winsor McCay drew everything. This day John Randolph Bray's "Colonel Heeza
Liar in Africa" cartoon debuted. Bray adapted Henry Ford's assembly line
system to making animation, creating the job positions of layout, animator,
inbetweener, background painter, inkers, cel painters, checkers and camera.
After 1919 Bray shifted his studio’s focus from entertainment to technical and
training films. Paul Terry, Walter Lantz, Max & Dave Fleischer and Shamus
Culhane all got their start at Bray's.
1942- During WWII, the U.S. declared coffee would be
rationed along with sugar, gasoline and rubber. And lots more. People put their
cars up on blocks "for the duration". Gas Ration cards were listed as
C, B & A. The C card meant essential defense worker, police & fire, so
they had unlimited access to gasoline. A cards were the least important.
1959-The Second Grammy Awards, broadcast for the first time
on television. Bobby Darins’ rendition of Mack the Knife won top honors.
1972- Atari announced Pong, the first popular mass-marketed
interactive game.
1981- Actress Natalie Wood drunkenly toppled off her yacht
near Catalina Island and
drowned. Her husband Robert Wagner, and friend Christopher
Walken were onboard having an argument and unaware of her predicament. Wood had
once confessed to a friend that she had a horror of drowning.
2001- former Beatle guitarist and composer George Harrison
died of cancer.
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