Animation Fun Facts for Aug 26, 2012 Sun

Birthdays: Mother Theresa, Albert the Prince Consort, John Wilkes Booth, Guilliame Appollinaire who coined the term Surrealism, Christopher Isherwood, McCauley Culkin is 32, Geraldine Ferrarro, Dr. Lee DeForrest, Ben Bradlee, Barbet Schroeder, Branford Marsalis, Chris Pine is 32, Melissa McCarthy is 42 1498- Michelangelo gets a job. The big Florentine stone cutter was commissioned by Pope Alexander VI to carve the Pieta, a Mary lamenting over the body of Jesus. 1946 - George Orwell published "Animal Farm". Orwell said he conceived the idea for the novel while watching out his window a small boy driving a huge draft horse. The horse could have easily crushed the boy had it the free will but instead patiently endured the boys taunts and flicks with a small switch. 1946- First day of shooting on Jean Cocteau’s film Belle et le Bete, Beauty & the Beast. 1958-First day of shooting on the Alfred Hitchcock film North By Northwest. Conceived as a plot that ended in a chase across the stone faces of Mt. Rushmore. The original title of Ernst Lehman’s script was The Man Who Hung From Lincoln’s Nose. 1980- Fred "Tex" Avery died after collapsing in the parking lot of Hanna-Barbera. Two weeks before he was asked by a friend why he was working in Hanna & Barbera. Tex laughed:" Hey, Don’t you know? this is where all the elephants come to die!"