Animation Fun Facts for May 24, 2013

Birthdays: Jean Paul Marat, Queen Victoria, Walt Whitman, Emmanuel Leutze, Gary Burghoff, Priscilla Presley, Patti LaBelle, Tommy Chong of Cheech & Chong, Frank Oz, Disney artist Peter Ellenshaw, Kristin Scott Thomas is 53, Alfred Molina is 60, Jim Broadbent is 64, John C. Reilly is 48, Bob Dylan is 72 1830 –The poem "Mary Had A Little Lamb," was written. 1929- The Marx Brothers first movie comedy” The Coconuts” premiered. 1954 - IBM announces vacuum tube "electronic" brain that could perform 10 million operations an hour. 1989- In Los Angeles, a spectacular fire destroyed the Art-Deco-Moderne all-wood landmark, the Pan Pacific Auditorium. 1991- Tri-Star Pictures 75 million-dollar mega-flop "Hudson Hawk" opened. Star Bruce Willis, whose own salary was $17 million, blamed the film’s costs on union filmworkers’ salaries. He would return to his car after a day’s shooting to find it covered with animal excrement. The film almost sank his career. Willis’ next two films, "Death Becomes Her" and 'Pulp Fiction", he did for scale. In 2000 he made a $100,000 dollar donation to the SAG/AFTRA strike fund.