Birthdays: Richard Nixon, Woody
Guthrie, Ray Bolger, William Powell, George Balanchine, Judith Krantz, Bob
Denver, Crystal Gayle, Joan Baez, Simone de Beauvoir, Sir Rudolph Bing, Herbert
Lom, Gypsy Rose Lee, Joely Richardson, J.K. Simmons is 59.
1914 -John Randolph Bray takes out
patents on the principles of film animation: cycles, arcs, keys and inbetweens.
He even tried to sue Winsor McCay, who had already been using them for years.
1936- Actor John Gilbert died of a
heart attack after years of alcohol abuse. The accepted reason was he was a
has-been silent film star who's voice was too thin and squeaky for talking pictures.
Actually his voice wasn't too bad, some of it may of had to do with his
punching Louis B. Mayer in the mouth when Mayer made a crude remark about
Gilbert's sexual relations with Greta Garbo -something like "Why marry her
when you're getting it anyway ?.."-BOP! . Mayer got up and screamed:
"I'll ruin you if it costs me millions!"
Gilbert's fading popularity and
decline into alcohol as his second wife Virginia Bruce’s film career blossomed
was the inspiration for "A Star is Born".
1939- Top Looney Tunes director
Frank Tashlin was hired by Walt Disney. He quit after two fruitless years, and
left so angry he wrote a children’s book called the "Bear that
Wasn’t" about his experiences. An
early vice president of the Cartoonists Guild, he also joined the Mouse House
to help unionize the studio. After a stint at Screen Gems, in 1945 Frank
Tashlin went to Paramount’s live action division and became the director of the
Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis comedies.
1959- The TV series Rawhide
debuted, starring a young actor named Clint Eastwood. President Lyndon Johnson
and Ladybird were big Rawhide fans.
1976- First day of shooting in
Philadelphia of the movie Rocky. It was the first movie to utilize the
Steadicam, a system that balanced hand-held camera shots.
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