Birthdays: Sarah Bernhardt, Timothy Leary, Franz Liszt is 203,
Doris Lessing, Joan Fontaine, Derek Jacobi, Christopher Lloyd is 76, Annette
Funicello, Brian Boitano, Curly Howard of the Three Stooges, Catherine Deneuve
is 71, Spike Jonze is 45.
1938-THE BIRTHDAY OF THE XEROX COPY- Chester Carlson working
with an amateur chemistry set behind a beauty parlor in Astoria Queens created
the first xerox copy. He took his invention to Edison, G.E., RCA and IBM who
all rejected it. Finally a little firm that produced photographic paper for
Kodak called the Haloid Company bought it. They later changed their named to
Xerox.
1962- Twentieth Century Fox chief Daryl Zanuck fired long
suffering director Joe Mankiewicz off of the editing of the spectacle
Cleopatra. Mankiewicz had shot a 6 hour movie he wanted shown as two films.
Zanuck wanted one big movie at half that size. After a lot of embarrassing
feuding in the press, Zanuck rehired Mankiewicz and he recut Cleopatra, When
Elizabeth Taylor saw the finished film, she threw up. Cleopatra became one of the biggest Box Office disasters in Hollywood
History.
1962- At the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis a stand up
comic named Vaughn Meador recorded a comedy album called The First Family. It
made lighthearted fun of John F. Kennedy and his White House. The record became
the fastest selling hit of the pre-Beatles era, 7.5 million copies. Jackie
called Meador a rat, but JFK thought it was funny and gave out copies as
Christmas presents. He said Meador’s impersonation sounded more like his
brother Teddy than him.
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