Birthdays: Antonio Frescobaldi,
Captain William Bligh, Jimmy the Greek Snyder, Joe Theismann, Cliff Robertson,
Angela Cartwright, Alf Landon, Dee Dee Sharpe who sang the 60's R&B hit the
Mashed Potato, Michael Keaton, Don Mattingly, Otis Redding, Anita Ekberg, Hugh
Grant is 58, Topol, Colonel Lyman Sanders the creator of Kentucky Fried Chicken, James Hilton-writer
who created the name for paradise- Shangri-La, in his novel Lost Horizons. Adam
Sandler is 51, Michelle Williams is 37
1908- THE PATENTS TRUST- Thomas
Edison, Charles Pathe and Leon Gaumont form the Motion Picture Patents Group.
Called the "Trust". Their attempt to monopolize movie production and
strangle off the independents had a lot to do with the early filmmakers exodus
to Los Angeles. Otherwise the film capitol of the world would have been Ft.
Lee, New Jersey. The only positive
result of the trust was they enforced a regular industry standard for film
stock of 35 mm running at 24 frames per second. It seems the Mitchell Camera
Company was developing a motorized motion picture camera to replace the hand
crank variety but they needed an official speed to set it at. In a contentious
meeting of the Trust held at the Waldorf Astoria no one could settle on a
single speed. Finally the compromise was made to make it the number of
delegates in the room- 24.
1920- Silent movie star Olive
Thomas, nicknamed America's Kid Sister, partied a little too hard at the Dead
Rat Cafe in Paris. It was said the 26 year old died of an overdose of cocaine
and alcohol. Another theory was she accidentally overdosed on mercury
bicholoride tablets. Her nude body was discovered wrapped in a full-length
ermine fur left on her couch in the Ritz Hotel.
The scandal started the first investigation of drugs in Hollywood. It
netted an army captain named Spaulding who admitted that film stars like
Thomas, Mabel Normand and Ramon Navarro were regular clients for morphine,
heroin and cocaine. Shortly after Groucho
Marx put in his vaudeville show Animal Crackers the song Hooray for Captain
Spaulding.
1926 – The National Broadcasting
Company or NBC created by the Radio Corporation of America RCA. Under the
direction of David Sarnoff it became the powerhouse network of broadcasting,
recording and later television.
1939- The first Andy Panda
cartoon.
1939- The first day of shooting on
Charlie Chaplin’s film the Great Dictator. The first day was the Ghetto street
scene. One of his distributors grumbled “By the time Chaplin finishes his
movie, people won’t even remember who Hitler ever was.”
1950 - 1st use of TV laugh track
invented by Hank McCune.
1951 - 1st broadcast of the soap
opera" Love of Life " on CBS-TV
1956- Elvis Presley appeared on
nationwide television on the Ed Sullivan Show.
50th Anniv 1967- Jay Ward’s show George of
the Jungle premiered, with Super Chicken and Tom Slick
sequences.
1982- Princess Grace of Monaco,
the former movie actress Grace Kelly, died in a car accident on the mountainous
hill roads of Monaco. Twenty years earlier in the film To Catch a Thief, Alfred
Hitchcock had her drive her car at dangerous speeds over the exact same hairpin
turns.
1985- She-Ra the Princess of
Power premiered on TV.
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