Animation Fun Facts for Oct 7, 2017

Birthdays: Hans Holbein, Heinrich Himmler, Caesar Rodney, Joe Hill, Andy Devine, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Henry Wallace, June Allyson, Al Martino, Neils Bohr, Ameil Buraka, Johnny Cougar Mellencamp, Toni Braxton, Yo Yo Ma, Vladimir Putin is 63.

1927- Sam Warner, the Warner Brother most responsible for committing the studio to gambling on a talking picture process, died just as the 'Jazz Singer 'opened and made Warner-Vitaphone a major Hollywood Studio. Jack Warner had earlier said "Who the heck wants to hear actors talk?"

1947 The Actor's Studio opened, teaching the Stanislavski Method, sometimes called Method Acting. The group later suffered a feud between it’s two top teachers-Lee Strassberg and Sandy Meisner. Ask any old actor if they were with Lee or Sandy, odds were they sided with one and hated the other.

1957-Dick Clark’s T.V. show American Bandstand debuts.

1959-MARIO LANZA.- Philadelphia born Italian–American Lanza was the pop icon opera singer. With moviestar good looks and a velvety voice his records and movies sold millions. But he was temperamental and had angered most of the powers that be in Hollywood, climaxing with skipping a $250,000 promise to perform in Las Vegas. This day in Italy he was found dead at age 38. For years there were rumors that he was actually done in by the Mafia for offending Lucky Lucciano, but in the 1990s a forensic investigation by his son proved his brutal regimen of binge eating and furious dieting wore out his heart. He would attempt to drop 50 pounds in three weeks, then put it back just as quickly until it gave him a heart attack. He literally dieted himself to death.

1960- The movie Spartacus opened. Producer/star Kirk Douglas had been using blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo for the script, smuggling him in and out of the lot for story meetings. Finally Douglas got fed up and ordered Trumbo to be brought out in the open as the movie's true author. This was considered the official end of the Hollywood Blacklist era, which had lasted since 1947. After director Anthony Mann left the project, Douglas hired Stanley Kubrick, who had such a hard time he afterwards left Hollywood never to return.

1971- Walt Disney’s Bedknobs and Broomsticks premiered in London.

1982- London musical 'Cats' opened on Broadway.

1993- Steven Spielberg's "Jurassic Park" earned $ 712 million dollars just in North American box office.

2003- The state of California had an unpopular Democratic Governor named Grey Davis.  A Republican congressman named Daryl Issa who made a fortune making annoying car alarms “step away from the car..” found an obscure codicil in the State constitution calling for a recall election. The recall election soon had 154 candidates including a porn star, former child star Gary Coleman, Porn publisher Larry Flynt, a woman who financed her campaign by selling her autographed thongs, and Grey Davis’ own lieutenant governor Cruz Bustamante, who couldn’t stand him either. This night, after a farcical election, the people elected Austrian-born body builder-actor Arnold Schwarzenegger.