Birthdays: Abigail Adams, Alexander Borodin, Fyodor
Dostoyevsky, Gen. George Patton, Pat O’Brien, Kurt Vonnegut, Rene Clair, Carlos
Fuentes, Jonathan Winters, Stubby Kay, Demi Moore is 55, Leonardo di Caprio is 43
1937- Animation production wrapped on Disney’s first feature
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
1938- GOD BLESS AMERICA- Irving Berlin's song God Bless
America sung for the first time by chubby chanteuse Kate Smith. Berlin had
written the song in 1918 for a Broadway show, but it didn’t fit in. So he threw
it in a file cabinet and forgot about it. Twenty years later, he revived the
song for the effort to combat the Depression. It became a huge hit.
1938- The first day of shooting on the film 'The Wizard of
Oz". Judy Garland met 125 little people hired to be the Munchkins. Judy's
energy was fading under the heavy work schedule so L.B. Mayer ordered her put
on Benzadrine (speed) every morning and Valium pills to sleep. June Alysson,
another young MGM actress at the time said: "The studio nurse would give
it to you and tell you it was vitamins." Judy Garland became a heavy drug
addict and died of an overdose in 1969 at 47 years old.
1940- The Birth of the Jeep. The army introduces its first
General Purpose vehicle-G.P. or Jeep, a name coinciding with a character in
E.C. Segar's Popeye cartoons.
1954- Tolkein’s second book of The Lord of the Rings: The
Two Towers, first published.
1978- The renovated Hollywood Sign is unveiled. The second O
was paid for by rock star Alice Cooper in memory of his idol, Groucho Marx.
1980- 'Heaven's Gate" Michael Cimino's $44 million dollar
flop opened. Cimino originally said he could do the film for $8 million. Critic
Pauline Kael said: "It's the kind of movie you want to deface. You want to
draw mustaches all over it."
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