Animation Fun Facts for Oct. 8, 2020

Birthdays: Eddie Rickenbacker, Rev Jesse Jackson, Juan Peron, David Carradine,  Chevy Chase is 77, Paul Hogan, Ruben Mamoulian, Edward Zwick, Johnny Ramone, Bruno Mars, Sigourney Weaver is 71, Matt Damon is 50

Art Babbitt 1907-1992 -the creator of Goofy and great animation educator,

 

 

1929- British Imperial Airways shows the first in-flight movie.

 

1933- HOLLYWOOD ACTORS FIRST MASS PROTEST- When Franklin Roosevelt created the NRA to fix wages and prices to try and solve the Depression, he even went as far as to try to regulate Motion Picture rates and fees. The catch was the rates were drafted with the advice of friends of the studio heads. 
The actors went ballistic when they saw new rules, such as a cap on actors salaries of $100,000 a year (the producers had no such cap), restriction of actors independent agents, and terms of an old salary contract could stay in effect even after the contract expired, until it was renegotiated.

This night, at the El Capitan theater, hundreds of actors met to draft a petition calling for rewriting of the codes. The activists included Paul Muni, Frederic March, Jeanette MacDonald, Bettie Davis, Groucho Marx and Boris Karloff. Earth tremors from the Long Beach Earthquake made the actors move across the street to Graumans Chinese parking lot . 

SAG president Frank Morgan (the Wizard of Oz) was considered politically too left to face FDR, so he stepped down in favor of comedian Eddie Cantor, who had helped Vaudeville acts unionize. Cantor went to the president's retreat at Warm Springs Georgia with the petition, and had the hated articles taken out of the code.

 

1935- Ozzie Nelson married Harriet.

 

1945- "Bloody Monday" During a big studio strike three hundred and fifty armed thugs club their way through picketing Warner Bros. film workers. 

 

1957- Walter O'Malley announced the move of the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles.

 

1957- Jerry Lee Lewis recorded his hit Goodness Gracious, Great Balls of Fire.

1968- The movie Romeo & Juliet premiered. Director Franco Zefirelli caused a sensation by casting young people to play the young people! Olivia Hussey was barely16, and Leonard Whiting was 17. Romeo & Juliet was the last time a film of a Shakespeare play was ever nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. 

 

1971- John Lennon first released the song Imagine.