Birthdays: Antonio Stradivari, Karl Maria Von Weber, Ty Cobb, George Stevens, Ozzie Davis, Diane Disney-Miller, Anita O’Day, Paul Klee, Betty Grable, Willy Brandt, Keith Richards is 78, Leonard Maltin is 70, Alyssia Sanchez-Vaccario, Ray Liotta is 66, Katie Holmes is 42, Brad Pitt is 56, Steven Spielberg is 74
1812- The first volume of stories Children’s and Household Tales by the Brothers Grimm came out. The world learns of Rapunzel, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White.
1917- Universum-Film AG (UFA) was founded as a consolidation of private film companies in Berlin.
1919- in France, composer Cole Porter married divorcee Linda Thomas. They stayed together all their long lives even though she knew that he preferred male companions.
1931- Gangster Jacky "Legs" Diamond had a penchant for recovering after being shot repeatedly by pistols and shotguns. It was said he had so much lead in him he could attract a magnet. Today someone finally shot him down and he didn't get up.
1937- Mae West does a comedy routine on national broadcast radio with Don Ameche about Adam and Eve that was considered so racy CBS banned her from their network.
At the same time she got fined by the networks for joking about ventriloquist puppet Charlie McCarthy:" Hmmm…he’s all wood and a yard long!"
1939-Max Fleischer's animated classic “Gulliver's Travels”.
1956- TV Game show To Tell the Truth made its debut. Bud Collier hosting, and panelists like Kitty Carlisle, Bennett Cerf, Orson Bean and Dorothy Killgallen as panelists.
1960- A young, eccentric man named Jerry Garcia was dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Army. He had done things like drive a tank into a field then walk away. He had been AWOL 8 times in one year. After leaving the army, Jerry Garcia became a hippie musician in San Francisco. In 1966 formed the rock band the Grateful Dead.
1961-" In the Jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps to-night…a winoweh, etc. " this song by the Tokens goes to #1 in pop charts.
1962- UPA’s Mr Magoo’s Christmas Carol directed by Abe Levitow, premiered on NBC.
1964- DePatie-Frelengs The Pink Phink, the first Pink Panther cartoon short.
1966- Chuck Jones 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas' premiered.
1975- Rod Stewart announced he was leaving the band Faces, for a solo singing career.
1978- SAG strikes Hollywood again for residuals. (again...)
1983- Jean Shephard’s A Christmas Story opened to tepid acclaim and weak box office, but soon became an annual holiday classic. On Christmas Day many TV stations play it 24 hours straight.
1984- Christopher Guest married Jamie Lee Curtis at Rob Reiner’s house .
1984- Pixar’s first short The Adventures of Andre and Wally-B released in theaters. Directed by Alvy Ray Smith and animated by John Lasseter.
1997- Comedian Chris Farley was found dead in his Chicago apartment in the John Hancock Tower, surrounded by empty food containers and porn magazines. The chubby 31-year-old had been partying for 17 straight hours doing cocaine, heroin, vodka and crystal-meth. His last words were to an exhausted prostitute:" Please don’t leave me.” Farley idolized the late John Belushi, who had also died of drugs and hard living at age 31. One writer recalled a drunken Farley once turned to him and asked:" Do you think Belushi is in heaven?"
1988- Don Bluth’s The Land Before Time opened.
1998- Dreamworks the “Prince of Egypt”, opened, or, as it was known in Hollywood "The Zion King".
2009- A massive blizzard buried the U.S. east coast. Washington D.C. got 24 inches, the most December snow since the 1920s.
2015- Star Wars VII, The Force Awakens opened. J.J. Abrams reboot of the old Star Wars franchise became a box office phenomenon. It earned $247 million in its opening weekend, and ended way over a billion and a half dollars.
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