Birthdays: Leadbelly (Harlan Ledbetter), Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, J. Carol Naish, Tele Savalas, Christian Dior, Placido Domingo, Wolfman Jack, Paul Scofield, Robby Benson, Jack Nicklaus, Benny Hill, Emma Bunton- Baby Spice of the Spice Girls, Gena Davis is 65, Ken Leung is 51
1789- The first American novel published- The Power of Sympathy: An Epistolary Romance by William Hill Brown.
1916- The National Board of Review outlawed nudity in Hollywood movies.
1930- Walt’s top animator Ub Iwerks quit The Walt Disney Company.
1935- the conservation group The Wilderness Society created.
1935- Disney animator Ollie Johnston’s first day at the studio, at $17 a week.
1938 -Max Fleischer told his New York cartoon studio they were relocating to Florida.
1938- George Melies, the father of Motion Picture Special Effects, died, He had been reduced selling trinkets in a little store in a Paris train station, but had a bit of the rediscovery by the film community in his final years. On his deathbed he gave his friends a drawing he made of a champagne bottle popping. He said “Laugh, my friends. Laugh with me, laugh for me, because I dream your dreams."
1943- Legendary jazz drummer Gene Krupa was arrested in San Francisco for sending a kid to get him some marijuana. He served 84 of a 90 day sentence.
1958- BADLANDS- Teenagers Charlie Starkweather and Carilann Fugate kill her family and go on a Bonnie & Clyde style crime spree throughout Nebraska, killing 11 people. When they were caught Starkweather pleaded self defense, even against the murder of Fugates infant baby brother. He went to the electric chair. Carilann Fugate did twenty years, yet always denied she was anything more than an unwilling accomplice.
Starkweather had a 'James Dean-Marlon Brando' leatherjacket look and the two teen killers seemed to typify middle America's dread of juvenile delinquency and the 'degenerate Rock and Roll' culture of the 1950's. Their story inspired several films, including 'Badlands".
1959- Former 'Our Gang' child star Carl 'Alfalfa" Switzer was killed in a bar in Mission Hills, Ca. He pulled a knife on a man over a $50 debt on a hunting dog. The man then shot him. He was 32. According to fellow Little Rascal Darla Hood, Switzer was a brute who bullied the other children, and bitter his adult acting career never blossomed.
1977- President Jimmy Carter declared a pardon for all remaining Vietnam War draft resistors.
1992- Disney's Beauty and the Beast becomes the first animated film ever to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.
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