Friday, May 21, 2021

Animation fun facts for May 21, 2021

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Birthdays: Plato, Fats Waller, Albrecht Durer, Andre Sakharov, Armand Hammer, Raymond Burr, John Hubley, Dennis Day, Al Franken, Harold Robbins, Judge Reinhold, Larry Terro called Mr. T. is 71


1892- Leoncavallo's opera "I Pagliacci" debuted at La Scala in Milan.


1908 - 1st horror movie “Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde” premiered in Chicago.


1922- On the Road to Moscow, the first political cartoon to win a Pulitzer prize. The cartoonist Rollin Kirby, was passionate about Prohibition. He had a regular character to extol temperance named Mr. Dry. When Prohibition was repealed in 1933 Kirby killed off Mr. Dry in print.


1933- Woolie Reitherman’s first day at Walt Disney Studio.


1945- BOGEY LOVES BABY-Humphrey Bogart married Lauren Bacall on a friend’s farm in Ohio. He was 48 and she was 21. Her real name was Betty Persky, but she passed for wasp. So when the publicity photographers came, they were under strict instructions from Jack Warner to frame out Bacall’s more Jewish-looking relatives. His nickname for her was “Slim”, and she called him “ Steve”, after their characters in the film “ To Have and to Have Not.”


1952- Actor John Garfield died. Some say he died in the midst of wild fornications; in truth he died in his sleep of heart failure aggravated by stress and alcoholism. He was 39. The matinee idol of “The Postman Rings Twice” and “Kid Galahad” was too politically left for the conservative postwar age. When a young stage actor he had run guns to the IRA, later he supported progressive union movements, anti-fascism and desegregation. His outspoken politics got him blacklisted in Hollywood, his friends deserted him, and he was ruined.


1952- Famed writer Lillian Hellman (The Little Foxes) testified before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee HUAC, but refused to name names. “I cannot cut my conscience to fit the fashions of the day.” She escaped a contempt of Congress wrap but she was blacklisted and at one point was working the makeup counter in a department store.


]1971- Marvin Gaye’s song “ What’s Going On?” Released.


1972- A lunatic shouting I am Jesus Christ, attacked Michelangelo’s statue La Pieta with a hammer. He is the reason why today we can only enjoy this beautiful sculpture from behind 3 inch thick bulletproof glass.


1979 - Elton John becomes 1st western rocker to perform live in USSR.


1980 – Star Wars “The Empire Strikes Back" premiered.



1983 - David Bowie's "Let's Dance," single goes #1. The tracks featured a then little known guitarist named Stevie-Ray Vaughn.


1991- Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Ghandi was blown up by a girl suicide bomber carrying a bomb in a bunch of flowers. She was believed to be one of the Tamil Tiger separatists. 


1992- Tonight Show host Johnny Carson did his last show “I bid you a very heartfelt goodnight.” Johnny spent his remaining years in privacy, even refusing an invitation to appear at the NBC 75th anniversary special.


2017- In Nassau County NY was the final performance of Ringling Bros, Barnum & Bailey Circus. The Greatest Show on Earth had been a tradition for 146 years.


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