Birthdays: Benjamin Disraeli, Josh Gibson- the Home Run King of the Negro Baseball Leagues, Pat Weaver-TV exec who created the Today Show and father of Sigourney Weaver, Frank Zappa, Dr. Kurt Waldheim, Florence Griffith Joyner, Chris Evert, Phil Roman, Jane Fonda is 85, Keifer Sutherland is 56, Samuel L. Jackson is 74, Jane Kaszmarek, Judy Delphy is 53, Jeffrey Katzenberg is 72,
Paul Winchell born Pinkus Wilchinski would be 100!
Happy Winter Solstice. The shortest day of the year.
1375- The writer Boccaccio died, not of the plague, and not during a wild party like in his book the Decameron.
1913- THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CROSSWORD PUZZLE- Journalist Arthur Wynne created the word game, which included 32 clues and ran in the New York World.
1914- The premiere of the first feature length film comedy- Tilly’s Punctured Romance, starring Marie Dressler, Mabel Normand and a young Charlie Chaplin.
1925- Sergei Eisenstein’s cinematic masterpiece Battleship Potemkin premiered in Moscow. The films pioneering use of montage and allegorical imagery intercut inspired a generation of filmmakers.
1933- Twentieth Century Fox signed 5 year old Shirley Temple to a seven year contract.
1937- Walt Disney's " Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" had its grand premiere at the Carthay Circle Theater. The first feature length American cartoon, it became the box office champ of 1938, earning 4 times more than any other film that year. Russian director Sergei Eisenstein called it “The greatest movie ever made.”
1937- Ted Healy, former vaudeville partner of the Three Stooges, was killed in a fight at the Trocadero while celebrating the birth of his son. No one is sure what happened. One legend has it that actor Wallace Beery and some gangsters did the fatal pounding. Another rumor is one of the gangsters was young Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, who forty years later would produce the James Bond movies and win an Irving Thalberg Award at the 1982 Oscars. Healy originated the violent comedy schtick of the Stooges. But by this time The Three Stooges had parted ways with Ted Healy and were doing much better.
1940- Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald (44) died of a heart attack at Hollywood columnist Sheila Graham's house. She had just left the house to buy him some candy. She left him thumbing through his Princeton alumni newsletter. His last words to her were 'Hershey bars will be fine..."
1944- Walt Disney’s The Three Caballeros premiered in Mexico City. It opened in the US in February.
1959- Joe Oriolo’s TV remake of Felix the Cat debuted on TV.
1971- Richard William's animated TV special "A Christmas Carol" with Alastair Sim reprising his Scrooge.
1973- Ray Harryhausen’s The Golden Voyage of Sinbad premiered.
1979- Disney’s Sci-Fi film The Black Hole opened in theaters.
1982- Thom Riley, one of the stars of the TV cop show ChiPS was busted for driving stoned on Quaaludes.
2012- The Walt Disney Company spent $4.06 billion to buy Lucasfilm, ILM and the Star Wars rights. George Lucas retired to do philanthropic pursuits.
2089- According to Ridley Scott, today the good ship Prometheus landed on the Original Planet.
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