Sunday, August 27, 2023

TOm Sito's Animation Almanac for Aug 17, 2023


Birthdays: Man Ray, Martha Ray, LBJ (Lyndon Baines Johnson), Hegel, C.S. Forester, Hannibal Hamlin- Abe Lincolns first term vice president, Barbara Bach, Theodore Dreiser, Lady Antonia Fraser, Tommy Sands, Tuesday Weld is 80, Mangesuthu Buthelezi, Paul Rubens-aka Pee Wee Herman, Wayne Shorter


1814- poet Percy Shelley eloped with Mary, the only daughter of John Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft


1910- The first radio message sent from an airplane.


1912- Edgar Rice Burroughs first published Tarzan of the Apes in The All-Story magazine.


1917- Straight Shooting, the first film directed by John Ford released. 


1927- Warner Bros began recording the soundtrack for Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer.


1930- Lon Chaney Sr. died at 47 of bronchial lung cancer. It was claimed then that during filming of a remake of The Unholy Three a wind machine blew an artificial gypsum snowflake into Chaney's mouth - it caused an irritation that became a tumor.


1955- The first Guinness Book of World Records published.


1950- NBC and General Foods abruptly canceled the second season of the television show “the Aldrich Family” when a publication called Red Channels accused Jean Muir, one of the show’s stars, of being a communist. It seems that studio execs hated her for being one of the founding members of SAG and being a member of The Congress of American Women.  This signaled that the Hollywood Blacklist was now turning its attention eastward towards NY theater and television.  Jean Muir’s career (1937 Midsummer Nights Dream) never fully recovered. 


1953- The film Roman Holiday introduced a new young actress from Holland named Audrey Hepburn. 



1964- The movie version of Mary Poppins premiered.


1967- The Beatles first manager Brian Epstein overdosed on sleeping pills. 

    

1968- Former master animator Bill Tytla's request to return to Disney was turned down. The artist who animated Grumpy the Dwarf, Dumbo and the Devil on Bald Mountain even offered to do a free "trial animation test" to show he still had it. Disney exec W.H. Anderson wrote him:" We really have only enough animation for our present staff." Tytla died soon after.


1990- Guitar great Stevie Ray Vaughan was killed in a helicopter crash outside Alpine Valley Wisconsin, after an "All Stars of the Blues" show.  Stevie Ray took the last remaining seat on the helicopter, after Eric Clapton got off, claiming he'd rather take a limo back to Chicago, which was about an hour away.


2022- George Jetson of The Jetson’s was born today. The show takes place in 2062 when he was 40, and Jane was 33. 


No comments:

Post a Comment