Birthdays: Ethan Allen, Marshal Michel Ney, Frank James -Jesse's brother, Francois Poulenc, Ray Bolger (the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz), Stephen Ambrose, Sherrill Milnes, Pat Benatar, Sal Mineo, Jim Croce, Rod Stewart, Walter Hill, George Foreman, Linda Lovelace, Roy E Disney Jr, Jermaine Clement of Flight of the Concords is 50
1529- Michelangelo elected to design the military defenses of Florence. They failed to keep out the enemy, but they must have looked really beautiful!
1863-The world's first Subway Train line opened in London at Baker's Street Station.
1888-date of LOUIS LePRINCE's claim of a patent on Motion Pictures, predating Edison 1893 and the Lumiere Brothers-1895. LePrince even had as proof a film he shot of his mother, who had died in 1887. Despite this, LePrince could get no one to take him seriously. One day he boarded a train from Dijon to Paris and disappeared from the face of the Earth.
1910- Joyce Clyde Hall started the company that became Hallmark Cards.
1917- Frontiersman and master showman Buffalo Bill Cody died at 70 of uremia poisoning. His last words after he was told his end had come was "Ah forget it boys, let's play a round of High-Five." Today his grave still overlooks the city of Denver.
1924- Columbia Pictures created, ruled by Harry Cohn, whose motto was "I don't get ulcers, I give them!"
1927- Fritz Lang’s silent Metropolis premiered. Screenplay by his wife/collaborator Thea von Harbou. Despite the opinion of H.G. Wells in the London Times, “ Foolishness, cliche’, platitude and muddlement.” It is considered a classic of film science fiction.
1929- Herge’s comic character Tin Tin first appeared in a Belgian newspaper XXe Siecle. Tintin’s dog Snowy, in French Milou, he named for his girlfriend.
1939- Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov sold his first story to Amazing Stories Magazine "Marooned off Vesta".
1941- The comedy play ARSENIC AND OLD LACE opened on Broadway. Playwright Joseph Kesselring originally wrote it as a drama based on true events, until he was advised - and, wisely so - to turn it into a dark comedy instead, guaranteeing a larger audience. He made the title a joke on a popular turn of the century romance novel, Lavender and Old Lace. When someone joked that Mortimer’s evil brother looked like Boris Karloff, the character was indeed played by famous horror movie star Boris Karloff. He was an investor in the play. When buying the movie rights Warner Bros agreed to wait until the play ended its theatrical run. They thought plays usually are done in a few months so they had Frank Capra make it into a classic screwball comedy with Cary Grant and Raymond Massey. The play Arsenic and Old Lace ran on Broadway for three years, until 1944. Then Warner Bros could finally release the movie.
1947- KITTY LITTER- Returned WWII veteran Ed Lowe was working at his dad’s sand and gravel pit in Michigan. This day a neighbor asked if she could borrow some sand for her cat to do his business in. This gave Lowe an idea to use a clay mineral mixture called Fuller’s Earth. It absorbs twice its weight in water and is odorless. He invented Kitty Litter, and made millions.
1949- For years the recording industry had been working on ways to improve the 78 RPM record –RPM means Rotations Per Minute. RCA records announced the invention of the 45 RPM record. Columbia (CBS) had announced the LP (Long Playing) 33 rpm record and originally offered to share the technology but RCA (NBC) was having none of it. But the 33 stored more music and could use old 78 rpm turntables adapted so the 45 soon became a vehicle for hit singles.
1958- Jerry Lee Lewis single "Great Balls of Fire" topped the pop charts.
1958- GET MARRIED, OR ELSE! Blond actress Kim Novak had starred in Hitchcock’s Vertigo and was touted as the new Marilyn Monroe. In 1957 she began dating black entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. Davis was a member of Sinatra’s Ratpack and he challenged America’s racial barriers with his great talent. But this high profile interracial match was just too much for Hollywood society to handle. Columbia’s studio head Harry Cohn said of Novak-"That fat Polack Bitch! How could she do this to me? "
Legend has it Cohn called the Chicago Mafia and put a contract out on Sammy Davis. L.A. mobster Mickey Cohen told Davis’ father that if Sammy didn’t marry a black girl in 24 hours, he would have his legs broken, and his remaining good eye poked out.
On this day in Las Vegas’ Sands Hotel, Sammy Davis Jr. married black actress Loray White. Harry Belafonte was the best man. The couple honeymooned separately and divorced 6 months later. But the affair with Novak was over and Harry Cohn died of a heart attack the same year. In 1960 Sammy Davis married blonde German actress May Britt.
1961- Writer Dashell Hammett died.
1971-Stanford Calderwood, the president of WGBH Boston, got a good reaction for a season of a British drama he ran on American TV called The Forsythe Saga. He soon returned from a trip to England having purchased a bushel of BBC dramas. Period pieces, Called “Frock Dramas”. This day Masterpiece Theater debuted on US TV with host Alastair Cooke. The first show was the BBC series The First Churchills. I Claudius, Poldark and Upstairs Downstairs followed. These shows were so popular that for awhile people thought PBS meant Preferably British Shows.
1972- The liner Queen Elizabeth 1, on her retirement journey to the scrap yard, mysteriously caught fire and sank in Hong Kong harbor.
1992- The GREAT RUBBER DUCKY DISASTER- A North Pacific storm causes a ship to lose 29,000 plastic rubber duck toys overboard. They joined 61,000 Nike sneakers already bobbing in the water from a similar maritime accident. Scientists used the rubber ducky migration to track Pacific Ocean currents around Alaska.
1999- HBO’s The Sopranos premiered. Howyadoin..?
2000- AOL and Time Warner announced a $165 billion dollar merger that made it the world’s largest media company. Considered now one of the worst business deals in history, the company lost $80 billion in one year. The deal almost sank both companies, uprooted both chairmen, and they detached permanently in 2009. Today Warner Bros is merged with Discovery with equally chaotic results.
2004- NY based Writer and actor Spaulding Gray spent the day taking his kids to the movies. They saw Tim Burton’s movie Big Fish. Gray put his kids into a taxi home and from the Staten Island Ferry Terminal, called his wife to say he would be home soon and that he loved her. Then he took the ferry, jumped into the harbor and drowned himself in New York Harbor. How He had waged a long battle with depression and his mother had commit suicide. His body did not resurface until March 9.
