Birthdays: Giambattista Piazzetta, Bess Truman, Grant Wood, Lord Randolph Churchill, Fyodor Chaliapin, Peter Tork, Oliver Reed, Chuck Yeager, Woody Hayes, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Carol Lynley, Kim Novak is 91, George Segal, Peter Gabriel, Jerry Springer, Stockard Channing is 80, Kelly Hu, Mena Suvari
1867- The Blue Danube Waltz by Johann Strauss Jr premiered in Vienna. Brahms was a personal friend of Strauss. An anecdote from the time is that Strauss's stepdaughter approached Brahms with a customary request that he autograph her fan. Brahms inscribed a few measures from the "Blue Danube," and then wrote beneath it: "Unfortunately, NOT by Johannes Brahms."
1886- Artist Thomas Eakins resigned in disgust his professorship at the Philadelphia Academy of Art when he was criticized for allowing women students in his class drawing male nudes. At that time the men still were not fully nude but wore a kind of thong with a pouch covering their junk.
1914- ASCAP founded.
1917- Beautiful spy Mata Hari was arrested in Paris. Known in Berlin as agent H-21.
1926- Walt Disney and his young crew move into their new studio at Hyperion and Griffith Park Ave. They’d call it the Hyperion Studio. They worked there until 1939 when they moved to Burbank.
1932- Free Eats, the first Our Gang short comedy to feature George “Spanky” MacFarland.
1933- comic strip character Blondie married Dagwood Bumstead.
1939- Producer David O. Selznick replaced directors on Gone With the Wind. George Cukor was out, Victor Fleming was in after completing The Wizard of Oz. Vivien Leigh liked Cukor who was known for directing women, but Clark Gable convinced the producers that the film needed an action director. About 15 minutes of George Cukor’s work remains in the picture. Victor Fleming loved Gable, but didn't get along with Vivien Leigh and came to hate the controlling Selznick. David O. brought in Sam Wood to direct second unit when Fleming fell behind schedule.
At the end Victor Fleming blew his stack when Selznick proposed giving Wood and Cukor equal co- screen credit. This was all before DGA contract credits were established. Today, Victor Fleming is recognized the director of record. Yet despite it all, Gone with the Wind became a box office smash. For many years critics and polls declared it the greatest Hollywood movie ever made. A decade after its release, Clark Gable went up to David O. Selznick at a party and said: "Maybe I'm wrong about disliking you David, 'Gone With the Wind' keeps getting re-released and keeps me a star."
1937- Hal Foster's comic book hero Prince Valiant first appeared.
1959 -Happy Birthday BARBIE! Mattel introduced the plastic nymph, from a German doll named 'Bild Lilli" based on a character in a comic strip by Reinhard Beuthin. Mattel co-owner Ruth Handler had it re-designed and changed to 'Barbie" after the nickname of her daughter Barbara.
1964- The Invention of Cool Whip.
1972-“ Wilkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome….” The movie Cabaret with Liza Minelli and Joel Grey opened in theaters.
1976- While working on The Rescuers, famed Disney animator John Lounsbery suddenly passed away. He was 64.
1996- The off-Broadway musical Rent by John Lawson premiered. Lawson spent years working as a waiter, living in poverty in a cold water flat in lower New York. Hoping for his big break. 36 year old John Lawson died of an aneurism just three months before Rent opened. It made him world famous, earned Tonys and a Pulitzer Prize, and made $250 million. His story was told in the 2022 Lin Manuel Miranda film tik-tik-Boom.
2016- Disney’s Zootopia premiered in Brussels. Directed by Rich Moore and Byron Howard. It opened in the U.S. on March 4.
No comments:
Post a Comment