Birthdays: Sir David Brewster 1781-inventor of the kaleidoscope, Fiorello LaGuardia, Robert Koch the conqueror of tuberculosis, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Carlo Ponti, Gilbert Roland, Big Mama Mabel Thornton, Jean Marais, Jean Louis Tritignant, Maila Nurmi aka Vampira, Tom Hayden, Jermaine Jackson, McCoy Tyner- John Coltrane's pianist, Brenda Lee, John Buscema, Rita Moreno is 93, Teri Garr, Mos Def is 51, Mo’nique is 57
1763- This day a Paris cultural newspaper noted: “A kapellmeister from Salzburg named Leopold Mozart arrived at court today. He brought his two performing children, a daughter who is 11 years old, and a son who at 7 years old is extraordinary. He already can perform and compose music!” (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
1785- French artist Jean Baptiste Greuze was well known for making popular paintings of simple scenes like Young Girl Weeping For Her Dead Bird. This day he went to the Paris police prefect and accused his wife Gabriele Babuti of “Persistently receiving lovers into his home over his protests, stealing large sums of his money, and trying to beat his head in with a chamber pot.” The couple was granted a legal separation.
1793- The previous July, when the French Revolutionary Convention heard of the assassination of their great radical leader Jean Paul Marat, one delegate called out “David! We Need You!” This day Jacques Louis David unveiled his painting, The Death of Marat for the first time.
1882- The Bijou Theater in Boston presented Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe in the first show completely illuminated by electric light bulbs.
1926- Josephine Baker first performed her banana dance in Amsterdam.
1926- THE LADY VANISHES- 35 year old mystery writer Agatha Christie caused a mystery herself when she disappeared, leaving her car abandoned at the edge of a cliff. The search for the body sensationalized the London press, even knocking the death of the last great impressionist master Eduard Monet off the front page. Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle employed the first use of a police psychic. Finally, after a week Mrs. Christie turned up at a health spa in Yorkshire. She was depressed when she earned her handsome husband Sir Archibald Christie of the Guards was having an affair with a younger lady. She ran off and registered in the hotel using her younger rival’s name as her alias- Mrs. Neel.
1929- Frenchman Charles Cros patented a searchlight he declared he would use to signal civilizations on Mars and Venus. Nobody's returned the call yet.
1941- Gone With The Wind producer David Selznick pitched a movie version of Hitler’s book Mein Kampf to be directed by Alfred Hitchcock and written by Ben Hecht. Mercifully for moviegoers, the idea was dropped.
1946- UNICEF formed.
1951- Yankee slugger Joe DiMaggio announced his retirement from baseball.
1957- Rock and Roll singer Jerry Lee Lewis secretly married his 13 year old cousin Myra Gail Brown, while still married to his second wife, who he divorced when the press broke the story the following April. They divorced 13 years later. The incident ruined his career. Great Balls of Fire!
1964- Soul music star Sam Cooke was shot to death in an argument with a lady who ran an L.A. motel he had brought his girlfriend to.
1967- The Concorde SST passenger plane is unveiled in Toulouse. It was a joint venture between England and France. The American SST project was scrapped as too expensive.
1970- Walt Disney's the 'Aristocats' premiered.
1978- THE LUFTHANSA HEIST. Brooklyn gangsters of the Lucchese family slipped into the Lufthansa cargo terminal at Kennedy Airport and stole $8 million in unmarked bills and jewelry, most from currency exchange booths. As the FBI moved in on the gang its members tended to wind up dead, thirteen bodies in all. The money was never recovered. The reputed mastermind, Jimmy the Gent Burke, died in prison on an unrelated murder charge in 1991. The feds were still chasing ringleaders as late as 2015. The incident was the basis for the Martin Scorsese film “Goodfellas”.
2009- The Princess and the Frog opened in theaters. Directed by Little Mermaid directors John Musker and Ron Clements, it was the first film with an African-American Disney Princess.
der.
No comments:
Post a Comment