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Kirk Douglas in 1956. The dimple
in his chin is so deep it has its
own gift shop. |
Don't they say that doing what you love keeps you young? If they don't, they ought to, as the lives of some of the celebrities we note this week stand as living proof of the connection between doing what you do and a long lifespan.
We'll start with the "babies" of the group, Christopher Plummer and Dick Van Dyke, who turn 81 and 85 respectively on Friday. Plummer and Van Dyke have pretty much done it all in their time, from dramas to farces to musicals Plummer's classical theatre chops are a little more developed, but Van Dyke's sitcom of the 1960s is still recognized as one of the finest and most influential ever, so we'll call it a draw.
Next on our list is spring chicken Eli Wallach, who turns 95 on Tuesday. Wallach began his acting career in the 1950s, with a series of performances out of the Method school of acting that so pervaded that decade. The "Method" (which has been over-hyped and misunderstood almost from the beginning) was a school of acting that emphasized personalized and naturalistic behavior on stage and screen, breaking away from the more florid or theatrical styles that had been the norm. Its foremost proponents were actors like Wallach, Marlon Brando, and James Dean, but a modified version of it is still seen in the performances of Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, and Al Pacino. Getting back to our birthday boy, Wallach is still working, having acted in two movies this year, with (his health permitting) more on the way.
The champ, though, is Kirk Douglas, who turns 96 on Thursday. Douglas hit the screen like a thunderbolt in the late 1940s, and for the next 50 years, turned in a series of dynamic and artful performances that have few rivals for energy and power. He's also been outspoken in his politics, breaking Hollywood's blacklist by employing writers who went unhired because of their politics. The stroke he suffered in 1996 has impaired his ability to speak, but he continues to work, and as recently as 2009 appeared in an autobiographical one-man show.
Those aren’t the only events of note, of course. Why, Tuesday alone brings us the announcement of Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year (it's New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees), the lighting of the U.S. Capitol's Christmas tree (the White House gets its turn on Thursday, the day after President Obama appears on "MythBusters"), the Luxury Travel Expo in Las Vegas (for those of you who have so much extra money you can't help but spend it on travel), and National Cotton Candy Day.
Wednesday is chock-a-block with events, too, particularly with birthdays of artists and humorists. In the former category, we have Diego Rivera (1886), the Mexican painter whose intricate and detailed murals were loaded with historical and political commentary. In the latter, we have two men whose work spans both categories and who were born on the same day in 1894. First, we have James Thurber, whose art defined the cartooning style of "The New Yorker," and whose short stories, including "The Catbird Seat" and "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" remain as perceptive and witty as when they were written. 1894's other multi-talented contribution is Elzie Segar, the cartoonist who created Popeye the Sailor. Segar created a unique world of comic adventures and characters that has rarely been equaled. Since his death in 1938, numerous ghosts have tried to keep the wackiness of his comic strip alive, but none have succeeded in finding his balance of thrills and laughs.
We close by remembering two tragedies, one markedly larger than the other. Wednesday is the 30th anniversary of the murder of John Lennon in front of New York's Dakota Apartments. Lennon was only 40 years old, and was just resuming his music career when he was struck down, forever robbing the world of his humor and songs.
The larger commemoration, is the anniversary of the December 7, 1941, bombing of the Pearl Harbor naval base in Hawaii, an even which brought the United States into World War II. The sneak attack by the Japanese cost the U.S. more than a dozen ships and 2,042 lives. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed Congress the next morning, he called it "a date which will live in infamy," and it remains a date whose memory still resonates today.
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"Turkey good! Football good!
Lip-synching in Macy's Parade bad!" |
There's lots to say about arts and entertainment over the next few days. Let's start at the top, with Boris Karloff, born November 23, 1887 . The erstwhile William Henry Pratt labored as a truck driver, farmhand, and occasional character actor until 1931, when he landed the role of the monster in "Frankenstein." Even though he went unbilled in the original release of the movie, he became an instant star whose name was linked with horror until his death in 1969. In a nice coincidence, Forrest J. Ackerman, the man who became one of Karloff's best friends and biggest boosters was born a day later (albeit in 1916). Ackerman was the longtime editor of "Famous Monsters of Filmland" magazine, and cultivated a love for monsters and psychological horror in a million youngsters in the 1950s and '60s.
But we've only scratched the surface when it comes to entertainment. For example, in 1889, the first jukebox went into operation at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco. (We'll add that "juke" was slang for ... well, a "house of ill repute," and leave it at that.) This distant ancestor to the iPod contained a tinfoil phonograph with four listening tubes and a coin slot for each tube. So popular was it that it took in $1,000 in the first six months - a nickel at a time. Musical entertainment has evolved significantly in the century since. On Wednesday, we'll note the 142nd birthday of composer Scott Joplin. Joplin didn't invent ragtime music, but was one of its foremost composers, his "Maple Leaf Rag" virtually defined the era.
Joplin isn't the only great artist who's an exemplar of his chosen genre. On Wednesday evening, PBS will broadcast an all-star concert celebrating the 80th birthday of Stephen Sondheim, composer and lyricist for some of the best - and most important - musicals in theatre history. And on November 25, 1949, Robert May and Johnny Marks' "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" made its debut/ Gene Autry's recording of the tune eventually sold more than 25 million records.
If those are the heights musical genres can reach, we note what some might consider the nadir, represented by tonight's episodes of "Glee" (featuring Carol Burnett) and the (tainted?) finale of "Dancing with the Stars." (And we mention the 1871 founding of the National Rifle Association purely in passing here - in case someone wants to emulate Steven Cowan.)
Music can have an effect even in the world of science. Wednesday is the 36th anniversary of Donald Johanson and Tom Gray's discovery of the Australopithecus afarensis skeleton that they named "Lucy," after the Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."
The fine arts are also represented this week. Tuesday is the 118th birthday of Romain de Tirtoff, who, under the name Erté (taken from the French pronunciation of his initials) virtually defined the Art Deco style of the early 20th century, and Wednesday is the 146th birthday of French illustrator Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Toulouse-Lautrec captured the lives of the Parisian demimonde of the late 19th century. And while it's not exactly "art," the first issue of "Life" magazine was published in 1936. Over the next 36 years, the photojournalism magazine featured some of the finest photography in the world - though none of its photographers could have used a zoom lens until it was invented this week in 1948.
In performing arts, Agatha Christie's murder-mystery play "The Mousetrap" opened in London's West End in 1952, and has been running ever since, making it the longest continuously-running play in history. (There was even a recent controversy over whether the surprise ending should be revealed on Wikipedia. It was, so if you go over there, consider yourself warned.). Pity movie producer John Woolf, who bought the movie rights to the play, on the condition that he not film it until it closed. Woolf died in 1999, but the play runs on. It sounds like a disaster almost profound enough to be filmed by producer Irwin Allen, king of such disaster movies as "The Poseidon Adventure" and "The Towering Inferno," and whose 94th birthday would have been Wednesday. It could be a disaster, but not a cosmic mystery suitable for solving by Doctor Who, the venerable BBC television series that began broadcasting this week in 1963.
Crime and criminals also figure into this week (like every week, probably). On November 24, 1971, D.B. Cooper skyjacked a Boeing 727, collected $200,000 in ransom, and parachuted out over southern Washington state, never to be seen again.
We mention an odd birthday coincidence in passing. Wednesday is the 122nd birthday of motivational author Dale Carnegie, and Thursday is the 175th birthday of industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. Dale (whose last name was originally spelled "Carnagey") wrote the book "How to Win Friends and Influence People" (which is still a best-seller on the self-help charts, nearly 75 years after it was published). Andrew made his fortune in the steel business and ended up giving most of it away, endowing libraries, schools, universities, along with numerous charities and foundations. By 1919, he had given away over $350 million (about $4.3 billion in 2010 dollars), with the remaining $30 million distributed after his death that year.
In animal events, President Obama is scheduled to give an executive pardon to a turkey on Wednesday, and Thursday (in addition to everything else) is the National Dog Show in Philadelphia.
Lastly, we mention what is, for many, the most notable event of the week: Thanksgiving, with its attendant gorging, football. T-Day also brings us the Macy's Parade, which gives television viewers across the country the chance to watch b-list actors and singers lip synch to lousy music, and this year will feature such traditional holiday entertainers as Jessica Simpson, Jimmy Fallon and the Roots, and Kanye West. Truly a Thanksgiving smorgasbord!
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| BOO! | By Dave Sikula
Mon, October 25, 2010, 12:01 am PDT |
It's not enough that he has to
hang from a broken ankle; he
also has to hold his breath for
three minutes and get out of
a locked cage.That's scary.
|
Even though this week is dominated by the spooky holiday at the end of it, let's see what's happening between now and then.
Monday:
We'll start with artists, in particular two who couldn't have been more different. In 1881, Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso, better known as just Picasso - was born in Malaga, Spain. In 1907, the flat perspectives and angular bodies of his "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" - hit the art world like a bomb, and signaled the birth of cubism. Over the next 66 years, Picasso's creativity and originality were unrivaled, as he produced some 50,000 works and became the most famous artist in the world. (And, as a bonus, dressing as one of his canvases would make a fine Halloween costume.)
On the other hand, we have Roy Lichtenstein, whose 87th birthday falls on Wednesday. In the early 1960s, Lichtenstein started copying panels from comic books, plagiarizing the original work of such (better) artists as Jack Kirby, Russ Heath, Tony Abruzzo, Irv Novick, and Jerry Grandenetti, rarely, if ever, giving the original artists credit - or any of the huge fees he collected.
Thinking of more pleasant topics, we turn to leaf peeping, and remind you that we’re at the peak of the fall foliage season. Throughout the northern latitudes - especially in New England - tourists and natives are driving through the countryside watching leaves die and turn eye-popping shades of yellow, gold, and red. It seems like magic, which is appropriate, given that this is International Magic Week.
Speaking of magic, tonight is the Broadway premiere of Alfred Uhry's play "Driving Miss Daisy," starring James Earl Jones, Vanessa Redgrave, and Boyd Gaines. Seems odd that a 23-year old play that spawned an Oscar-winning film has never appeared on Broadway, but that's showbiz.
Jones and Redgrave are huge stars, but it's the birthday of one of the smallest: Billy Barty, born on this day in 1924. Barty was born with a form of dwarfism called cartilage-hair hypoplasia and stopped growing at 3'9". He started working in movies at the age of three, almost always playing a baby while still well into his teens, but in his adult years, he was a tireless worker for the rights of little people - and turned in a series of fine performances in such films as "The Day of the Locust" and "Foul Play."
Tuesday:
Today is the anniversary of the 1881 "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" in Tombstone, Arizona. While the fight itself didn't actually take place in the corral, lasted only 30 seconds (although approximately 30 shots were fired in that time), and was essentially the result of a feud between the Earp and Clanton families, it's probably the most famous gunfight in Western history. It's the centerpiece of at least seven movies, and numerous television shows and novels.
We also note a number of debuts today. First is the 1982 premiere of "St. Elsewhere." "St. Elsewhere" was one of the most innovative television series in history; it combined gripping medical drama with in-jokes, bizarre plot twists, and possibly the most notorious finale in TV history, when it revealed that the show's entire six year run had been the imaginings of an autistic teenager. That said, it remains at the center of all television series, as the "Tommy Westphall Universe" theory posits that "90 percent of all television took place in Tommy Westphall's mind."
While we can't be certain that the "Back to the Future" trilogy takes place in Tommy's mind, we can be sure that, in the wake of Michael J. Fox's recent reappearance as Marty McFly, all three movies are making their Blu-Ray appearance today.
In the world of sports, the NBA season opens tonight. We'll be turning our attentions to Boston, where the traitorous LeBron James will be playing his first official game with the Miami Heat against the even-more-evil Celtics. We'll also be looking toward the Staples Center, where your world champion Los Angeles Lakers will be receiving their championship rings before hosting the Houston Rockets.
If that's too much basketball for you, you might consider a trip to Secaucus, New Jersey for a taste of Jewish culture at Kosherfest. (We assume the meat and dairy exhibits are kept in separate halls.)
Wednesday:
If Secaucus is just too darn far to travel, we suggest you snuggle up at home with a spud and some suds to commemorate both National Potato Day and American Beer Day, all while watching game one of the 2010 World Series, which begins tonight as the Texas Rangers travel to San Francisco's AT&T Park.
Thursday and Friday:
One team will win the Series and one will lose, but other winners and losers dominate the next two days.
In the former column, we find Edith Head, born on October 28, 1897. Head was the Hollywood costume designer par excellence, designing wardrobes for over 400 films, garnering 35 Oscar nominations and eight awards. But Ms. Head isn't our only winner today. The American people scored a win in 1886, when the Statue of Liberty was unveiled on what had been Bedloe’s Island, but has been called "Liberty Island" ever since.
Another winner is "The Sound of Music," the 1965 mega-musical that is (bafflingly to us) still staggeringly popular. In fact, adjusted for inflation, it’s still the third highest-grossing film of all time, having taken in the equivalent of more than $1.13 billion. So popular is it, in fact, that the cast will appear on Oprah Winfrey's show on Friday for a 45th anniversary reunion - including co-star Christopher Plummer, whose disparagement of the film as "The Sound of Mucous" is legendary.
Sort of stuck between "winner" and "loser" was Anton LaVey, who died October 29, 1997. LaVey was a writer and occultist who founded the Church of Satan, but the Church itself was less about "devil worship" than about the material world and the individual. We assume Mr. LaVey left plans for a suitable funeral, but, regardless, Saturday will be your own chance to think ahead, as it's Create a Great Funeral Day.
Firmly in the "loss" column is the tragedy that occurred due to the crash of the stock market on October 29, 1929, an event that plunged the planet into a Great Depression that only a world war was able to remedy.
Saturday:
The day before All-Hallow's Eve (aka "Devil's Night") gives us plenty of opportunities to celebrate. For example, it's the 72nd anniversary of Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre's radio adaptation of H. G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds," a broadcast that scared the pants off a good portion of the country. Many who tuned in late became convinced that Martians had indeed invaded Earth and the end of the world was nigh. Given that Welles was famous for his ballyhoo, we wonder how much of the panic was hoped-for.
Speaking of fear, we know we'll be glued to the tube this morning to watch Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert hold their "Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear" on the National Mall in Washington. (And we'll finish the day by tuning into "Saturday Night Live" to watch Jon Hamm return once more to his hosting duties.)
Of course, the most terrifying prospect (unless you're a dentist) is the thought of all that candy tomorrow, accompanied by the prospect of toddlers hopped up on sugar. The antidote for this is a candy so horrid that no one would actually eat it. While the best solution is the worst of all candies (circus peanuts), the sweet in the number two position gets its turn in the spotlight today, National Candy Corn Day. Buy a big bag of the vile stuff and your kids will be begging for healthier treats.
Sunday:
Today is Halloween, which overshadows everything else, but there's still plenty more of interest.
For example, the San Francisco 49ers will take on the Denver Broncos in London's venerable Wembley Stadium to demonstrate American football to the Brits one more time. (Though the way the Niners have been playing so far this season, it could turn Wembley into a chamber of horrors.)
And since the dead will walk tomorrow, we note the anniversary of the body of the late Soviet leader Josef Stalin being moved in 1961 from its premium spot beside the preserved corpse of Lenin.
Two of our own personal favorites passed in this day. In 1925, French silent film comedian Max Linder committed suicide with his wife. At his peak in the 1910s, Linder was almost as famous and as popular as Charlie Chaplin. He turned out a series of droll comedies that contrasted with the adventures of Chaplin's "tramp" character by portraying a sharp urban sophisticate. Unfortunately, Linder's film career was interrupted by World War I, and the subsequent health and mental problems he suffered from his service led to his death.
On this day the following year, Harry Houdini died. Houdini was one of the greatest showmen of the Golden Age of Magic. While not the most skilled magician, he was unparalleled in giving his audience a full evening's entertainment, which included magic, escapes, and the exposure of fraudulent mediums. During his last week, Houdini suffered from appendicitis and fractured his ankle (and still performed his "Chinese Water Torture Cell" escape, which involved being suspended by his ankles) and Despite a temperature of 104ºF and intense pain, he refused to be hospitalized until he collapsed on stage (and even then, he finished the show). After a week in Detroit's Grace Hospital, he died of peritonitis brought on by his ruptured appendix.
Somewhere between horror and entertainment lies the musical "The Scottsboro Boys," which opens on Broadway tonight. One of the final collaborations between writers John Kander and Fred Ebb (the latter of whom actually died in 2004), the musical tells the story of nine black Alabama teenagers who were unjustly accused of raping two white women in 1931. The case became a cause célèbre, sparking years of trials, appeals, retrials, and Supreme Court rulings, ultimately ending in a series of convictions, pardons, and acquittals.
After all that death and destruction, let's end the week on some lighter notes. For example, Halloween 1941 saw the completion of the sculpting of the faces on Mt. Rushmore. And today, in addition to being Halloween, is also, appropriately enough, National Knock-Knock Day, dedicated not only to those first jokes many of us learned, but also to the kids who'll be knocking on your door tonight - some of whom may well be collecting for UNICEF, since this is National UNICEF Day.
See you in November!
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Alex had a vocabulary of 150 words.
That's more than some people we know. |
Welcome once again to The Spark, your guide to the week's events, anniversaries, and commemorations.
We'll be frank about this week in particular, though; it's always tough to find events around September 11. It's not easy to maintain our (hopefully) snarky tone around such an anniversary, but we'll do our best.
Monday:
Well, obviously, it's Labor Day, which leads us to ask just where in the world the summer went. Wasn't it Memorial Day about ten minutes ago?
We also look at a couple of deaths today. In 1901, anarchist Leon Czolgosz went to the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, NY, and shot President William McKinley. McKinley didn't die right away; he lingered for a couple of days before passing. Czolgosz never expressed remorse for the murder and was electrocuted on October 29, 1901. So outraged were people by the murder, though, that his family was refused the right to take the body for interment, and it was buried in the prison grounds, where it was dissolved with a combination of quicklime and acid.
In 2007, Alex, the African Grey parrot who was trained by Dr. Irene Pepperberg, died of sudden and unexplained causes. Alex had a vocabulary of about 150 words, and his intelligence was rated at about the level of a five-year-old human. He could distinguish between shapes, colors, and numbers; had an understanding of the concepts of "zero," and personal pronouns; and could lie and joke.
Two TV premieres tonight. One is "The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That" on PBS. It's another one of those public television shows that teaches things to kids, but we have to ask when the Cat, who's nothing but a disruptive anarchist in his books by Dr. Seuss, became an authority figure to be listened to. The other premiere is a show on Cartoon Network based on "Mad" Magazine. Guess there's just not enough content out there for adolescents with undeveloped senses of humor. What hath Judd Apatow wrought?
Tuesday:
In 1921, 16-year-old Margaret Gorman won the Golden Mermaid pageant in Atlantic City, NJ. The pageant was a publicity stunt designed to keep tourists in the city after Labor Day, and officials, no slouches when it came to hyperbole, named Gorman "Miss America." The pageant, which morphed from a beauty contest to a scholarship event, used to be a major part of American pop culture, but in recent years has faded to become a failed reality show followed by yet another Vegas spectacle. Sic transit gloria mundi. (Though we don't know if she ever won the crown.)
On this day in 1930, the "Blondie" comic strip debuted. We've all run across "Blondie" in our time, but we'll wager you didn't know that Blondie's maiden name was Boopadoop, that she started out life as a gold-digging flapper, or that Dagwood was the son of a millionaire, who disowned him for marrying Blondie. Regardless, the Bumsteads have been married since 1933. That’s a heckuva lot of sandwiches.
Wednesday:
So, Monday, we were talking about Leon Czolgosz, and today we'll mention the 169th birthday of Charles J. Guiteau, who shot President James Garfield in 1881. Guiteau was probably the craziest of all Presidential assassins, shooting Garfield because he had never been appointed consul to France, despite his lack of any qualification.
Speaking of unusal political figures, Lyndon LaRouche turns 88 today. LaRouche, is a perennial Presidential candidate who holds, shal we say, "unique" views, including his belief that Queen Elizabeth is the head of an international drug cartel.
While it’s easy to laugh at LaRouche for the wrong reasons, it's also the birthdays of two men at whom it's easy to laugh for the right reasons: Sid Caesar (1922) and Peter Sellers (1925). Caesar was a television superstar in the 1950s, headlining two comedy programs that, thanks to writing staffs that included Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Woody Allen, and Larry Gelbart, turned out 90 minutes of classic live comedy every week -- just like "Saturday Night Live," only funny!
Sellers came to fame as a writer and actor on the legendary "Goon Show," whose crazy comedy paved the way for "Monty Python’s Flying Circus," among others. He soon moved on to films, playing multiple roles in such classics as "The Mouse That Roared" and "Dr. Strangelove," before finding film immortality as the blithely incompetent Inspector Clouseau in the "Pink Panther" films.
A couple of musical anniversaries today. In 1932, Patsy Cline was born. Her soulful singing style made her one of the first country singers to cross over to the pop charts. Unfortunately, she was killed in a plane crash at the age of 30. In 1935, a 19-year-old Frank Sinatra made his radio debut as part of the "Hoboken Four" on "Major Bowes' Amateur Hour." The Amateur Hour was a fixture of American entertainment for nearly 40 years and was the "American Idol" of its day; the only difference being that Major Bowes’s contestants were usually talented.
Speaking of talent, it was on this day in 1504 that Michelangelo's "David" was unveiled in Florence. The 17-foot-tall statue on a naked male soon became iconic, and has probably been as mocked and imitated as any work of art since.
While the David was quite an invention, it's not quite as useful as Scotch tape, which made its debut in 1930, when Richard Drew was trying to come up with a product that would allow the painting of sharp lines on automobiles.
In 1892, an early version of the Pledge of Allegiance appeared in "The Youth's Companion" magazine. Suffice it to say, the original did not include the phrase, "One nation under God," which was added by Congress in 1954 at the height of the Red Scare, in order to distinguish America from the Godless Communists of the Soviet Union. Those very Communists were provided with some kind of help -- divine or not -- starting in 1941, when the Siege of Leningrad began. For 872 days, the second-largest city in the Soviet Union was held under siege by the German army. No supplies got in or out, and Leningrad's citizens were forced to scavenge everything they could in order to survive harsh winters and constant bombardment. There are stories that they even had to resort to cannibalism. Regardless, their withstanding of the Nazis is one of the great stories of perseverance in world history.
Not as heroic, but certainly persistent and hard to avoid is "Star Trek," which premiered in 1966. Trekkies may be nerdish and obsessed (for example, we're sure there are those of them who would object to not being called "Trekkers"), but they're certainly literate. And they may well be celebrating International Literacy Day today.
Finally, we note that it's Rosh Hashanah and the beginning of the Jewish high holidays.
Thursday:
A number of birthdays today, including two that run from the sublime to the ridiculous -- which man fits into which category, we leave to you. Colonel Harland Sanders, the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken was born in 1890, and Mario Batali, the chef who revolutionized American cooking, by, for nothing else, his use of offal and internal organs in his recipes.
To our uncultivated palates, such a diet would lead to a mutiny, which is ironic in that it's also the 256th birthday of William Bligh, whose harsh treatment of his crew led to the mutiny on HMS Bounty. On the other hand, such victuals may well have appealed to Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, the diminutive French artist who died in 1901. (We can’t speak as to whether such a diet led to either his diminished stature or his death. We just report 'em.)
In more baffling events, the NFL season begins tonight with the Minnesota Vikings taking on the New Orleans Saints. (It's baffling because football is a sport for the fall and winter months, and we're still a couple of weeks from the Autumnal Equinox). Also, the new season of "The Vampire Diaries" begins tonight, and we have to wonder just what we have to do to stop this mania for vampires and zombies! Enough already! (Although, maybe Viking quarterback Brett Favre's eerie longevity is due to his being either a vampire or a zombie. Just sayin'.)
Friday:
It's a day for things we like and admire. For example, it's Raymond Scott's 102nd birthday. Scott was a composer and bandleader in the 1930s and '40s who wrote avant-garde songs, many of which (most notably "Powerhouse") were used by composer Carl Stalling when writing the scores for Warner Bros. cartoons. We're also glad to celebrate the big 5-0 with actor Colin Firth, who always turns in good work, but who especially endeared himself to many a Janeite with he portrayal of Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy in the 1995 version of "Pride and Prejudice." Musician Jerry Lee Lewis will perform on Broadway tonight with the cast of "Million Dollar Quartet."And we like the "Stand Up to Cancer" telethon, which will take over the television airwaves tonight in order to raise funds to beat cancer.
Of course, not everything today is likeable. For example, you may recall that last week we mentioned the anniversary of the shooting of Louisiana politician Huey Long. Well, after a couple of days of being hospitalized, Long died-- though whether the fatal bullet came from the alleged assassin or his own bodyguards, no one knows.
Saturday:
As we alluded to earlier, it's hard to be snarky this week, and this day, especially, but we'll try.
First of all, we note the coincidence of ground being broken on this day in 1941 for the construction of the Pentagon, when 60 years later, it would be attacked along with the World Trade Center.
When we were kids, we all knew the words to "Oh, Susanna." (You know, "I come from Alabama with a banjo on my knee ...") Well, it was first performed by its composer, Stephen Foster, in 1847 at the Eagle Saloon in Pittsburgh, PA. And how was Foster paid for the song? With a bottle of whiskey, which is an ending appropriate for the work of O. Henry, the writer who specialized in twist endings, and who was born in 1862.
Sunday:
We have a mixed bag to end the week.
First, the birthdays of two groundbreaking men. In 1880, H.L. Mencken was born. Mencken, "the Sage of Baltimore," was a reporter, critic, and etymologist, who acid coverage of politics and the Scopes "Monkey Trial" alone would have assured him immortality, but who crowned those accomplishments with his investigations into the roots of American English and by coining such maxims as "No one in this world, so far as I know -- and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me -- has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people." -- usually misquoted as "No one ever went broke underestimating the good taste of the American public."
The other is Jesse Owens, born in 1913, Owens won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, forever destroying Hitler's dream of using the games to establish his myth of Aryan superiority.
As groundbreaking as those men were, though, their accomplishments fade in contrast to the French artisans who, 17,000 years ago created a series of cave paintings in Lascaux, France, that were discovered in 1940. The paintings, which depict thousands of human and animals, give paleontologists irreplacable insights into the lives and psychology of paleolithic humans.
Speaking human psychology, we’ll note that today in Russia is the Day of Conception. The Russian government is encouraging citizens of the Motherland to propagate today in hopes that there will be a baby boom on Russia Day, which is nine months from now on June 12.
We'll close this somewhat somber week by noting the 1995 death of actor Jeremy Brett. Brett labored in relative obscurity until in 1985, when he was cast as Sherlock Holmes. Almost overnight, he became the definitive Holmes for many of us, as his strong and quirky characterization matched the downright oddness of the literary Holmes.
See you next time.
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Well, that's what it all comes
down to, doesn't it? |
Welcome once more to The Spark, your source for a deep dig into the week's events. Let's begin, shall we?
Monday:
The week begins with the anniversaries of the deaths of a couple of prominent Southerners. It's hard to determine which was the more notable, though. Obviously, Elvis Presley dying in 1977 got more ink (and the good people at FTD had more orders for flowers to be delivered to Graceland than for any other event or place), and his effect on pop culture is incalculable, but in 1888, John Pemberton died in Atlanta, three years after inventing Coca-Cola. Memphians will note the anniversary with Elvis Week, but we don’t think Atlantans will be celebrating Pemberton Week, so Mr. Presley may get the nod.
But Elvis and Dr. Pemberton aren’t the only prominent folks who died on this date. In 1956, Bela Lugosi died. Lugosi was so identified with Count Dracula that he resented the way the role had typecast him, so it was odd that he chose to be buried in the Dracula cape he had worn on stage and screen. In 1948, baseball legend Babe Ruth died. Had he lived another six years, he might have made the cover of "Sports Illustrated," the first issue of which hit the newsstands in 1954.
In birthdays today, we note two creators and an icon (of sorts). In 1884, Hugo Gernsback was born. Gernsback is all but unknown today, but in the 1920s, he nurtured not only the genre of science fiction (which he called "scientifiction"), but also created what has come to be known as fandom by printing names and addresses of readers in his science fiction magazines. (Coincidentally, the World Science Fiction Convention opens tomorrow in Reno, NV.) 1892, Otto Messmer was born. Messmer was an artist and animator who may or may not have created Felix the Cat, who, until the advent of Mickey Mouse in the late 1920s, was the biggest animated star in movies. The icon is Fess Parker, who was born in 1924. In the 1950s, he played frontiersman and Congressman Davy Crockett (whose own birth in 1786 we note tomorrow) on television, causing a mania for coonskin caps. In the 60s, he played frontiersman and legislator Daniel Boone.
In the oddity file, we see that Chang and Eng Bunker, the original "Siamese Twins," arrived in Boston in 1829. Though they were joined at the sternum, the Bunkers married sisters and fathered 21 children between them. We needn't dwell on the details. And it's the 90th birthday of bohemian writer Charles Bukowski, who managed to turn a life of dissipation and alcohol into poetry.
Tuesday:
Last week, we mentioned that "The Wizard of Oz" had had its world premiere in Oconomowoc, WI. Well, on August 17, 1939, it finally reached New York, opening at the Capitol Theatre on Broadway. Speaking of things reaching the Big Apple, it was on this day in 1790, that the U.S. capital moved from New York to Philadelphia (the government would open shop in Washington DC in 1800.)
Speaking of things leaving New York, Robert Fulton's steamboat, The Clermont, left New York for Albany in 1807. (That route later became notorious in the early 20th century, as philandering husbands and wives used it to follow through on trysts. "Taking the night boat to Albany" became shorthand for having an affair.)
And speaking of illicit affairs, how could we forget that, on this day in 1893, Mae West was born? West was an actor an playwright who traded in the power of sex to scandalize, so much so that a number of her plays were shut down for their scandalous plots and she herself was arrested more than once.
Some musical events of note today. In 1954, Billy Murray died. Murray is all but unknown today, but he was a staggeringly popular recording artist in the first quarter of the 20th century, becoming the first person to sell a million records. In 1959, Miles Davis's "Kind of Blue" was released. It marked a new type of cool jazz that hadn't been widely heard before, and Miles struck gold, with the album being generally considered to the best-selling jazz album of all time. Beach Boys frontman Brian Wilson will release an album of his arrangements of songs by George Gershwin today. It’s also the 27th anniversary of the death of George’s brother Ira, though we don't know if the though of Wilson messing with the Gershwin songbook is what killed him.
Wednesday:
Today is a day for all types of women's events. In 1587, Virginia Dare became the first child of European parents to be born on American soil. She was born in the Roanoake colony in North Carolina, an outpost from which every resident mysteriously vanished soon after. In 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, guaranteeing women the right to vote. And today, the Miami Dolphins cheerleaders will release a swimsuit calendar. Whether this is a step forward or backward, we leave to you, dear reader.
In three completely unrelated events, we note than, in 1227, Genghis Khan, who created the largest empire the world has ever known, died; that today is International Homeless Animals Day; and that an expedition to create the first 3D map of the wreckage site of RMS Titanic will begin.
Thursday:
Not a good day for witches or those suspected of being witches. In 1612, three women from the Lancashire village of Samlesbury, England, were put on trial, for allegedly practicing witchcraft, and eighty years later, in 1692 in Salem, MA, one woman and four men ere executed after being convicted of witchcraft.
Following the death of Elvis earlier in the week, the death of Groucho Marx in 1977 didn't cause much of a ripple, but to fans of classic comedy, it was a bigger event.
Thanks to the efforts of birthday boy Philo T. Farnsworth (1906), who invented the television, news travels faster than ever -- or certainly faster than it did in 1848, when the news of the California Gold Rush finally reached the New York Herald, a mere seven months after gold had been discovered. Had airplanes been around in those days (and today is National Aviation Day, to commemorate the 1871 birth of Orville Wright), the east coast might have gotten the word sooner, though.
Friday:
Speaking of getting the word late, it was on this day in 1866 that President Andrew Johnson formally declared the Civil War over, a mere 16 months after the surrender at Appomattox.
(We might also mention in this context that in 1858, Charles Darwin first published his theory of evolution in "The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London," alongside Alfred Russel Wallace's same theory, though there are still some folks who either haven’t gotten that news, or who choose to ignore it.)
In musical anniversaries, in 1882 Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" debuted in Moscow and in 1885, Gilbert and Sullivan’s "The Mikado," opened in New York.
Some sports stuff today, too. It's the 90th birthday of the National Football League, founded in Canton, OH, as well as the being the openings of the World Series of both mahjong and Little League baseball. A less happy reminder of football also occurs today, when "The Tillman Story" opens; it's a documentary investigating the life and the cover-up of the death of NFL star and Army Ranger Pat Tillman.
On a (much) lighter note, a "Twilight" convention opens today in Parsippany, NJ. Why Parsippany, we have no idea.
Saturday:
In 1878, the American Bar Association was founded. We'd make a joke here, but we don't want to get sued.
Speaking of theft, it was on this day in 1911 that the Mona Lisa was stolen by an employee of the Louvre Museum (There must be something about art thefts this weekend. Sunday is the sixth anniversary of the thefts of two paintings by Edvard Munch from the Munch Museum in Oslo.)
And speaking of exaggeration, it's Wilt Chamberlain’s birthday. Wilt was born in 1936, and while he was one of the most prolific scorers in NBA history, he also claimed to be one of the most prolific scorers off the court, boasting in his autobiography that he had slept with over 20,000 women (nearly as many as his 31,419 career points).
In other birthdays today, piano legend Count Basie, who lead the swingingest big band ever, was born in 1904; Oscar-winning animation director Friz Freleng was born in 1906; Christopher Robin Milne, who inspired (and resented) the Winnie-the-Pooh stories, was born in 1920; and in 1938, country singer Kenny Rogers was born. We're not quite sure when his face was born, however.
And on this day in 1959, Hawaii became a state -- just in time to either be or not be the birthplace of Barack Obama.
Sunday:
In 1485, King Richard III was killed in the Battle of Bosworth Field. Shakespeare's play of 100 or so years later painted him as an utter villain, but contemporary historians have rehabilitated him somewhat. Guess history will also be written by the victors.
Speaking of writers, we close the week by noting that, in 1893, Dorothy Parker was born. Mrs. Parker was generally considered to be the wittiest woman in America in the 1920s and '30s, with a pen dipped in poison and a tongue to match. In her later years, she tried to renounce her fame and wit, but any woman who could say, "If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn't be a bit surprised" had something going on.
Earlier, we mentioned how Hugo Gernsback more or less created science fiction fandom, and one of those early fans celebrates his 90th birthday today: Ray Bradbury. Bradbury wrote more than just science fiction, but that's what he's best known for. "If you enjoy living, it is not difficult to keep the sense of wonder," he once said. Over nearly a century, that"s a heck of a lot of wonder.
See you next time!
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