On This Day: Silly Walks, Full Frontal Oscar Nods, and Bell-Bottoms
Thursday, October 27, 2016 at 8:00AM 
Is today your birthday? If so you share it with multiple Oscar nominees and winners, the great John Cleese, the US President with the cutest name, Macy's Department Store and the NYC subway system.
That's quite good company which we'll explore after the jump (warning: one NSFW photo ahead) on this day in showbiz history...
1858 Teddy Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States is born. He's later played in movies and TV by nearly a hundred actors from the silents onward showing up in films like Citizen Kane (1941), The Wind and the Lion (1975), Ragtime (1981), and Newsies (1992). Also on Teddy's birthday, Macy's Department Store opens in NYC. Which also appears in the movies frequently, most famously in Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
1904 NYC's subway system officially opens, the site of thousands of movie scenes. What's the first one that comes to mind? Mine is Ghost for some reason.
1918 Impossibly earnest Oscar winner Teresa Wright is born. Peaked extremely early - of her first six movies, two of them won Best Picture (Mrs Miniver and The Best Years of Our Lives) two were nominees (The Little Foxes, The Pride of the Yankees), another received three nominations (Casanova Brown) and the least honored was [ahem] Alfred Hitchcock's genius Shadow of a Doubt.
1922 Ruby Dee is born in Cleveland. Goes on to showbiz legend with her husband Ossie Davis. Receives Oscar nomination for slapping Denzel Washington (he deserved it!)
1932 Sylvia Plath, who writes "The Bell Jar" is born. Gwyneth Paltrow plays her in the biopic Sylvia (2003) --remember that? -- and Kirsten Dunst is adapting The Bell Jar to the screen next year with Dakota Fanning in the starring role.
1939 Legendary Monty Python comic actor John Cleese is born in Somerset, England. Starts silly walking the following year in diapers.
Men Who Have Been Oscar Nominated for Roles With Full Frontal Nudity
• Peter Firth in Equus (1977)
• Robin Williams in The Fisher King (1991)
• Jaye Davison in The Crying Game (1992)
• Ed Norton in American History X (1998)
• Jude Law in The Talented Mr Ripley (1999)
• Geoffrey Rush in Quills (2000)
• Viggo Mortensen in Eastern Promises (2007)
• Eddie Redmayne in The Danish Girl (2014)
...I think that's it. Did I miss anyone?
1953 Peter Firth, Oscar nominated for his equine-horny nude psychiatric patient in Equus, is 63 today
1954 Marilyn & Joe DiMaggio divorce after just 10 months of marriage. On that same day, Walt Disney's first TV show is televised "Disneyland". It runs through 1991 albeit under different names
1955 ...
On this day 61 years ago, Rebel Without a Cause premiered in theaters giving us teen angst, James Dean's red jacket & a dad wearing an apron pic.twitter.com/BuxvoJHZfB
— Diana Bosch (@cinemaisswell) October 27, 2016
1957 Acclaimed Malaysian director Tsai Ming-liang is born. Films include Goodbye Dragon Inn, The Wayward Cloud, Stray Dogs and many more
1958 Simon le Bon is born in England, later fronts the iconic 80s band Duran Duran named after a character from Barbarella. Their songs are still used in movies --this year in Sing Street and Storks.
1961 Great character actress Joanna Scanlan is born. She created "Getting On." We once interviewed her for her tremendous performance in The Invisible Woman
1964 Sonny & Cher were famously married on this day, Cher in bellbottoms. Sonny later claimed this wasn't an "official" marriage and that that didn't take place for real in 1969 after the birth of Chaz Bono (born "Chastity")
1965 Oscar winning Costume Designer Michael O'Connor (The Duchess, Jane Eyre, The Invisible Woman, Tulip Fever) is born on this day. Editor Matt Chesse also shows up. Of all of the latter's action packed movies like Warrior, Quantum of Solace, and World War Z it's Finding Neverland which gets him his Oscar nomination? The Oscars are so weird.
1975 Aron Ralston is born in Ohio. Goes on to fame when he cuts off his own arm in Utah to save his life which is later made into the Best Picture nominated film 127 Hours starring James Franco.
1978 Halloween, one of the most iconic horror films ever, is busy terrifying the public in its opening weekend (though it opened two days prior on a Wednesday) becoming one of the most successful indies of all time.
1989 Immediate Family opens in movie theaters in which Mary Stuart Masterson reconsiders giving her baby up for adoption. Wouldn't you if the would be parents were scary actors Glenn Close & James Woods?!?
1995 The great romantic alcoholism drama Leaving Las Vegas with Nicolas Cage & Elisabeth Shue in their career best performances opens in movie theaters.
2006 Babel premieres in Los Angeles & New York City. Goes on to seven Oscar nominations including the only directing nomination Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu has lost.
QUICK - What's your favorite Duran Duran song?
Reader Comments (24)
A View to a Kill
Did Jude Law go full-frontal? I don't remember THAT scene from 'Ripley'!
Notorious
Hungry Like the Wolf. I had such a crush on Peter Firth.
Eddie Redmayne in The Danish Girl certainly counts as full frontal nudity, doesn't it?
A few more births we could throw in: Artist, wife of Jackson Pollock and Oscar-winning character for Marcia Gay Harden, Lee Krasner was born on this day in 1908; Jean-Perre Cassel, father of Vincent and prolific actor in his own right, was born on the same day as Sylvia Plath in 1932; actress Carrie Snodgress was born on this day in 1945; and Roberto Benigni turns 64 today.
Jkb - you can see Little Jude when he gets out of the bath during that flirty scene with Matt Damon
MrW -- oops you're right.
The great and underappreciated Jack Carson was born on this day in 1910 as well as the delightful Nanette Fabray who was born in 1920 and is still with us turns 96 today.
Favorite Duran Duran-Rio.
planet earth
Hi All,Today is my birthday,40 years old.
I have a soft spot for Wild Boys.
I remember Sylvia for Paltrow's excellent and underseen performance,she really did win her Oscar way too early,it does happen sometimes,looking at you Larson.
happy birthday Mark! You are 21 years younger than REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE!
Oh, boy. Matt Chesse was nominated for "Finding Neverland"? That's a clear case of the Academy rewarding a movie they like instead of the best work. That opening chase scene in "Quantum of Solace" alone is more memorably edited. And the opera sequence is masterfully crafted. The movie itself wasn't the best, but Chesse's work was great!
Next thing you know, you'll be telling me that Teresa Wright was Oscar-nominated for "Mrs. Miniver" or "The Little Foxes" instead of "Shadow of a Doubt." (This is a joke. I know it actually happened. I like the two latter movies, but she is much better in the Hitchcock.)
NYC's subway system officially opens, the site of thousands of movie scenes. What's the first one that comes to mind? Mine is Ghost for some reason.
.....The French Connection.
I think that's it. Did I miss anyone?
.....Probably not, but you missed posting the screenshots. ;-)
QUICK - What's your favorite Duran Duran song?
....."Election Day" (featuring Grace Jones)
.....(technically by Arcadia, but c'mon...)
A VIew to a Kill
You really need to freeze and zoom and guess in most of those frontals. Boo filmmakers! The only frontal that matters is Fassy's. The mother of all frontals. He should have won that year. Boo Academy!
Yeah, where are the other screenshots?
"A View to a Kill" and "Do You Believe in Shame?" (I saw them in concert last year, with Chic, and they are totally still worth seeing if you like non stop dancing for 3 hours. Highly recommended.)
Probably "The French Connection" for the subway, for that car chase.
Happy Birthday, markgordon !
Speaking of Cleese, didn't he have at least a second or two in A Fish Called Wanda?
Oh, and "Girl Panic!" with it's long form video featuring Supermodels as members of Duran Duran. How could I forget?
NYC's subway system officially opens, the site of thousands of movie scenes. What's the first one that comes to mind? Mine is Ghost for some reason.
Inside Llewyn Davis, of course!
Rio is Duran Duran's best song.
A View to a Kill.
The French Connection and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three - two '70s classics both photographed by the brilliant Owen Roizman.
Skin Trade.... a very underrated Duran Duran song. That is where the band got really funky.
Speaking of Fassy, Shame is what I immediately thought of, re: the NYC subway. What a scene.
I love, LOVE, love Duran Duran, so it's tough to choose just one song, but it probably would be Rio (although I do have a wacky connection to The Reflex).
Isn't Jack Nicholson nude in one of his Oscar-nominated roles? Or is that my imagination?
Rio
My two favorite NYC Subway movies:
The original Taking of Pelham 123
The Incident - a must NYC subway thriller from 1967 - Martin Sheen, Tony Musante, Thelma Ritter, Ruby Dee, Jack Gilford, Ed McMahon (!) Brock Peters, Jan Sterling, Donna Mills...what a cast!