On this day in history as it relates to the movies...
1859 Billy the Kid, future legendary outlaw, is born. He's been played in movies and TV by actors like Buster Crabbe, Hugh O'Brian, Paul Newman, Clu Galager, Val Kilmer, and perhaps most famously by Kris Kristofferson, BAFTA nominated for Pat Garret and Billy the Kid (1973)
1887 Boris Karloff, villainous movie icon (Frankenstein, The Mask of Fu Manchu, Scarface, etcetera) is born
1888 Harpo Marx is born
1892 Design genius Erté is born (as Romain de Tirtoff) in St Petersburg. He influenced fashion, movies, interior design and more and worked with two cats by his side and lived (and worked!) until his 90s. Why doesn't he have a biopic, preferrably one by a really visually fanciful director. Imagine what they could do for eye candy?!?
1907 Famous producer Run Run Shaw of Shaw Studios fame who launched countless stars and produced over 300 movies is born in Shanghai. Later in life he even produced Blade Runner. Though neither of the original Shaw brothers are still alive, their company recently appointed a new chairman who is intent on returning the studio to its former glory.
1916 Michael Gough, the only "Alfred" for us in Batman films is born in London
1924 Happy 92nd birthday to multi-award winning Filipino actress Anita Linda
1925 Famous singer/songwriter Johnny Mandell is born. Wins the Oscar 40 years later for "The Shadow of Your Smile" from The Sandpiper (1965) with Natalie Wood presenting! It beat "What's New Pussycat" and a song from Umbrellas of Cherbourg !
1934 Oscar winning screenwriter Robert Towne (Chinatown, Greystoke, Shampoo, etcetera) is born in Los Angeles
1936 Life Magazine rebooted as a hugely successful photo magazine - so many great Hollywood centric photos in their archives
1940 Womanizing director David Lean marries his second of six wives, actress Kay Walsh
1941 Franco Nero, Italian movie idol and on-and-off man of Vanessa Redgrave (since 1966 when they met as Lancelot & Guinever on Camelot though they weren't married until 2006!) is born.
1943 Future blaxploitation star Jeannie Bell is born
1944 "I used to love doggie chow!" Infamous R rated trashy screenwriter Joe Eszterhas (Basic Instinct, Showgirls, Flashdance) is born in Hungary
1948 Flamboyant celebrity and frequent Oscar joke writer Bruce Vilanch is born
1959 Maxwell Caulfied, La Pfeiffer's future "Cool Rider," is born in London
1966 Happy 50th birthday to French superstar Vincent Kassel.
1970 Actor Oded Fehr (The Mummy and Resident Evil franchises and various TV series) is born in Tel Aviv
1984 Supergirl is the big Thanksgiving weekend release in movie theaters. It flops. Too early for the superhero movie craze it was
1990 The Thanksgiving weekend really heats up that year's Oscar race with Dances With Wolves, the future winner, going very successfully wide while its Best Picture competition Ghost still holds on to the top ten in its 20th week of release (!) and future Best Actor winner Jeremy Irons debuts in Reversal of Fortune. What did you make of that year's Best Picture list and what do you wish had been there instead?
- Awakenings (3 noms)
- Dances with Wolves (12 noms, 7 wins)
- Ghost (5 noms, 2 wins)
- Godfather Pt III (7 noms)
- Goodfellas (6 noms, 1 win)
1991 Werner Herzog's combative crazy muse Klaus Kinski dies ending a glorious movie partnership
1992 Miley Cyrus is born in Nashville, presumably with tongue stuck out. Sings, acts, is highly underrated, etcetera. Remember that perfect perfect moment last year when Anne Hathaway did her "Wrecking Ball" on Lip Synch Battle?
2007 Amy Adams tops the box office for this Thanksgiving weekend with her most delightful comic performance in Enchanted. She loses the Comedy/Musical globe to Marion Cotillard whose performance is neither comic nor musical (since she was lipsynching in the tragic biopic La Vie En Rose)
2012 The biopic Hitchcock opens delighting few and mostly squandering its opportunities with a great subject. Somehow (we still can't figure it) both Helen Mirren and the makeup job on Anthony Hopkins manage fairly successful awards runs. We did have a great time interviewing its costume designer Julie Weiss, though.
2016 Moana opens in theaters. It's extremely traditional but it's so beautifully animated. Great theme song, too.