Feeling festive today but not quite ready for Christmas? Celebrate one of these anniversaries!
1805 Joseph Smith Jr, founder of the Mormon Church is born in Vermont. Here's a very random piece of trivia: Outside of the very early movie Brigham Young (1940) about his successor with Vincent Price in the Joseph Smith role, the only actually famous actor to ever play him is Dean Cain of Lois & Clark fame in a movie called September Dawn (2007)? It's kind of hard to draw a line connecting Vincent Price and Dean Cain otherwise, right?
1867 Madame CJ Walker, cosmetics mogul and the first black female millionaire in America, is born in Louisiana. Where's her biopic, Hollywood? History has more than just Great White Man stories.
1887 Underappreciated director John Cromwell who guided Bette Davis's breakthrough role in Of Human Bondage , and the all female wonders of Caged was born in Ohio. One more Bette related anniversary after the jump...
1888 Vincent Van Gogh cuts off his left ear. People never stop mentioning it thereafter and I assume this also happens in Lust for Life but I forget.
1918 Kumar Pallana, the actor who delivered such sharp quick impression comedy in Wes Anderson's movies was born in British India on this day. He passed away three years ago so sadly The Darjeeling Limited will remain his last Anderson collaboration
1929 Gorgeous cheekbone blessed jazz musician Chet Baker born in Oklahoma. Have you ever seen Bruce Weber's beautiful Oscar nominated documentary on him, Let's Get Lost?
1930 Bette Davis arrives in Hollywood. Everyone wins... including people born long after she passed. One of the truly enduring icons of the movies.
1937 Director Peter Medak born in Budapest. His credits include multiple genres like comedy (Zorro the Gay Blade), outre neo noir (Romeo is Bleeding), gangster (The Krays) and sci-fi (Species II) more...
1938 Margaret Hamilton's costume catches on fire during The Wizard of Oz filming. Thankfully Margaret herself doesn't melt like her more famous alter-ego when doused with water.
1943 Elizabeth Hartman born in Ohio. She'd become a star briefly in the mid sixties with her Oscar nominated role in A Patch of Blue. Kirsten Dunst will reinterpret her role in The Beguiled next year in its Sofia Coppola directed remake.
1971 Corey Haim, one of The Lost Boys we most loved for an 80s spell (RIP), was born
William Hurt & Kathleen Turner in The Accidental Tourist (1988)
1988 The Accidental Tourist opens in movie theaters, the last of the year's All December Best Picture shortlist to open (that didn't happen again until 2002 I believe). What would you have voted for that year?
- The Accidental Tourist (4 nominations, 1 win for supporting actress)
- Dangerous Liaisons (7 nominations, 3 wins in craft categories)
- Rain Man (8 nominations, 4 wins including Best Picture)
- Mississippi Burning (7 nominations, 1 win for Cinematography)
- Working Girl (6 nominations, 1 win for Original Song)
Fun or aggravating trivia note depending on your point of view. Only ONE of the Globe nominees in Best Supporting Actress transferred to the Oscar list (Sigourney Weaver, who won the Globe), which was entirely drawn from Best Picture nominees instead...much to the disappointment, surely, of Sonia Braga (Moon Over Parador), Barbara Hershey (Last Temptation of Christ), Lena Olin (Unbearable Lightness of Being), and Diane Venora (Bird).
- Joan Cusack, Working Girl
- Geena Davis, The Accidental Tourist
- Frances McDormand, Mississippi Burning
- Michelle Pfeiffer, Dangerous Liaisons
- Sigourney Weaver, Working Girl
1994 Little Women (we just discusssed!), Nobody's Fool, Richie Rich, and Streetfighter opens in movie theaters. Here's a fun trivia note: Unlike 1988's all December Best Picture lineup above not a single Best Picture nominee in 1994 was released in the last month of the year!!! That's extremely rare and also very cool, not making moviegoers wait for everything until the last minute (though Nell and Legends of the Fall were props PISSED that this happen as the big December hopefuls). The nominees were:
the surprise staying power of spring sleeper hit FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL resulted in a surprise Best Picture nomination
- Forrest Gump (July 6th)
- Four Weddings and a Funeral (April 15th)
- Pulp Fiction (October 14th)
- Quiz Show (October 7th)
- The Shawshank Redemption (October 14th)
2005 Laura Dern marries musician Ben Harper. They're divorced now but at least Laura Dern got to pass on those great acting genes from Diane & Bruce to her two kids. May there be a third generation of Oscar nominees if, you know, the kids actually want to act when they grow up!
2011 We Bought a Zoo and In the Land of Blood and Honey open in movie theaters and are quickly forgotten thereafter.
2016 AKA TODAY Martin Scorsese's Silence, the fantasy A Monster Calls, and the comedy Why Him? all open in movie theaters? In what order will you see them.