National Gay Killers Day. What? Ewww!
Saturday, May 21, 2016 at 10:36AM Because we're having fun with this little feature we'll continue. On this day in history as it relates to the movies...
1881 Ahead of her time Clara Barton founds the American Red Cross. She doesn't get a biopic because Hollywood is only interested in "Great Man" biopics
1916 Happy Centennial to author Harold Robbins who penned 25 best-sellers some of which became famous movies like The Carpetbaggers (1964), the Elvis flick King Creole (1958), and the notorious Pia Zadora Razzie winner The Lonely Lady (1983)
Rope (1949) and Swoon (1992) - two great movies inspired by the Leopold & Loeb case
1924 Chicago college students Leopold & Loeb murder a teenage boy in a "thrill killing." Their crime inspires the story of the gay deviants in Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1949), the Cannes Best Actor winning Compulsion (1958) and is recreated in the New Queer Cinema classic Swoon (1992)
1926 Kay Kendall of Les Girls (1957) fame is born
1952 Two time Oscar nominee John Garfield (best known for The Postman Always Rings Twice and Gentlemen's Agreement though those were not his nominated films) dies unexpectedly at the age of 39. The stress from the blacklist and Communist witch hunts (he'd refused to name names) were said to cause his heart attack.
1959 Gypsy opens on Broadway starring Ethel Merman. Mama Rose becomes the defining female role of musical theater, as Hamlet is to male drama thespians. Dozens of divas play her thereafter on stage, tv, and film. The best of them is Imelda Staunton, no joke.
1960 Jeffrey Dahmer is born in Wisconsin. Becomes an infamous gay serial killer in the early 90s just in time for America's obsession with serial killers to go truly perverse and mainstream. Within a decade or two they're the heroes on television shows for f***'s sake (This has always bothered me about showbiz - assassins and serial killers are professions as popular as being a doctor or a waitress.) Jeremy Renner plays Dahmer in the eponymous movie which yours truly has never seen. Have you? the general critical consensus is that Renner was very very good in it. But nobody was annoyed by his total franchise sellout-ness back then because it hadn't happened yet.
1970 FINALLY some role-model gayness for May 22nd, redeeming the day from infamy. Harvey Milk picks up Scott Smith in a subway station as a 40th birthday present to himself, as lovingly reenacted by Sean Penn & James Franco in Milk (2008)
1974 Fairuza Balk is born. As soon as she can speak she calls the four corners to insure that no other actresses gets her signature role in The Craft years 22 years later.
1979 "White Night Riots" in San Francisco because the gays are rightfully furious about the "manslaughter" conviction in the assassination of Harvey Milk
1980 Star War: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) released in theaters. It's still the best one.
1992 Johnny Carson welcomes his last guest on "The Tonight Show," Bette Midler, after 30 seasons on air. She wins the Outstanding Individual Performance Emmy for this performance. Two years later she is nominated for Gypsy and loses.
1999 Susan Lucci spoils her fame-boosting status as the ultimate awards show loser by winning on her 19th consecutive Daytime Emmy nomination
Reader Comments (11)
Today is my friend's birthday! I can't wait to tell hey it's National Gay Killers Day! ;)
I did see the Dammer movie ... although it was low budget, Renner did a very fine job in the role.
Dahmer... sorry!
Hey! It's also my birthday. And my friend's birthday. And my other friend's birthday. And Biggie's birthday.
wil H and Ryan -- sorry about that. But also ENJOY THOSE BIRTHDAYS.
I enjoyed the fact that Cher lived to celebrate her 70th birthday yesterday, despite 5 "Cher is Dying!" National Enquirer covers in the past year.
Rock on, Dark Lady!
I continue to wait for another film adaptation of Gypsy with Toni Collette as Madame Rose. I won't stop asking for it until it happens.
My mother cried when Lucci finally won that elusive Emmy. Now that daytime soap operas are near extinction I wonder what will happen to the award's not-ready-for-primetime younger sibling.
Kay Kendall! I feel sad for what else her career could have been. <3
I could watch that Susan Lucci clip over and over. Hell, I probably have at some point.
I'm bummed that we blinked and soap operas pretty much died.
It wasn't consecutive. She wasn't nominated in 1994.
Dahmer is one of my favorite serial killer movies — a genre of which I am, unlike you, a bit of a fan (I love 'Swoon' and 'Rope' too!). Renner is very good in it, but it's a good, spooky movie all the way around.