Oscar Trivia, Indie Sensations, and Evita's Death
Tuesday, July 26, 2016 at 8:08AM 
On this day in history as it relates to the movies...
1856 Nobel Prize winning playwright legend George Bernard Shaw is born in Dublin. His various plays have been adapted into many films especially his best known work Pygmalion which also became Best Picture winner My Fair Lady (1964)
1894 Novelist Aldous Huxley of "Brave New World" fame is born. Also tries his hand at Hollywood screenwriting including a rejected screenplay for Disney's Alice in Wonderland
1922 Movie giants Blake Edwards (Victor/Victoria, The Pink Panther, Breakfast at Tiffany's) and Jason Robards (All the President's Men, Magnolia, Melvin and Howard) are born in Tulsa and Chicago, respectively.
1928 Stanley Kubrick is born in NYC, makes 13 movies from the 1950s through 1999 that people still obsess over today. Confounding Oscar trivia: His only personal win was in the category of Visual Effects, despite 12 nominations in the writing, directing, and producing categories.
1945 Late bloomer Dame Helen Mirren is born. She doesn't win her first major showbiz award (BAFTA) until her late forties and then she can't stop winning them.
1948 The biopic The Babe Ruth Story premieres starring William Bendix and Claire Trevor. The premiere is Babe Ruth's last public appearance. The iconic ballplayer dies less than a month later of throat cancer.
1950 Susan George, British star of the seventies cinema, is born
Alice in 1951, realizing what becomes of her legacy when Tim Burton gets a hold of it...
1951 Disney's 13th full length animated feature Alice in Wonderland premieres in both London & New York
1952 Argentina's Eva Peron, Evita herself, dies at just 33 years of age ascending into cultural immortality. Patti LuPone wins the Tony playing her in the Broadway musical of 1979 and Madonna wins the Golden Globe playing her in the 1996 film after a hard fought battle to win the role with major A listers fighting for it including Meryl Streep and Michelle Pfeiffer. Evita's death was such a big deal that it seems to take up a third of the movie, and her corpse had its own dramatic life as recenty abstracted in the very odd picture Eva Doesn't Sleep which we saw at TIFF last year.
1959 Kevin Spacey is born. Wins two Oscars (The Usual Suspects, American Beauty) and a Tony (Lost in Yonkers) in the the nineties. Still chasing the Emmy for that elusive Triple Crown.
1964 Superstar Sandra Bullock is born.
1965 Writer/director Dito Montiel (A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints, Fighting), who essentially brought us Channing Tatum, is born
1967 Bald action hottie Jason Statham is born
1968 Undervalued magnificent Olivia Williams is born. Possibly peaked in 2010 with the shouldabeen Oscar nominated role The Ghost Writer (2010) and the shouldabeen Emmy nominated role as boss of Joss Whedon's Dollhouse (2009-2010) but we hope a second wave is coming. Her only major showbiz nomination is the SAG Ensemble for An Education (2009) and that ain't right!
1973 Kate Beckinsale (Underworld, Love & Friendship) enters the world
1985 Kiss of the Spider Woman opens in the US after debuting at Cannes. It becomes a major arthouse hit and achieves three Oscar firsts: it was the first indie nominated for Best Picture (for real); the first example of a straight actor (William Hurt) winning an Oscar for playing an out gay role; and the first Brazilian director nominated. First but not last in all three cases. The Brazilian director Hector Babenco (who also directed Streep & Nicholson to nominations in Ironweed) died two weeks ago. RIP.
1991 Paul Reubens "Pee Wee Herman" is arrested in Florida for exposing himself in an adult theater, famously derailing his career for a decade. Florida is the worst. Doesn't it seem sometimes like every terrible thing happens there?
1997 James Cameron marries for the fourth time, this time to his buff Terminator star Linda Hamilton. They divorce two years later.
2006 Little Miss Sunshine hits theaters
2013 Blue Jasmine premieres in NYC. Cate Blanchett wins her second enormously deserved Oscar 219 days later.
The world is round, people!
Reader Comments (18)
The director of "The Kiss of the Spider Woman" diead last week.
Marcelo- thanks for reminder. I'm sorry we didn't discuss. I added a bit in the text.
It was a big day for celebrity births, TV icons Vivian Vance and Gracie Allen were also born today.
Amen to the Olivia Williams love. I'd have nominated her in Supporting in 2003 too for The Heart of Me (a funny year anyway as you discussed on the Smackdown, but I'd probably replace Clarkson) and given her the actual Emmy for Miss Austen Regrets (although I'm not sure if that ever aired in the US, so possibly ineligible). Such a talent capable of both real warmth and real coldness.
Yes! That Cate gif is giving me life. Two for now, the third is coming soon. Very soon I hope.
Actually, Babenco is not Brazilian. He was born in Argentina. He´s just naturalized Brazilian. I´m not sure if this counts.
Olivia Williams is terribly underappreciated - but happily that's not the case here!
Adding:
George Bernard Shaw(1856-1950) is the only winner of a Nobel(1925)
and an Academy Award(Best Screenplay - Pygmalion, 1938)
As you said, Evita died when was 33, and Madonna was 39
when made the movie and undergoes more
costume changes than any other actress in film history,
being Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra(1963) the second one.
Patti Lupone, the Broadway original Evita, turned down the offer to be movie Evita's mother.
Just watched Kiss of the Spider Woman for the first time. Wow. Still processing. It would be great to hear your thoughts, Nat. I see it's in your top 10 of the year.
If KOTSW was released today would Raul Julia go supporting??
Kimberly S - in the interest of accuracy: Madonna was 37. She turned 38 two-and-a-half months after principal photography on Evita ended.
mark -- 100% yes, which is so aggravating. movies about the relationship between two people used to understand that both were leads.
He is soooooo a Lead.
Thanks, Paul !
More love to Olivia Williams - loved her in "An Education", she needs a meaty part in Game of Thrones or some HBO/netflix show.
As much as I appreciate Hurt's devotion to his loud & gay portrayal in Kiss of the Spiderwoman, the best performance in the movie actually belonged to Rual Julia as the quieter and tortured soul. Its a shame that the Academy choose to ignore his performance, maybe race played a big factor back in 1985?? Well, Hurt shld've split and gave half of his Oscar to Julia.
Shame tt Sonia Braga who was so mesmerizing as THE said Spiderwoman was also snubbed by the Academy (race factor again??) At least, Golden Globe did right by nom both Julia & Braga.
^^^If by "race" you mean national origin, ethnicity, accent and/or mother tongue, you're probably right.
I am a big fan of William Hurt and it's disappointing that he isn't given meaty roles anymore.