On this day in history at it relates to showbiz...
The Director and I
1787 Mozart competes his chamber piece "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" which has shown up in dozens of films over the years, many of which are classics. Here is but a small sampling of films that have used it in the past 40 years or so: Picnic at Hanging Rock, Alien, Sophie's Choice, The Bride, Hope & Glory, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, GI Jane, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, Milk, and April and the Extraordinary World.
1896 Oscar nominated director Walter Lang (The King and I, 1956) is born
1897 Jack Haley is born. Enters screen immortality when he gets the part of the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz when Buddy Ebsen has a terrible allergic reaction to the makeup...
1902 Maybe 30s movie queen Norma Shearer was born on this day. Maybe not.
1916 Screenwriter George Zuckerman is born. Strangely he quits screenwriting right after his two most acclaimed pictures: Written on the Wind (1956) and The Tarnished Angels (1957)
1923 Beautiful B lister of 40s and 50s Hollywood Rhonda Fleming (Out of the Past, Spellbound, Gunfight at the OK Corral) is born. She's still alive! Happy 93rd birthday Rhonda.
Carrie Fisher on "Hollywood Inbreeding"
1928 Eddie Fisher, Father o' Carrie and center of that infamous 50s scandal when he dumped Debbie Reynolds, "America's Sweetheart" for Elizabeth Taylor. Carrie diagrammed this scandal for fans and its aftermath in the Hollywood Inbreeding section of her hilarious one woman show Wishful Drinking...
1950 Sunset Boulevard premieres at Radio City Musical Hall
1952 Elusive supporting actress Diane Venora (Bird, Romeo + Juliet, Heat) is born
1959 The eldest sibling of the Arquette acting dynasty is born: Rosanna Arquette
1960 Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho premieres in Los Angeles. That same day across the ocean Antonio Banderas premieres to his parents in Málaga, Spain. We are not suggesting a connection but he does play psychos quite fetchingly (Law of Desire, The Skin I Live In)
1962 Spider-Man debuts in comic book, in issue #15 of "Amazing Fantasy" to be exact. Films featuring Spider-Man have grossed just shy of 2 billion dollars in the US alone.
1968 Australian director Cate Shortland (Lore, Somersault) is born
1971 Justin Theroux is born in Washington, DC of all places. He's too pretty for politics so showbiz it is.
1982 Vincent Rodriguez III, who is breaking stupid boundaries that keep Asian men from romantic leading roles via Crazy Ex Girlfiend, is born in San Francisco
1984 Red Dawn, capitalizing on Cold War Russophobia, hits movie theaters
1989 Brendan Thwaites -- who we like to think of as the male equivalent of Allison Lohman because he appears to be a different age in every movie he makes -- is born in Australia
1990 Flatliners debuts in theaters starring then-dating Julia Roberts & Kiefer Sutherland (their romance would implode in spectacular fashion ten months later, three days before their scheduled wedding). Hollywood is currently remaking this movie -they've run out of 80s titles to remake so they're now hard at work shuffling through the 90s archives
1992 Ko Ah-Sung is born in Seoul South Korea. Goes on to star in popular Park Chan Wook movies The Host (for which she is nominated for multiple acting awards) and Snowpiercer.
2001 The Others premieres in movie theaters - we were just talking about it
2002 Nicolas Cage marries Lisa Marie Presley in Hawaii, files for divorce four months later. Presley must have the strangest marital history of all: Michael Jackson AND Nicolas Cage?
2007 Stardust opens in movie theaters in which Catwoman terrorizes Carrie Mathison and Daredevil.
2012 Jeremy Renner attempts to lead the Bourne franchise after Damon's departure with The Bourne Legacy; it doesn't take.
2018 Universal has held this date, presumably for some unnamed franchise sequel. Franchises will kill us all! Release dates should not come before screenplays. Period.