Today's 5: "She's got Bette Davis eyes... 🎵 "
Tuesday, May 16, 2017 at 8:00AM Five mood-boosting showbiz anniversaries for today, and if it's a special day for you have a great one. Take these suggestions and let us know if they helped.
MAY 16th History
2003 The fabulous and seriously undervalued Down with Love opened in theaters...
In its honor today: Make an entrance your friends will remember!
1981 Kim Carnes "Bette Davis Eyes" hits #1. It spends 9 weeks at the top of the singles chart and ends the year as 1981's single biggest hit just edging out the Oscar nominated we've previously written about "Endless Love" by Diana Ross and Lionel Richie.
In its honor: Sing along. You know the words.
Melanie Lynskey photographed by Taylor Jewell in January 2017
1977 Actress Melanie Lynskey born in New Zealand.
In her honor: Watch I Don't What to Live In This World Anymore on Netflix. Or reread her old guest blog posts here at TFE
1946 Annie Get Your Gun about the romance of sharpshooters Annie Oakley and Frank E Butler starring Ethel Merman premieres on Broadway. The show is massive success, gets movie and TV adaptations, and is still revived to this day. Judy Garland slated for the 1950 film version was fired and replaced by Betty Hutton but it's had several adaptations and revivals over the years across mediums. Bernadette Peters won a Tony for the hit 1999 revival . Classic songs include "There's No Business Like Show Business," "They Say It's Wonderful," and "Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better)"... But the Tony Awards don't start until the following year so no Tonys.
In its honor: Do what comes natur'lly 🎵
1929 The first Academy Awards are held. World War I aviator drama Wings wins the first Best Picture prize. The lead Oscars go to 40something Emil Jannings and 20something Janet Gaynor and the typical age range for both categories is prophesied right then and there! Worth noting: The lead acting categories then included multiple films so Jannings won for two roles that year (The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh) and Gaynor won for three (Street Angel, Sunrise, and Seventh Heaven). This is, in some ways, maybe a more honest way to do it because we all know that acting wins tend to be about not just that performance, but everything else that went on in that calendar year, especially if the actor is having "a moment" in their career.
In its honor today: Start something people will still be talking about years from now.
OTHER BIRTHDAYS
Actors Margaret O Sullivan, Brian F O'Byrne, Megan Fox, Danny Trejo, Debra Winger, Jesper Christensen, Pierce Brosnan, Henry Fonda, Batgirl Yvonne Craig, Musicians Liberace, Janet Jackson, Production Designer Deborah Riley (Game of Thrones), and director Kenzi Mizoguchi (Ugetsu) all share May 16th as birthday.
OTHER ANNIVERSARIES
Top Gun (1986), The Fault in Our Stars, and How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014) opened on this day in theaters.
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THAT "DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY" MOVIE?
HH Holmes "America's first serial killer" was born on this day in 1861 New Hamsphire. Leonardo DiCaprio was supposed to play him in a Martin Scorsese adaptation of the best seller Devil in the White City. But it's not listed on either of their IMDb profiles anymore and other projects seem to have replaced it (or been moved up).
I'm hoping against all hope that if someone wants to make it they'll realize that a miniseries is the only way to go. Hell, you could get a whole network TV season 22 hours out of the dozens and dozens and dozens of characters and events jammed into that novel which is about much much more than the now tired genre of "serial killer movie".
Reader Comments (12)
Not only the age gap in acting categories on the first Oscars, but Best Picture went to a war movie.
Devil in the White City is so good! I was actually excited about the DiCaprio/Scorsese adaptation, but very often, book rights get sold and then get lost in development hell.
Yay, Down with Love!
Lovely photo of Melanie! Happy Birthday! And a recent B&W photo I saw today of Pierce Brosnan was sublime; he's looking fine at 64.
Is that Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles list reliable? Apparently Madonna's "Justify My Love" was the number one single back in 1991. Can you believe it?
The 1st Tony was awarded in Apr 1947 n Annie Get Your Gun shld ve qualified since it opened in 1946. Juz tt they did not have proper categories for Musical shows then.
Ethel Merman wld hav won best musical leading actress if it was awarded then
Down with Love was the first time I *truly* noticed Sarah Paulson, it holds a dear place in my heart for that. Also, those costumes!! <3
And Renee Zellweger is brilliant in it, one her best romcom performances, on par with her first Bridget Jones.
Bette Davis Eyes is one of those tunes that crawls inside the brain and takes over, I love listening to it on repeat! I usually listen to the Gwyneth Paltrow cover from Duets, which I like much better than the original, tbh.
Melanie Lynskey is such a reliable actress, I don't think I've ever seen a bad performance from her. No matter how small.the role, she's always serving her movie/director/actor partner. I remember watching Perks of Being a Wallflower. She's got what would be a glorified cameo with a lesser performer, but she manages to bring vulnerability and humanity to her portrayal to such a degree that when the big reveal about her character comes later on in the movie, it is that much more potent. I also recently rewatched Heavenly Creatures and both she and Winslet give such powerhouse turns. It is weird to think how one career took off into superstardom while the other evolved into more of a respectable character actress type of deal. I am happy she is successful and works regularly, but sometimes I wish she'd be rewarded with another plum role and really slay it on the big screen. Her gifts warrant so much more than she's usually given.
My fave thing about the first Oscar is the urban legend that Rintintin won the Best Actor ballot in 1929 and they awarded Jannings to save face, and that the real reason they don't reveal the vote totals is to conceal these results.
I've never seen any of Janet Gaynor's Oscar winning performances, but I enjoyed her so much in the first A Star is Born that knowing she was an Oscar winner always made me a bit happy.
Whenever I think of Lynskey I think of her supporting role in Away We Go - so deep and soulful in a small part. It really put her on my radar ever since then.
"Devil in the White City" isn't a novel, it's a popular history, brilliantly recounted.
Seriously undervalued, no kidding. I loved the movie when it came out and I've never even been able to find a widescreen version of the DVD for purchase. I need to check again, because the wide screen format was part of the fun. I loved all the costumes and set design as well as the great leading performances.
Carmen, you need to watch Sunrise some day. It''s really the co-winner for Best Picture in my opinion.
Ah, Down With Love. ❤️ This was Renée's last hurrah B.C.M.: before Cold Mountain. It all went woefully downhill and terribly mannered since then. (But damn, was that a fine cast Peyton Reed assembled!)
If you like Bette Davis Eyes, you need to check out Gwyneth Paltrow's cover from the movie, Duets. It's so-o-o good and also doubles well with the Paltrow/Huey Lewis duet to Cruising.
Happy Birthday, M.L.!
"Down With Love" is a lot of fun - but I don't think mainstream movie audiences did not get all the cinematic jokes
"Down With Love" is a lot of fun - but I don't think mainstream movie audiences did not get all the cinematic jokes
I want to love Down with Love soooo badly. It has all the elements of the things I adore but I find it so dreadful. LOOK AT HOW IRONIC WE'RE BEING, GET THE JOKE? WINK WINK WINK all in capital letters. They could have made a sly comedy all in that Pillow Talk vein/look and still been reverent and witty without having to be so wink wink judge judge about it all. You can tell a timely, smart joke without having to tell the audience how funny/ironic the joke is.