Boo! October is here. Are you excited for this month (it's myfavorite for a variety of reasons). Since it's the spooky month (among other things) I've personally started it off with a night of insomnia after a nightmare -- ON TREND!
Here are 9 random things that happened on this day, October 1st, in showbiz history...
1962 Barbra Streisand signs her first recording contract with Columbia. Offers had started to come in after she brought down the house on Broadway in I Can Get It For You Wholesale that spring. It was a one year contract (with an option for five) giving her 5% of royalties on albums sold. Streisand has never left Columbia and her 37th studio album Walls drops a month from now. People are already meme-ing the album cover left and right since it's accidentally in keeping with the horror theme of October...
If only the poodle Precious had been available for this photoshoot.
On the same exact day that Streisand was signing her record contract, another major event: Johnny Carson hosted his very first episode of The Tonight Show where Babs would later be a regular. Sadly, no footage remains of the historic night. Which is a real shame since the guests were all big deals: Rudy Vallée, Tony Bennett, Mel Brooks, and Joan Crawford.
1968 George A Romero's brilliant and influential horror classic Night of the Living Dead premieres in Pittsburgh. (It was filmed just outside Pittsburgh). It will open in theaters elsewhere a few days later and gross over 200 times its original budget of just $114,000. Can you imagine?
1971 Walt Disney World opens for business.
1974 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, another influential horror classic, premieres in Texas. Filmed on a budget of $140,000 it will also gross over 200 times its original budget. Horror has always been a profitable genre, able to be made on the cheap and fans don't knock you for looking cheap as they do in other genres.
1982 Marvin Gaye's Midnight Love album featuring the classic "Sexual Healing" drops
1984 Happy 34th anniversary to Sigourney Weaver and her theater director husband Jim Simpson, married on this very day. It was a big year for Weaver as Ghostbusters had brought her her biggest hit at the movies yet and she was actually finishing up her Broadway run in Hurlyburly this month, too. The show would bring her her first (and to date only) Tony nomination. People always talk about how short showbiz marriages are but they rarely notice the enduring ones!
1993 A cool movie weekend 25 years ago today as The Age of Innocence, Malice, and M Butterfly all opened in theaters.
1999 Three Kings opens in movie theaters to much critical acclaim but Oscar ignores it since they hadn't yet joined the cult of David O. Russell.
2006 Dexter premieres on Showtime and has 3 or 4 impressive seasons before loooong outstaying its welcome and becoming self-destructive of its legacy. That generally happens to shows that last more than 5 seasons. This one lasted gulp 8 and it was repetitive, by design, even after just 1 season. What were they thinking?
sit on a cake today in honor of Brie Larson's birthday!Celebrity Birthdays Today
Oscar Winners: Julie Andrews, Brie Larson, and Walter Matthau
Oscar Nominees: Richard Harris, Stanley Holloway, Randy Quaid, James Whitmore
Actors: Christian Borle, Tom Bosley, Stephen Collins, Stefano Dianosi, Rupert Friend, Zach Galifianakis, Lelia Hatami, Song Il-guk, Stephen Lord, Esai Morales, Roxane Mesquida, Ryôhei Ohtani, George Peppard, Everett Sloane, Jurnee Smollet-Bell, Stella Stevens, Jay Underwood, Brian Wimmer
Other Showbiz Peeps: Director Jean-Jacques Annaud, Director Marielle Heller, Athlete Gus Kenworthy