Showbiz History: Monsters Inc, American Gangster, and Burt Lancaster
Friday, November 2, 2018 at 8:00AM 7 random things that happened on this day (November 2nd) in showbiz history
1755 Marie Antoinette is born. She'll become infamous in life and a household name all around the world after her death at 37 by guillotine. She's been played in the movies by Diane Kruger, Kirsten Dunst, Michèle Morgan, Norma Shearer, Jane Seymour, and more.
1921 Eugene O'Neill's "Anna Christie" premieres on Broadway. The classic play will become a movie 9 years later starring Greta Garbo...
1960 Penguin Books is found not guilty of obscenity in a lawsuit involving the publication of Lady Chatterley's Lover. The book has been adapted for screen at least 10 times.
2001 Monsters Inc opens in movie theaters. Annoyingly it loses the first Best Animated Feature Oscar to the far inferior Shrek. Pixar makes up for it by winning 50% of the Oscars in that category, though.
2007 American Gangster opens in movie theaters. Though it's an instant hit and a drama pitched at adults, Oscar weirdly looks the other way but for that clip-friendly slap from showbiz mainstay Ruby Dee as Denzel's mama. Dee, who was 85 at the time, became the second oldest woman ever nominated for an acting Oscar (Gloria Stuart is the all time record holder for women, nominated at age 87 for Titanic)
2009 Happy 9th anniversary to actors Ron Livingston and Rosemarie DeWitt, married on this day.
2018 New in theaters today gay conversion therapy drama Boy Erased, the Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, the Tiffany Haddish comedy Nobody's Fool, and the fantasy The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (reviewed).
For more NSFW of Burt Lancaster, click the picToday's Birthday Suit
Oscar-winner Burt Lancaster (Elmer Gantry) wasn't shy about his athletic beauty, appearing in beefcake photographs and walking around naked in The Swimmer (1968), his favorite of his own films, before male stars regularly did that. There are a lot of fake nudes of classic stars online but the Lancaster pics appear to be genuine.
More Birthdays
More Oscar Winners: Alice Brady (In Old Chicago), Editor William Goldenberg (Argo), re-recording mixer Gregg Rudloff (Mad Max Fury Road)
Oscar Nominees: Screenwriter Vincenzo Cerami (Life is Beautiful), Composer Gary Yershon (Mr Turner)
Actors: David Andrews, Gérard Barray, Randy Harrison, Brandon Soo Hoo, Peter Mullan, Shah Rukh Khan, Claire McDowell, Stefanie Powers, Ann Rutherford, David Schwimmer, Luna Lauren Velez, and Josh Wiggins
Showbiz Peeps: Personality Karama Brown, Director Patrice Chéreau, Director Jon M Chu, Cinematographer Lol Crawley, Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko, Director Tim Kirkman, Singer K.D. Lang, Playwright Lynn Nottage, and Italian master Luchino Visconti.
Reader Comments (10)
We should celebrate John Huston's fantastic Under the Volcano. The whole story happen in a November 2nd, el dia de los muertos in Mexico. I think it's an astonishing picture.
I don't care for many of Sofia Coppola's films, but Marie Antoinette is a masterpiece. One of the greatest films of the century.
It was about 10 years ahead of the curve, too. Judy Davis' deadpan is straight out of a Yorgos Lanthimos period piece. Ditto Rip Torn as a Texan Louis XV and Marianne Faithfull as Maria Teresa of Austria. The casting (and performances) are wacky and discordant but everything works.
Anyone who loved Sufjan and the Psychedellic Furs in CMBYN? There's obvious Coppola DNA in the way music was selected, foregrounded and backgrounded there.
And I haven't even mentioned the visuals. It's just exquisite on every level.
Marie Antoinette is the proof that Milena Canonero is the best costume designer of all time.
Ruby Dee's Oscar nomination for American Gangster is the one she didn't receive decades earlier for A Raisin in the Sun.
Burt Lancaster was a stone-cold fox.
I'm too lazy to investigate. Does anyone know offhand why Luna Lauren Velez, previously known professionally as simply "Lauren Velez," decided to change her name?
That Ruby Dee nom sure was odd.
Ruby Dee even won the SAG for American Gangster! It was a very exciting race that year.
@Jakey—
And thank god Cate Blanchett didn't win. Oscar kept their cool and held out for a better year for her inevitable second Oscar.
A win for I'm Not There wouldn't have aged well, I think. Plus she'd have two supporting actress Oscars, which doesn't really jive with the type of career she has.
I like Ruby Dee but I found the nomination to be odd. It should've gone to Cate Blanchett as her work as Bob Dylan is a performance for the ages. Plus, it's probably one of the best films about any artist/musician that's ever been made and no one has been able to top that. It was the anti-bio pic.
Also today in show biz history, despite the fact that it's actually news, the Color Purple stage musical is being adapted for the big screen: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/color-purple-get-movie-musical-treatment-1156951.
Amy Ryan should have won for Gone Baby Gone the year Ruby Dee was nominated.