Showbiz History: Sandra Oh, Operation Valkyrie, and yet more Batman?
Friday, July 20, 2018 at 8:00AM Since the right now is so depressing let us look back into showbiz history for (mostly) easier things to think about then the here and now.
wee Natalie Wood with cat
11 random things that happened on this day (July 20th) in relation to showbiz history...
1930 Sally Ann Howes born in London. She starred as "Truly Scrumptious" in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. She's one of the 200 oldest living screen stars. Happy 88th, Scrumptious!
1938 Natasha Gurdin born in San Francisco to immigrant parents. Five years later she makes her screen debut as "Natalie Wood" and becomes one of the rare child stars whose fame only grows as she ages...
1944 Operation Valkyrie, an assassination plot against Hitler, fails when a bomb doesn't detonate. This is dramatized in both the German film Operation Valkyrie (2004) starring Sebastian Koch and the Hollywood film Valkyrie (2008) starring Tom Cruise and Carice Van Houten. In a funny coincidences Sebastian Koch and Carice Van Houten were dating at the time of the second film, so Koch attended the premieres of a movie based on the same story of a film he'd already starred in!
Anyone isn't it depressing that every Nazi story is relevant again? (sigh).
1963 "Surf City" by Jan & Dean hits #1 on the music charts. The famous opening line "Two girls for every boy 🎵..." was gifted to them by Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys.
1965 Bob Dylan's album "Like a Rolling Stone" released.
1969 Neil Armstrong becomes the first man to walk on the moon. This will be dramatized this fall in the film First Man, with Ryan Gosling as Armstrong. The film will open the Venice Film Festival before its October release and presumed Oscar run.
;)
1971 Sandra Oh born in Ontario. Becomes one of Hollywood's all time most successful Asian actresses. She just recently made history as the first Asian actress to be nominated as Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series at the Emmys (Killing Eve).
1973 Bruce Lee dies at the age of 32, having made only 5 films. That was enough to make him an icon and legend. There are statues of the martial arts superstar in both Los Angeles and Hong Kong. His life has inspired many films including biopics of him (Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, and the TV series The Legend of Bruce Lee) as well as films about his mentor Ip Man (the Ip Man series and Wong Kar Wai's The Grandmaster). Lee's only son Brandon Lee would also die tragically young at just 28 on the set of The Crow (1994).
1990 According to the movie Suicide Squad, this is Harley Quinn's (Margot Robbie) birthday. Happy 28th, Harley! Weren't you supposed to be getting your own movie?
2007 Hairspray, based on the Tony-winning musical which was based on the 1988 John Waters comedy, returns to the screen. Becomes a big hit. John Travolta inherits the role previously played by drag legends Divine and Harvey Fierstein and gets a Golden Globe Best Supporting Actor nomination for his trouble. The entire Globe lineup in that category transfers over to Oscar EXCEPT for him. He is replaced by Hal Holbrook's small but devastasting performance in Into the Wild.
2012 The Dark Knight Rises, the final film in Christopher Nolan's celebrated Batman trilogy hits movie theaters. Though it's an instant smash hit nobody likes it as much as the other two, and it receives zero Oscar nominations, quite a comedown from The Dark Knight's Oscar run!
Which of these events will you be thinking of as you go about your day?
Reader Comments (4)
Oh, Harley Quinn will be in another movie, all right. That Hot Topic merchandise ain't gonna sell itself.
Thanks for mentioning the moon landing. It is progressively becoming a footnote in history textbooks, but I lived through the era depicted and clearly remember a stunned world looking on as NASA did what some scientists claimed was impossible only decades before. I mark this date every year as the point when, to paraphrase Robert Heinlein, the human race escaped a death sentence and can now continue as long as the universe does.
RIP Bertram Copper
Harley Quinn as a Cancer? I buy it.