5 random things that happened on this day, Sept 25th, in showbiz history
1954 Exactly six months to the day after winning Best Actress for Roman Holiday, Audrey Hepburn marries fellow actor Mel Ferrer in Switzerland. They would divorce the year after her final nomination for Best Actress in Wait Until Dark (1967), her hit film that he produced...
1979 Evita opens on Broadway, becoming an iconic hit, running for 4 years, and winning 7 Tony Awards including Best Musical, Best Actress for Patti Lupone, and Best Featured Actor for Mandy Patinkin. Every major actress with pipes (including Streep and Pfeiffer) wanted the movie role but after many false starts it finally becomes a movie in 1996 with Madonna in the lead role, winning the Golden Globe for Best Actress.
click to embiggen← 1981 Carbon Copy opens in movie theaters, a comedy about a businessman (George Segal) whose life starts falling apart when he learns he has a grown black son. That son is future legend Denzel Washington, just 27 years old, in his feature film debut.
1983 The 35th Primetime Emmy Awards are held with Cheers (debut season) and Hill Street Blues reigning in Comedy and Drama, respectively. This is also notable as the last Emmys to feature M*A*S*H (though it went home empty-handed). It had been nominated for Best Comedy Series for every one of its eleven seasons but won only once. Major luminaries that won for acting that night included four former Oscar nominees Barbara Stanwyck and Jean Simmons (both for The Thorn Birds), James Coco (St Elswhere), and Carol Kane (Taxi), future Oscar winner Tommy Lee Jones (The Executioner's Song), and Emmy darlings Tyne Daly (Cagney & Lacey, first of 6 Emmys) and Doris Roberts (St Elsewhere, first of 5 Emmys). Shelley Long also won for the first season of Cheers but would strangely never win again.
1992 Michael Mann's handsome epic The Last of the Mohicans opens in movie theaters starring the lusty gorg' pairing of Daniel Day Lewis and Madeleine Stowe. Very strangely Oscar stiffs it with just one nomination (which it wins for Sound). It fares better with BAFTA with six nominations and two wins but still no nod for Best Picture. I wish I'd been paying more attention in 1992. What was going on? Why wasn't the movie embraced during awards season? Anyone know or remember?
Today's Birthdays
If it's your birthday today, you share it with a ton of superstars.
Oscar Winners: Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones (yes, they share a birthday), Auteur Pedro Almodóvar, and Oscar's current favorite costume designer Colleen Atwood.
Oscar Nominees: Will Smith
Actors: Alix Bénézech, March Chao, Tate Donovan, Clea DuVall, Jason Flemyng, Donald Glover, Jayne Houdyshell, Mimi Kennedy, Maria Doyle Kennedy, Heather Locklear, Mark Hamill, T.I., Michael Madsen, Mikael Persbrandt, Juliet Prowse, Christopher Reeve, Hal Sparks, Aida Turturro, Zach Woods,
Other Showbiz People: Writer David Benioff (Game of Thrones), Writer William Faulkner, Director Robert Bresson (Au Hazard Balthazar), Director Sergei Bondarchuk (War and Peace), and TV Personality Barbara Walters.
Today's Birthday Suit
Happy 50th to Will Smith today
Which of these anniversaries will you be thinking of today?