Showbiz History: Sam Cooke, Jean Marais, and William Shakespeare (in love)
Friday, December 11, 2020 at 9:25AM 7 random things that happened on this day, December 11th, in showbiz history
1936 King Edward VIII abdicates the throne to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson. Many years later Madonna will make a movie about it by the name of W.E. but the royal scandal is covered and/or referenced in multiple other movies too.
1964 Singer Sam Cooke is shot and killed at a hotel where he was staying. Leslie Odom Jr plays Cooke in the Oscar-bound One Night in Miami, which is a fictional story about four real life black icons, which takes place earlier that same year...
1967 Guess Who's Coming to Dinner premieres in NYC before its opening in theaters the following day. The race relations drama starring Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, and Sidney Poitier will go on to score 10 Oscar nominations and 2 wins (Actress and Screenplay).
1980 Magnum P.I. premieres on CBS. The Hawaii set detective show will make tom Selleck a household name and run for 8 seasons. While an instant success it won't start receiving Emmy nominations until season 2.
1987 Throw Momma from the Train, Wall Street, and Empire of the Sun are the new releases in movie theaters with Momma winning the box office weekend. All three will factor into the Oscar race. The former we just discussed during the last Smackdown.
1998 Shakespeare in Love hits US theaters on just 8 screens. It will grow quickly and steadily into a blockbuster ($289 million globally) and in a very heated Oscar race, take the Best Picture crown. It *is* better than Saving Private Ryan, but ouch at that ad campaign after winning (see above). Talk about rubbing it in!
2015 It's opening night for Ron Howard's seafaring drama In the Heart of the Sea (long since forgotten and it's only been 5 years!) which is #2 at the box office and buzzy future Oscar player The Big Short on just 8 screens which will become a sizeable hit as it expands.
Today's Birthday Suit
Actor/painter/sculptor Jean Marais (Beauty and the Beast, Orpheus, Captain Blood, Donkey Skin) born on this day in 1913 in Cherbourg, France.
Jean Marais and Jean Cocteau at the beach in 1938
Jean Marais photographed by Raymond Voinquel, also in 1938
He is best remembered as the muse (on and offscreen) of the auteur/artist/playwright Jean Cocteau. If you've never seen their most famous collaboration, 1946's Beauty and the Beast, you really must. Marais long outlived his famous filmmaker lover dying at age 84 in 1998.
Other showbiz people we born on this day in history: Iconic Rita Moreno, Amour's Jean-Louis Trintigant, Composer Jon Brion (Eternal Sunshine), Fine producer and Mr Sophia Loren Carlo Ponti, Newsies Broadway actor Ben Cook who will next be seen in Spielberg's West Side Story as "Mouthpiece", Desperately Seeking Susan and Smithereens director Susan Seidelman, 'Vampira' herself Maila Nurmi to whom Elvira owes much, Oscar nominee for Marty and former Mrs Gene Kelly, Betsy Blair, and Oscar nominated Roma star Yalitza Aparicio.
Reader Comments (34)
Totally here for the Shakespeare in Love is better than Saving private Ryan content.
Your armpit fetish is alive and well.
I feel like TFE is one of the few safe places to say you prefer Shakespeare in Love to Saving Private Ryan.
Dr Ruth -- lol. i dont actually have an armpit fetish but that one is pretty fetching ;)
Arlo -- may it ever be so
I also thought Gwyneth Paltrow deserved Best Actress, an even more unpopular opinion these days.
Is SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE the best picture of 1998? No.
Is it the best Best Picture nominee of 1998? No.
Is it better than SAVING PRIVATE RYAN? Yes, absolutely.
Thank you all for saying that Shakespeare in Love IS better than Saving Private Ryan! I’m crying tears of joy! I’m no longer alone in the world!
Antonio you've never been alone. I remember Charlton Heston commenting at the time that while SPR was excellent, a movie as good as SIL comes around once a decade or so. I remember being so excited when it won Best Picture. A great moment.
Shakespeare in love is a good movie, almost at the same level of Saving private Ryan (for me),
but Paltrow Oscar is just one of the worst choices ever.
Fernanda Montenegro or Cate Blanchett deserved the award.
How did the Academy forget to nominate The Truman Show for best picture?
That word “former” again...now, Betsy Blair was in fact the “former Mrs. Gene Kelly,” not only because they divorced but also because she later remarried, but Carlo Ponti did not become the “former Mr. Sophia Loren”: they were married until his death (and she never remarried).
When I think about Shakespeare in Love I can't disassociate It from Harvey Weinstein.
Shakespeare in Love beating Saving Private Ryan for Best Picture is the pinnacle and calling card of the powers of the producer. I wonder what it would be like if #metoo hadn't grabbed the then powerful Harvey Weinstein by his balls. Certainly the face of the Oscar winners would be quite different from what we have today. How diferent, who knows?
When I think about Shakespeare in Love I can't disassociate It from Harvey Weinstein.
Shakespeare in Love beating Saving Private Ryan for Best Picture is the pinnacle and calling card of the powers of the producer. I wonder what it would be like if #metoo hadn't grabbed the then powerful Harvey Weinstein by his balls. Certainly the face of the Oscar winners would be quite different from what we have today. How diferent, who knows?
Agree that Shakespear in Love was better than Saving Private Ryan.
"Guess Who's Coming To Dinner" is classic, still resonates today. The look on Katharine Hepburn's face when she first meets her daughter's (Katharine Houghton) fiancé Sidney Poitier is startling - she looks like she's seeing an alien! "Beauty and the Beast" (1946) is a must-see, enchanting in shimmering black and white, leads are great. I can not forget Yalitza Aparicio's heartbreaking scene in a hospital in "Roma." Vampira (Maila Nurmi) was a kick. I loved (sorry) "Shakespeare in Love" and deserved all its awards - Gwyneth Paltrow also magnificent, that ad campaign after winning is amusing and spot-on.
Both Shakespeare in Love and Saving Private Ryan are good movies-very, very different films in completely opposing genres. I got more out of SPR than Shakespeare but enjoyed them both.
Marais is gorgeous once revealed in Beauty & the Beast, a fantastic film.
Love Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, and I know it's the favorite of a lot of people.
Shakespeare in Love would be perfect, a real masterpiece with another actress, someone like Kate Winslet, for example, or even Keira Knightley. Gwyneth Paltrow is the low point of the movie in my opinion.
You should have made a post about Glenn Close being extremely bitchy saying she doesn't understand how Paltrow could have won Best Actress! I don't remember an actor being so frontsl about his or her distate for an Oscar win.
(Trintignant's 90th birthday deserves its own post. One of the best filmographies ever, from Violent Summer to Amour)
I completely agree with Glenn!
She said that Fernanda Montenegro should have won the Oscar for Central Station and she was right!
And Meryl said ,a few years ago , that she voted for Fernanda.
Great American actresses honoring a great brasilian actress !
In all seriousness, this is the first time I have heard this sentiment expressed.
I remember when I knew Shakespeare in Love would win. Friends of mine who never had an interest in that type of film were quoting it.This was a real battle of films that had a big effect on audiences.
Fuck Shakespeare in Love. The only reason that movie and Gwyneth Paltrow won was because of Harvey Weinstein. Fuck that shit. It's tainted forever.
Plus, it wasn't the best film that year. That belongs to The Thin Red Line but of course you morons don't know shit about films. And Glenn Close had every right to bitch over Paltrow.
Shakespeare in Love is ABSOLUTELY better than Saving Private Ryan, been saying this for years.
thevoid -- have you ever considered anger management courses... or therapy?
Marshako -- it's nice when that happens actually.
Rafaello -- well Weinstein's power over the Oscars was already waning before his crimes caught up to him but i take your point.
Who knew the series you were going to scrap would contain your best work all year?! Love it.
"You should have made a post about Glenn Close being extremely bitchy saying she doesn't understand how Paltrow could have won Best Actress! I don't remember an actor being so frontsl about his or her distate for an Oscar win."
I watched that whole interview between Glenn and Peter Travers. The context of that highly tweeted clip where Glenn seems to be shading Gwyneth was actually because Glenn was saying how could one judge individual performances and went on to say that the year Gwyneth won, there was also that "incredible actress from Central Station". She said it didn't make sense (to compare performances) and that was the excerpt that went viral on Twitter. It's as though she is bitter of Gwyneth's win when in fact she'd just wondering how can performances of actresses (Gwyneth, Fernanda, etc) be judged objectively.
FWIW, I thought Fernanda Montenegro should have won hands down that year. One film critic from Time Magazine said Montenegro gives "the best performance this year, man, woman or child". Totally agree.
Gwyneth's best performance for me is and will always be in "Flesh and Bone".
Another birthday note: Actress Donna Mills turns 80!
Working stiff, I'm serious too. I've heard from a lot of people that this is their favorite movie. It's a type of comedy / film no longer made today. And that The Academy has always loved / loves.
I heard that at first they wanted Cary Grant in the role played by Spencer Tracy(they wanted to bring together the beloved classic comedy duo from the 1930s), but producer / director Stanley Kramer chose Tracy because he had previously worked with him.
And I really really love It. I swear. 🙏
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner is the (great?) grandmother of The Blindside, The Help and Green Book. New century, same make-white-people-feel-good fantasies about "race relations" (LOL). Yuck.
@ Feline Justice
Don't say I never gave you anything:
Distant Relatives: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and The Kids Are All Right
P.S. Katharine Hepburn's "Guess Who" Oscar
A Year with Kate: Guess Who's Coming To Dinner (1967)
(All articles from TFE)
PS. The thought of Cary Grant in the Spencer Tracy role is mind-boggling. He might have been nominated for his third Oscar and finally won...
Thank you, Working stiff. Now you can say tou gave me something. 😉
Wow, never post right before bed. (But you know what I meant to say...)
That Shakespeare in Love ad isn’t a dig at saving private Ryan. It ran the weekend that The Phantom Menace came out and dominated the box office. (Back when the oscars were end of March and winners played for months after) That’s the “war” reference.
The Truman Show was the Best Picture of 1998.
I’m a Spielberg’s fan so I understood very well why he was so pissed when Harvey’s massive campaign succeeded but it’s true that SIL is a lovely picture you easily could be conquered by. As long as I adore Close and I dream of a Mawmaw triumph (I’m afraid it’s going to be just a dream...) I have no problems with Paltrow’s Oscar win...even if Blanchett’s or Montenegro’s supporters had different ideas about it