7 random things that happened on this day, December 30th, in history
Veidt, Lee, and Rickman as "Rasputin" in various projects
1916 Russian mystic Raputin, who had great influence with the Romanov family, is assassinated in his sleep. He's been portrayed dozens of times onscreen. Some famous actors who have played him include Conradt Veidt (Rasputin, Dämon der Frauen), Lionel Barrymore (Rasputin and the Empress), Christopher Lee (Rasputin the Mad Monk), Alan Rickman (Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny - Emmy, SAG, and Golden Globe wins for Best Actor in TV Movie or Miniseries), and the voice of Christopher Lloyd (Anastasia). The next actors to play him will be Rhys Ifans (The King's Man, 2021), and maybe Leonardo DiCaprio in a biopic though Leo doesn't even make a fifth of the projects he's attached to. He's currently attached to 45 titles (!!!) according to IMDb Pro... though most are only "optioned" or in some unknown stage of development.
Miley Cyrus, Daniel Sunjata, Kiss Me Kate, Way of the Dragon, "My Way" and more after the jump...
1932 Pre-code drama Back Street starring Irene Dunne as a mistress who must keep her love secret hits theaters. Two remakes followed, one in 1941 with Margaret Sullavan and the other in 1961 featuring Susan Hayward in Oscar-nominated "gowns by Jean-Louis".
1948 Cole Porter's most successful show "Kiss Me Kate", a meta-musical about a stage musical production of Taming of the Shrew, opens on Broadway where it runs for almost two years. A film version in 3-D, a big fad at the time, arrives in 1953. The musical had a very successful Broadway revival in 1999 which ran almost as long as the original production.
1968 Frank Sinatra records "My Way" adapted from the the French song "Comme d'habitude" with entirely unrelated lyrics by Paul Anka. It becomes one of his signature songs and a karaoke standard.
1972 Bruce Lee's Way of the Dragon opens in Hong Kong movie theaters. It takes a couple of years to make it around the world, arriving in most countries in 1974 after Lee's tragic death in 1973, but the film proves an immediate hit and eventually a blockbuster grossing over a thousand times its budget. Have you seen Be Water, the new ESPN doc on Bruce Lee? I learned so much about Bruce Lee's road to stardom.
2014 Luise Rainer dies at just a month shy of her 105th birthday. We believe she's the Oscar winner who lived the longest life. Olivia de Havilland also died when she was 104 (though she died less than a month after her birthday). The oldest living Oscar winner currently is 99 year-old producer Walter Mirisch (In the Heat of the Night) who has also received the Thalberg and the Hersholt so the Academy really loves him.
2018 Singer Miley Cyrus marries actor Liam Hemsworth. The marriage lasts 13 months.
Today's Birthday Suit
Happy 49th today to the Tony-nominated star of Take Me Out, Daniel Sunjata. He was so wonderful in that show and of course breathtakingly handsome in general. We shout him out today because we've never understood why his career didn't get bigger though he works alot on television (Rescue Me, The Stand, and more) and this is a good a time as any to say, yet again, how much we miss Broadway. The revival of the 2003 Tony winning play (which features an infamously lengthy plot-crucial scene where almost the entire cast is naked and showering together), was set to premiere on Broadway this past April (with Grey's Anatomy's Jesse Williams taking over Sunjata's showcased role of the mixed-race baseball player who comes out as gay) but Broadway shut down in March and will not reopen until.... well, the jury is still out but the next dream date is allegedly May 30th, 2021.
Other showbiz birthdays today: Eliza Dushku (Bring It On, Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Tyrese Gibson (Baby Boy), Emmy winner Tracey Ullman (The Prom, Bullets Over Broadway, Tracey Takes On...), Lucy Punch (Being Julia, How to Build a Girl), Sheryl Lee Ralph (Moesha, To Sleep With Anger), Jason Behr (Roswell, The Shipping News), Athlete LeBron James, Davey Jones from the band The Monkees, V from the band BTS, Oscar nominated director Bennett Miller (Casino, Moneyball), Oscar-winning director Carol Reed (Oliver!, The Third Man), Portugal's auteeur Pedro Costa (Vitalina Varela, Horse Money), Philippines auteur Lav Diaz (The Woman Who Left, Norte End of History), TV personality Meredith Vieira, composer/singer Patti Smith who we interviewed a handful of years ago, Comedy directing legend James Burrows (Cheers, Taxi, Frasier), Brazilian French actress Véra Clouzot (Les Diaboloques, Wages of Fear), cinematographer Marcell Rév (Euphoria, Jupiter's Moon), and Oscar nominated Russ Tamblyn (Peyton Place, West Side Story, The Haunting, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers)