Showbiz History: The Globes that weren't Golden, and Shelley Winter's death-bed wedding
Wednesday, January 13, 2021 at 9:00AM
5 random things that happened on this day, January 13th, in showbiz history
1939 Son of Frankenstein, the third in Universal's Frankenstein franchise and the last to star Boris Karloff, opens in theaters. It was successful but given the lack of James Whale behind the camera, not as well remembered as its predecessors
1989 It was an odd January dump on this Friday the 13th...
The sci-fi horror flick DeepStar Six, the John Travolta comedy The Experts, the Christian Slater skateboarding mystery Gleaming the Cube, and the Kevin Kline / Susan Sarandon crime comedy The January Man all opened. Does anyone remember the existence of these films. Better yet, have you seen one of them?
2006 Did you know that Shelley Winters got married on her death bed? To make this historical actress trivia even more memorable, Oscar-nominated Sally Kirkland (who had been friends with Shelley for decades) officiated the ceremony! Winters had been with her partner Gerry DeFord for nearly two decades but her daughter had objected to a marriage. Ten hours after the wedding the two-time Oscar winner passed away at the age of 85.
2008 The 65th Annual Golden Globe Awards were held. Sort of. Or rather they were not held but announced on TV like a news conference, due to the WGA strike. So it's very difficult to remember that Atonement (Drama) and Sweeney Todd (Musical or Comedy) both won that year. Oscar would feel differently a month or so later and give their Best Picture prize to No Country For Old Men.
As in so many mythic Best Actress years the Globes outcome didn't help with Oscar predictions since both frontrunners were announced as winners: Julie Christie (Away from Her) and Marion Cotillard (La Vie En Rose) won Best Actress in a Drama and Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy respectively. Nowadays that outcome wouldn't happen since they are no longer (usually) considering films about musicians to be "musicals" (see Bohemian Rhapsody and A Star is Born recently).
2013 The 70th Golden Globes Awards unspool with Argo and Les Misérables taking the Best Picture prizes for Drama and Musical respectively. The Globes and Oscars aren't usually this in sync but for the 2012 film year every single winner all the way down to Best Original Song (barring the "Musical or Comedy" specific prizes of course which Oscar doesn't have) repeated their wins at the Oscars EXCEPT Ben Affleck in Best Director since he was famously "snubbed" by the Directors branch for Argo.
Tommy Lee Jones became a very popular meme that night
This was also the night that when Jodie Foster with her sort of coming out and sort of retiring speech and Tommy Lee Jones with his grumpy face both broke the internet.
Today's Birthday Suit
Happy 56th birthday to 80s geek film star (pictured here in 1988's Some Girls) turned 00s heartthrob Patrick Dempsey (pictured here in 2016's Bridget Jones's Baby) who has aged in a way that is deeply unfair to the rest of humanity. He is now sporting silver fox hair because of course he is.
Other showbiz birthdays on this day:
Legendary dancer Gwen Verdon (Sweet Charity), Golden age goddess Kay Francis (Trouble in Paradise, Stolen Holiday), Oscar nominee Robert Stack (Written on the Wind, Airplane!), underrated MVP Michael Peña (Ant-Man, Crash), TV goddess Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Veep, Seinfeld), Japan's Masayuki Mori (Rashomon, The Bad Sleep Well), Orlando Bloom (Lord of the Rings, Carnival Row), Ruth Wilson (The Affair, His Dark Materials), Brandon P Bell (Dear White People), Liam Hemsworth (Hunger Games), comic actor Rip Taylor (Gong Show), Penelope Ann Miller (The Artist, Adventures in Babysitting), Natalia Dyer (Stranger Things), Janet Hubert (The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air), Director Euzhan Palcy (A Dry White Season), Julian Morris (Once Upon a Time, Man in An Orange Shirt), 80s kid star Keith Coogan (Adventures in Babysitting, Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead), Broadway star Frances Sternhagen (Misery, E.R.), Writer/director Alice Winocur (Disorder, Proxima), Oscar winning editor Mark Sanger (Gravity), TV titan Shonda Rhimes (Grey’s Anatomy, Bridgerton), singer/radio star Sophie Tucker, and the late gossip columnist Army Archerd.
Reader Comments (16)
The only thing I remember about that year in Golden Globes was Jon Hamn winning for the first season of Mad Men. He should have won every single trophy taken by Bryan Cranston in the following years
Son of Frankenstein is an unsung gem, and one of the greatest horror comedies of all time, with Bela "no can kill Igor" (while knocking on his neck) Lugosi stealing the show. Making it even funnier is how much of it is lifted wholesale and used in Young Frankenstein.
I'm really glad Patrick Dempsey has opted for salt-and-pepper. I'll always remember in Enchanted how distracting I found his hair. It was just so black! I kept wondering what the shoe-polish budget on the film must have been. And speaking of distracting, has anyone else seen the Rosanne episode where he plays an extra? He plays a passenger sitting behind Rosanne on a plane. I thought he might be a guest star, but he says nothing at all.
I'm here for older Dempsey rather than curly 80's haired Dempsey.
Deep Star Six is a sill Alien rip off which is on the UK's Horror channel every month.
Cotillard needs to come back to us and deserved the Oscar.
What was with TLJ that night,was this after he lost to Waltz,what a strange supporting actor year and outcome.
I have seen all those terrible films from 1989. I was managing a theatre at the time and all of them were dumped there for VERY brief runs. Deep Star Six is okay in its low budget junky sci-fi way but the others just stink.
As good as Marion is in La Vie en Rose I'll always feel Julie Christie should have won for her work in Away From Her.
I look at Patrick Dempsey now and think of how Amanda Petersen's character in Can't Buy Me Love really had the last laugh!
I don't know which thread this should be on, but it's just been announced that Patricia Campbell, the baby lesbian anarchist terrorist in Election died on December 29. No cause has been announced. She was only 38.
I saw Deep Star Six as a kid and remember a palm of a hand opened up to reveal teeth.
Enchanted 2 was announced. Will Patrick Dempsey and James Madsen be in ?🙏
@3rtful that was 1989's Leviathan,it was Hector Elizondo's open hand that revealed teeth.
I like "Son of Frankenstein", arresting sets, fine music, 3 stalwart B's as leads, Lugosi especially outstanding. Donnie Dunagan as Peter, 4 year-old son of Frankenstein, is still alive at 86. He was also the voice of "Bambi." The only film I saw from 1989 list was "Deepstar Six" and it was a letdown. I loved "Atonement." I recall Jodie Foster's rambling speech and thought she "beat around the bush." All she had to say was "I'm Gay." On another note, confetti-throwing Rip Taylor was hilarious.
"Son of Frankenstein" is the last serious Universal horror movie. It was going to be shot in Technicolor but they did not like the way the monster's make up looked in color. The weird sets are amazing- and yes the plot is lifted in "Young Frankenstein"
I haven't seen Deepstar Six but I have seen the 3 other films. The Experts... IT'S SHIT... Gleaming the Cube... I liked it. January Man... pretty good. Especially for Alan Rickman in a non-villain role.
Fuck the Golden Globes.
Deep Star Six was the C-list version.
Leviathan was the B list version.
The Abyss was the A list version.
I still haven't seen "Ma Vie en Rose" but I have no idea how Marion beat Julie Christie. Such a powerful movie.
Shelley Winters' memoirs are a fun and juicy *wink wink* read.
Deep me Dempsey, any era.
1980s Patrick Dempsey was definitely a factor in my becoming gay. :)
Patrick Dempsey is very handsome...to a point. His profile is wanting: the nose is off (awkward angle, somewhat thin, ungainly). This actually may have prevented him from big-time movie stardom, and he may know it. For one example of a perfect male nose, check google images for actor Richard Denning (Creature From the Black Lagoon, An Affair To Remember): straight, perfect symmetry, not too small/big/thick, looks great at all angles, front, 45, side, as is his entire being, this blonde, blue-eyed Beauty.
Julie Christie deserved the Oscar. A stunning performance. Coitllard was okay but IMO nothing revelatory like her later performances (I will say the most haunting scene in the movie is when she wakes up to see her husband only to wander around minutes later as she remembers he’s dead).