Showbiz History: Carole Lombard, Donny & Marie, Marwen Kenzari
Saturday, January 16, 2021 at 11:50AM
6 random things that happened on this day in showbiz history...
1942 Movie star Carole Lombard, then married to the "King of Hollywood" Clark Gable, tragically dies in a plane crash on the way home from a war bond rally. She was just 33 but thankfully left behind stone cold comedy classics like Nothing Sacred, My Man Godfrey, and her last film, released posthumously, To Be Or Not To Be...
1973 The final episode of western series Bonanza airs. At 14 seasons it was (back then) the 5th longest running live-action primetime series of all time. But the 1990s and the 2000s shattered all those old records with several series surpassing the likes of Bonanza: E.R., Grey's Anatomy, Law & Order, CSI, NCIS, Criminal Minds, ER, Supernatural, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit which is the current all time record holder with 22 seasons (and counting).
1976 She's a little bit country. And he's a little bit rock an roll. Donny & Marie premieres on ABC. The Variety Show format would go out of fashion in the 1980s but it had a few decades of popularity.
2005 The 62nd annual Golden Globe Awards! The Aviator wins, temporarily holding off the rise of Million Dollar Baby at the end of awards season.
2006 63rd annual Golden Globe Awards! Brokeback Mountain wins (Crash wasn't nominated), proving that every once in a while the Globes are better than the Oscars.
Brangelina at the 68th Globes -- they got lots of camera time.
2011 68th Golden Globe Awards. The Social Network temporarily holds off the rise of The King's Speech proving that every once in a while the Globes are better than the Oscars. The other winners that night were The Kids Are All Right (yay!) for the movies and Boardwalk Empire and Glee in TV. This was also the night that Robert Downey Jr did a very long joke about wanting to sleep with all the Best Actress nominees which was funny at the time but surely wouldn't fly today.
Happy 38th birthday to Marwen Kenzari, the steadily rising Tunisian-Dutch actor. People haven't yet noticed the range but it's there. You might have already seen him as an evil sorcerer (Aladdin), a charismatic convict / sexual predator (Instinct), an immortal queer warrior (Old Guard), a kickboxer in with the wrong crowd (Wolf), a train conductor (Murder on the Orient Express) and more...
Other showbiz birthdays today: Composer/actor Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton), Director John Carpenter (Halloween, The Thing), choreographer/director/actress Debbie Allen (Fame, Ragtime) who will receive the Kennedy Center Honor this year, Argentina's Ricardo Darín (The Secret in their Eyes), Screenwriter Ruth Rose (King Kong), Director Irving Rapper (Marjorie Morningstar, One Foot in Heaven), Oscar nomine Diana Wynward (Cavalcade), Broadway legend Ethel Merman, Editor Margaret Booth, Richard T Jones (Collateral, Why Did I Get Married?), Harry Carey (Mr Smith Goes to Washington, Red River), Hunk David Chokachi (Baywatch), supermodel Kate Moss, Birgitte Hjort Sørensen (In Order of Disappearance), Oscar nominee Katy Jurado (High Noon, Broken Lance), composer Atticus Ross (of Reznor & Ross fame), singers FKA Twigs and Aaliyah, and author Susan Sontag.
Reader Comments (8)
I still find that The King's Speech is the better film out of the two (and have real trouble with any critic that can't see why). I still have TKS in my top 5 of the century...
There is also a parallel universe where Carole Lombard would have scored a long, outstanding career... a great actress gone too soon, and in such way...
Marwen Kenzar is so sexy. Haven't seen him before. I'm usually Team No Tatts, but his are ok. They're in a non-traditional place and they're words and thankfully not those horrid tribal tattoos so many circuit gays think they have to have.
Law & Over: Special Victims Unit is an early candidate for Freudian Slip of the Year.
Carole Lombard's death definitely was a great loss to film, to say nothing of what it did to Clark Gable. She really was at her peak cinematically, her next scheduled picture-They All Kissed the Bride-turned out to be a piece of fluff but at only 33 she surely could have moved right into some of those boss lady roles Rosalind Russell owned in the 40's or others tailored to her special gift for both comedy and drama.
My top 10 of her films in order:
Hands Across the Table
The Princess Comes Across
In Name Only
To Be or Not to Be
Swing High, Swing Low
My Man Godfrey
Love Before Breakfast
Bolero
Rumba
Brief Moment
She considered 1934's "The Gay Bride" her worst film and to honest it's not much but the 1937 True Confession where she plays an addle-pated nincompoop who admits to murder to help her husband's career! is far, far worse!
I used to love the variety shows, even Donnie and Marie's on occasion when they had a decent guest, but the networks killed the format by glutting the market with too many populated with marginal talents (Pink Lady & Jeff, the godawful Brady Bunch one, etc.) and burying them in glitz until they became a parody of the really great ones like the Carol Burnett, Ed Sullivan or Smothers Brothers shows that kept the spotlight firmly on talent.
Love My Man Godfrey, and love Carole Lombard in it.
A Top 10 Carole Lombard films without Twentieth Century? She should have won the Oscar for that.
Luise Rainer's win in 1936 is maybe the most undeserving of all time. The fact that Carole Lombard in My Man Godfrey was passed over for it just compounds the offense.
David Chokachi 💗💗💗💗💗
The ken s who posted on Jan 17 is not the same ken s who posted on Jan 16 (me). Looks like I'll have to change my author name.