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.