7 random things that happened on this day, January 18th, in showbiz history
1942 Dates on this one tend to vary but some sources say the Mickey Rooney/ Judy Garland film Babes on Broadway arrived in movie theaters on this day. A year later it would be up for Best Original Song at the Oscars for "How About You?" but lose to "White Christmas" in the film Holiday Inn...
1962 Shirley Maclaine gets problematic in My Geisha, as an actress trying to land a role in a film version of "Madame Butterfly" by disguising herself as a geisha, in this comedy. It received an Oscar nomination for Best Costume Design.
1983 John Sayles' lesbian drama Lianna opens in NYC movie theaters.
the arrival of three major film artists: Joel & Ethan Coen and Frances McDormand
1985 After a nearly year long festival run the Coen Brothers debut Blood Simple opens in US theaters, marking the big screen debut of its leading lady Frances McDormand who had married one of the brothers, Joel Coen, just a week after the movie's world premiere. It quickly becomes a cult / cinephile favourite and their next film (Raising Arizona) finds mainstream success.
1992 The 49th annual Golden Globes are held honoring the films and television of 1991. Bugsy and Beauty and the Beast (back when animated films could compete in Comedy/Musical) win the top film prizes. Silence of the Lambs only wins Best Actress but it would later dominate at the Oscars.
1998 The 55th annual Golden Globes are held honoring the films and television of 1997. Titanic and As Good As It Gets win the film prizes while The X-Files and Ally McBeal conquer the television prizes. Michelle Pfeiffer presented Best Picture! If only the Oscars would give her, or hell any female star of her calibre, that honor.
2008 An interestingly varied weekend at the box office as Woody Allen's obscure even before it opened Cassandra's Dream, the romantic comedy 27 Dresses, the heavily promoted monster movie Cloverfield, and the horror comedy Teeth all arrive in movie theaters.
Today's Birthday Suit
Cary Grant was born on this day in 1904. Here he is in 1932 with his "roommate" and fellow film star Randolph Scott. They lived together, on and off, for over a decade.
Bonus Birthday Suit
It seems crazy that in just a 20 year spread of time from the early 00s through 2021 movies went from getting curious about non-simulated sex scenes -- see birthday boy Mark Rylance in Intimacy in 2001 with Kerry Fox, both terrific in the extremely graphic drama -- to having almost no sex scenes at all! At the time of Intimacy Rylance was only dabbling in screen acting. He didn't really go full Hollywood until the 2010s and an Oscar shortly followed with Bridge of Spies.
Other showbiz birthdays today: Kevin Costner (Dances with Wolves, No Way Out), Dave Bautista (Blade Runner 2049), Japan's Takeshi Kitano (Zatôichi, Kikujiro), Jason Segel (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, The Muppets), Jesse L Martin (Rent, The Flash), Oliver Hardy (of Laurel and Hardy fame), Director John Boorman (Hope and Glory, Excalibur) writer/director David Ayer (End of Watch, Bright), actress/singer Joanna Newsom (Inherent Vice, Popstar), Jane Horrocks (Little Voice, The Witches), South Korea's Jung Yu-mi (Train to Busan, Oki's Movie), Taiwan's Jay Chou (Curse of the Golden Flower, The Green Hornet), Australia's Sean Keenan (Glitch, Drift), Spain's Antonio de la Torre (The Last Circus, I'm So Excited), Germany's Antje Traue (Woman in Gold, Man of Steel), and comic movie star Danny Kaye (The Court Jester, Hans Christian Andersen).