6 random things that happed on this day, February 16th, in showbiz history
1938 Screwball classic Bringing Up Baby premieres in San Francisco with a release following two days later. It's one of the best films of 1938 or maybe even the best... but it was not appreciated in its day.
1957 The Seventh Seal premieres in Sweden and becomes the first of four consecutive Swedish Oscar submissions from Ingmar Bergman. Unfortunatly Oscar ignores it...
The Magicians followed in 1958 but was also not nominated. Both films arrive in the US theaters a year after their Oscar submissions and American audiences begin to catch on to Bergman's gift, setting up two consecutive foreign film wins at the Oscars with the next two Swedish Bergman submissions The Virgin Spring and Through a Glass Darkly.
1962 Chris Marker's influential time travelling sci-fi short La Jetée (which later influences multiple films and music videos but most famously Terry Gilliams 12 Monkeys) premieres in France.
2007 Ghost Rider hits movie theaters. This is before Marvel Studios regains the rights to almost all of their characters so how long until they remake this?
2014 The 67th annual BAFTAs are held with 12 Years a Slave winning Best Film and Best Actor (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Gravity winning Best British Film. The two films will later dominate the Oscars as well.
2018 Black Panther starring Chadwick Boseman as T'Challa the King of Wakanda, opens in movie theaters earning massive box office returns and 11 months later becomes the first superhero movie to ever be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar.
Today's Birthday Suit
Happy Vera-Ellen Centennial. The dancer/actress was born 100 years ago today in Norwood Ohio and would achieve fame at 24 opposite Danny Kaye in Wonder Man (1945) and later dance with both Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly in movie musicals though her most-enduring film, White Christmas (1954), returned her to Danny Kaye's arms.
James Baskett receving his OscarOther showbiz birthdays today: Elizabeth Olsen (Martha Marcy May Marlene, WandaVision), Oscar winning director John Schlesinger (Midnight Cowboy, Darling, Marathon Man), Oscar winner Mahershala Ali (Green Book, Moonlight), Christopher Eccleston (The Others, The Leftovers), LeVar Burton (Roots, Star Trek), Ice-T (New Jack City, Law & Order: SVU), Hazelle Goodman (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Hannibal), Japan's Ken Takakura (Black Rain, Railroad Man), William Katt (The Greatest American Hero, Carrie), Oscar nomineee Chester Morris (Alibi, The Divorcée), South Korea's Kim Soo-Hyun (Dream High, My Love From Another Star) Sarah Clarke (Bosch, Twilight), Faran Tahir (Iron Man, 12 Monkeys), Carlos Rivas (The King & I, Topaz), model/actress Agyness Deyn (Sunset Song, Her Smell) Eric Ladin (American Sniper, Bosch), Hunt Block (Knots Landing, Salt), Erana James (The Wilds, Playing for Keeps), Broadway actor John Tartaglia (Avenue Q, Happytime Murders), tennis legend John McEnroe, and music stars Sonny Bono and The Weeknd, and Honorary Oscar winner James Baskett (Song of the South)... yes, it's true. Both Disney and the Oscars pretend this didn't happen but he was given an Honorary Oscar for playing Uncle Remus in this animation/live-action hybrid).