6 random things that happened on this day, February 18th, in showbiz history...
1928 Sonja Henie wins her first of three consecutive gold medals in women's figure skating (a feat that's never been equalled in women's figure skating). Hollywood comes calling in the mid 30s (back when they used to make movie stars of famous athletes -- see also Buster Crabbe, Esther Williams, and Johnny Weismuller) and she headlines several hit films, starring with One in a Million in 1936...
1952 The 4th annual Emmy Awards are held but this is essentially the first one as its the when the Emmys became a national instead of a local in Los Angeles event. The inaugural winners of Comedy and Drama Series were The Red Skelton Show and Studio One (an anthology series as all the drama nominees were at the time)
1986 An anti-smoking commercial featuring Yul Brynner airs post-humously. The actor had died four months earlier and his wife had given the American Cancer Society permission to use the interview clip.
1994 Reality Bites hits theaters. Nathaniel (that's me) was there on opening night in Salt Lake City and went back to see it three more times that winter/spring. T'was obsessed with it and still think it's Winona Ryder's best performance. Christopher recently wrote about it's gay subplot.
2011 Silly sci-fi flick I Am Number Four starring Alex Pettyfer (in that brief window where he was a fast rising star)) arrives in movie theaters.
2018 71st BAFTAs are held with Three Billboards winning both of their top categories Best Film and Best British Film of 2017. Remember that brief time that people thought it was going to win the Oscar, too? Dodged a bullet. Not that Shape of Water should have won either. Lady Bird or Get Out were the ways to go!
Today's Birthday Suit
Happy 57th today to perennial hottie / underrated actor Matt Dillon whose sole Oscar nomination came for Crash though he was even more deserving earlier on with Drugstore Cowboy. Other films include but are not limited to: Little Darlings, The Outsiders, Rumblefish, Drugstore Cowboy, Singles, In & Out, There's Something About Mary, Proxima, Factotum, To Die For, The House That Jack Built. Up next is a political satire with Sheila Vand called Land of Dreams.
Other birthdays.today: Three time Golden Globe winner Cybill Sheperd (Taxi Driver, Cybill, Moonlighting) pictured left in her debut in 1971's seminal classic The Last Picture Show, Japan's Sakura Ando (Shoplifters, 100 Yen Love), Oscar winner George Kennedy (Cool Hand Luke, Airport), Oscar nominee Adolphe Menjou (The Front Page, Paths of Glory), Oscar nominee Mary Ure (Sons and Lovers, Look Back in Anger), Oscar nominee John Travolta (Pulp Fiction, Saturday Night Fever), teen icon Molly Ringwald (16 Candles, The Breakfast Club), Jeremy Allen White (Shameless), gay comic actor Billy De Wolfe (Perils of Pauline, Dear Ruth), Bulgaria's Christo Jivkov (The Passion of the Christ, David's Birthday) writer/director John Hughes (The Breakfast Club, Uncle Buck), Rose Williams (A Quiet Passion, Curfew), Oscar winner Jack Palance (City Slickers, Sudden Fear), Greta Scacchi (The Player, Emma), Spain's Laia Costa (Victoria, Only You), Kristoffer Polaha (Wonder Woman 1984, Jurassic World: Dominion), Jacqueline Toboni (The L Word, Grimm), Sinead Cusack (V for Vendetta, Stealing Beauty), the late great Oscar-winning director Milos Forman (Amadeus, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest), France's Esther Garrel (Call Me By Your Name, The Great Pretender) yes she's Louis' sister, Logan Miller (Love Simon, Escape Room), France's Soufiane Guerrab (Lupin, Dheepan), Vietnamese actress Hiep Thi Le (Heaven and Earth, Cruel Intentions), not but two Hungarian directors that brought home Oscars for Best Foreign-Language Film Laszlo Nemes (Son of Saul) and Istvan Szabo (Mephisto), fabulous Lebanese director Nadine Labaki (Caramel, Capernaum), musician/artist Yoko Ono, Broadway star Christopher Sieber, hiphop giant Dr Dre, and Wheel of Fortune's famous letter-turner Vanna White.