8 random things that happened on this day, February 25th, in showbiz history...
1950 Your Show of Shows premieres on NBC. The live variety show starring Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca, was a stepping stone for legendary comedy writers like Mel Brooks and Neil Simon. The show helped create the variety genre and inspired both the TV classic The Dick Van Dyke Show and the movie My Favorite Year.
1956 Poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes meet at a party. Their doomed romance is dramatized in the 2003 film Sylvia starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Daniel Craig...
1964 American icons Malcolm X, Cassius Clay (soon to change his name to Muhammad Ali), Sam Cooke, and Jim Brown are all in Miami for Clay's fight with Sonny Liston which will bring him the World Heavyweight Champion title. This much is historical fact. One Night in Miami..., based on the stage play of the same name, imagines what the men discussed and how they spent their night. How many Oscar nods do you think the Amazon film will receive next month?
2001 The BAFTAs are held with Gladiator winning Best Picture and Ang Lee best director for Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. At the Oscars later the Pic/Director will also split but Director will go to Steven Soderbergh for Traffic. Awards bodies REALLY don't want to give Ridley Scott a Best Director prize despite a stellar career, do they? We're glad he lost for Gladiator but on the other hand that career definitely warrants an Oscar. He's 83. Where is his Honorary Oscar? Blade Runner, Thelma & Louise, Alien, Black Hawk Down, The Martian, Gladiator, etc... he's more than earned it.
2004 Mel Gibson's gorey subtitled The Passion of the Christ opens in movie theaters becoming an unlikely mega-blockbuster earning $370 million in US release alone and another $241 million abroad.
2007 The 79th Oscars are held with The Departed winning, finally delivering Martin Scorsese the Oscar he had so long craved. This was the big takeaway for the night since the acting awards were dull across the board. The 2006 Oscar year also produces an interesting bit of trivia: Dreamgirls is the only film to ever lead the nominations in its year (it had 8 nominations) that was not a Best Picture nominee. (The all time record holder for nominations without a Best Picture citation is 1969's They Shoot Horses Don't They with 9 nominations but it was not the nomination leader in its year since Anne of The Thousand Days had 10 nominations.) Dreamgirls would not have been able to produce 8 nominations today since they have since changed the Best Original Song rules and you can now only receive two nominations from any one film in the category.
2011 The 36th César Awards are held in Paris with the monk drama Of Gods and Men (France's 2010 Oscar submission) taking Best Film. Overall Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer took the most Césars with 4 wins. Venezuela's Edgar Ramirez, who speaks five languages and has since become an international star, won "Most Promising Actor" for the French/German production Carlos. Jodie Foster, who speaks fluent French, chaired the ceremony.
2018 The 68th Berlinale concludes with the Golden Bear going to closing night experimental film Touch Me Not. Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs had opened the festival and received the Best Director prize.
Today's Birthday Suit
Happy 84th birthday to two time Oscar nominee Sir Tom Courtenay (Doctor Zhivago, The Dresser) pictured here in one of his most famous roles, his BAFTA nominated turn in Billy Liar (1963).
He recently received some awards attention for his co-lead role in 45 Years (2015) which netted him EFA and BIFA nominations and a Silver Bear at Berlinale. Is it too much to ask for one more juicy leading role before he hits 90?
Bollywood's Shahid KapoorOther showbiz birthdays: Bollywood's Shahid Kapoor (Ishk Vishk, Badmaash Company) pictured left, Oscar winning writer/director Neil Jordan (The Crying Game, The End of the Affair), Rashida Jones (Parks and Recreation, On the Rocks), Alexis Denisof (Angel, Guardians of the Galaxy), Téa Leoni (Hollywood Ending, Madam Secretary), Sean Astin (Lord of the Rings, The Goonies), Anson Mount (Crossroads, Star Trek Discovery), Diane Baker (Marnie, Silence of the Lambs), Jameel Jamil (The Good Place, How to Build a Girl), Douglas Hodge (Joker, The Great), Isabelle Furhman (Orphan, The Hunger Games), Jennifer Ferrin (The Knick, Hell on Wheels), Mark Moses (Platoon, Mad Men), Manuel Garcia-Rulfo (Widows, Sicario 2), twin brothers James and Oliver Phelps (Harry Potter franchise), Kollywood's Dhanush (Aadukalam, Virumandi), Christian Anholt (Flyboys, Hamlet), Oscar winning set decorator Roger Christian (Star Wars, Alien), Sweden's Amed Bozan (Caliphate), the best kid actor in the business right now Noah Jupe (Honey Boy, A Quiet Place, Wonder), and former talk show host Sally Jesse Raphael.
And late greats like Jim Backus (Gilligan's Island, Rebel Without a Cause), Gert Fröbe (Goldfinger, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang), Zeppo Marx (Duck Soup), and The Beatle's George Harrison.