The Golden Globe nominations nominations are announced today so there's no time to gaze fondly back. And yet we're so OCD about doing this. Here are 5 things that happened on this day, February 3rd, in showbiz history...
1945 Walt Disney's The Three Caballeros opens in theaters
1959 A plane crash kills three popular musicians Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and "the Big Bopper" J.P. Richardson. This tragedy became known as "the day the music died" due to the classic song "American Pie" by Don McLean...
1960 Federico Fellini's gigantic in length and eventual cineaste stature La Dolce Vita world-premiered in Rome on this day. It would open in the US a year later and pick up four Oscar nominations, including Best Director, and win for Best Costume Design... presumably for Anita Ekberg's black dress in the fountain.
1971 Doctors Wives, a drama about unhappy marriages with an incredibly stacked cast: Gene Hackman, Dyan Cannon, Carroll O'Connor, Richard Crenna, Diana Sands, Rachel Roberts, and Ralph Bellamy arrived 50 years ago today. Mama Cass sang the theme song. Have any of you seen it?
1996 The 21st annual César Awards in France happened 25 years ago on this day. 90s youth classic La Haine (1995) won Best Picture and made stars out of its cast membres but who are still movie regulars today like Mathieu Kassovitz (behind the camera) though he would soon co-star in Amélie, Benoit Magimel, Hubert Koundé, and of course its leading man Vincent Cassel. It was also the screen debut of Saîd Taghmaoui (Three Kings, Wonder Woman, American Hustle). Koundé, Cassel, and Taghmaoui were all César nominated as "Most Promising Actor".
Today's Birthday Suit
<-- Happy 51st birthday today to Warwick Davis, who first came to fame playing "Wicket" the Ewok in Return of the Jedi (1983) and parlayed that moment into a longterm career. Which isn't easy to do, if your face wasn't seen for your big breakout role. Especially, one presumes, if you're 3' 6". Davis, who has popped up in numerous franchises over the years - most recently in The Rise of Skywalker and Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, will next be seen reprising his most famous role in the Disney+ series based on the fantasy hit Willow (1988). He'll be playing the sorcerer again but the series will otherwise have new characters.
Other showbiz birthdays today: Broadway icon Nathan Lane (The Producers, The Birdcage), Japans Eihi Shiina (frightening star of Audition), Blythe Danner (I'll See You In My Dreams, Meet the Parents), Iran's Shahab Hosseini (A Separation, The Salesman), Warwick Davis (Willow, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows), Maura Tierney (The Affair, ER), Bridget Regan (Paradise Lost, Jane the Virgin), Morgan Fairchild (The Seduction, Friends), Denmark's Søren Malling (A Hijacking, A Royal Affair), MCU director Anthony Russo (Captain America Winter Soldier), Terry Chen (The Expanse, Jesssica Jones), director Michael Cimino (The Deer Hunter), Peggy Ann Garner (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn), Oscar nominee Victor Buono (What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?), Director Carl Theodor Dreyer (Ordet, The Passion of Joan of Arc) Tallulah Willis daughter of Bruce & Demi, Amal Clooney wife of George, Mary Carlisle (The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi, Dead Men Walk), Broadway's Ann Harada (Avenue Q), writer Paul Auster (The Music of Chance, Smoke), and two directors of interest to LGBT audiences -- Italy's Ferzan Ozpetek (Facing Windows, His Secret Life), and underground film legend Kenneth Anger (Fireworks, Scorpio Rising).