8 random things that happened on this day, February 5th, in showbiz history
1919 United Artists is formed with four of the most iconic silent film powerhouses Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and Director DW Griffith joining forces...
1921 Oscar winning production designer Ken Adam is born. More on him in a second since it's his Centennial.
1936 Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times has its world premiere at the Rivoli Theater in NYC
1942 Woman of the Year with Katharine Hepburn & Spencer Tracy is released in theaters. It wins the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay the following year and Katharine Hepburn snags one of her many Best Actress nominations.
1944 Captain America, the movie serial, begins playing in movie theaters. It was the first time any Marvel superhero made it to screen. And the last until various iterations of Spider-Man popped up on TV in the 1970s.
1953 5th annual Primetime Emmy Awards are held. It was only the second year the Emmys had been a national event. I Love Lucy wins Best Comedy Series. There were only 12 categories (Hee! How times have changed). On the same day Walt Disney's Peter Pans opens in movie theaters.
1971 28th Golden Globes. Love Story (drama) and MASH (comedy) win Best Picture. Both are nominated later at the Oscars though neither wins (with Patton in the way). Did you know that Love Story is getting a new BluRay release for its 50th anniversary in a couple of days? Now you do!
2004 The 54th annual Berlin International Film Festival begins with opening night film Cold Mountain (2003) which had already been playing for two months in the US and a week earlier it has been nominated for 7 Oscars. German-Turkish director Fatih Akin's potent sexual drama Head-On will win the Golden Bear by festival's end. Head-On is when I fell hard for the great German actress Sibel Kekilli who later got more internationally famous with When We Leave (2010) and Game of Thrones (2011).
2012 Madonna performs the halftime show at the Superbowl with guest appearances from LMFAO, Nicki Minaj, MIA, and CeeLo Green.
Today's Birthday Suit
Happy 75th birthday to the iconic Charlotte Rampling, whose always had sensational style, on and offscreen.
Other showbiz birthdays today: Emmy winner and constantly losing Oscar & Tony nominee The Lovely Laura Linney (seriously, what is it going to take to Triple Crown?), Japan's Isuzu Yamada (Throne of Bloode, Yojimbo), Nora Zehetner (The Right Stuff, Brick), Emmy winner Darren Criss (American Crime Story, Glee), John Carradine (The Grapes of Wrath, Stagecoach), Oscar nominee Tom Wilkinson (In the Bedroom, Michael Clayton), Oscar nominee Jennifer Jason Leigh (Hateful Eight, Possessor), Michael Sheen (Underworld, Frost/Nixon, Masters of Sex), Thailand's Tony Jaa (Ong Bak, Triple Threat), Bollywood's Abhishek Bachchan (Happy New Year, Dhoom 3), Tony nominee Alex Brightman (Beetlejuice on Broadway), Luke Newton (Bridgerton, The Lodge), Oscar nominee Barbara Hershey (Black Swan, Portrait of a Lady), Oscar winner Red Buttons (Sayonara, The Poseidon Adventure), Director Michael Mann (The Insider, Heat), Oscar winning documentarian Erroll Morris (The Fog of War, The Thin Blue Line), Director Christopher Guest (For Your Consideration, Waiting for Guffman), Jeremy Sumpter (Peter Pan, Into the Storm), Vivian Wu (The Last Emperor, The Pillow Book) director Mia Hansen-Løve (Things to Come, Eden), Diego Serrano (The Men Who Stare at Goats, Time of Your Life), David Chisum (NCIS, Timeless), French director Benoît Jacquot (Farewell My Queen, 3 Hearts), Denmark's Oscar winning short film director Anders Walter (Helium, 9 Meter, I Kill Giants), and artist HR Giger who helped make the Alien franchise unforgettable.