10 random things that happened on this day, February 7th, in showbiz history
1914 Charlie Chaplin's world famous film character "The Tramp" debuts in Kid Auto Races at Venice
1940 Pinnocchio, Walt Disney's second full length animated feature premieres...
1944 Bing Crosby records "Swingin on a Star" which will go on to win the Oscar for Best Original Song for the film Going My Way
1974 Blazing Saddles opens in movie theaters. That year prove to be the peak of Mel Brooks' big screen popularity since at the end of the year he released ANOTHER comedy classic Young Frankenstein. They were the second and third highest grossing movies the year (only the all-star disaster film The Towering Inferno was more popular)
1986 Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters opens in theaters to instant critical success and good leggy box office. Yes, well before the Oscars for the previous year had even been handed out but it still scored big the following awards season.
1987 Madonna scores her fifth number one single with "Open Your Heart". By the end of the decade she had scored seven #1s, a distinction she shared with Whitney Houston. Only Michael Jackson bested them with eight #1s in the 1980s.
1988 Boxer Mike Tyson marries actress Robin Givens. There will be scandals and the media will be all over them through their divorce the following year; celebrity marriages without prenups always make the tabloids salivate.
2003 Kate Hudson taught us How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, new in theaters
2008 The 58th annual Berlinale begins with Martin Scorsese's documentary Shine a Light. Brazil's Elite Squad wins the Golden Bear at festival's end with Sally Hawkins taking Best Actress, the first of many prizes for her work in Happy-Go-Lucky.
... Neither has luck with Oscar later. Brazil selects another film to represent them (Last Stop 174) and Hawkins becomes one of those super-darlings of critics award season that fails to transfer to the Oscar shortlist.
2013 The 63rd annual Berlinale begins. Wong Kar Wai's The Grand Master opens the festival and Romania's Childs Pose with a brilliant savage performance from Luminita Gheorghiu closes the festivities and also wins the Golden Bear. Both are submitted for Oscar's International Feature category but Oscar's love goes elsewhere.
Today's Birthday Suit
Happy 59th to genius comedian Eddie Izzard who has had a busy month in the British press, announcing that she'd like to be the UK's first transgender Prime Minister while raising lots of money running 31 marathons in 31 days for "Make Humanity Great Again," a selection of charities.
True story: Three weeks ago before we heard this news we had a sudden hankering to watch one of her classic comedy specials only to discover that they aren't available to rent online -- UGH! But good news - if not great news since it does not involve a new comedy special -- she'll be back on TV soon playing a small town lawyer in a British Netflix drama series called Stay Close that will be filming soon.
Other showbiz birthdays today: Olympian and Tarzan / Flash Gordon star Buster Crabbe (pictured left) , Serbian director Predrag Antonijevic whose Oscar submission Dara of Jasenovac opens this week in virtual cinemas, Oscar nominated Argentinian-Brazilian director Hector Babenco (Carandiru, Kiss of the Spider-Woman), Oscar nominee Pete Postlethwaite (In the Name of the Father, The Town), James Spader (Pretty in Pink, sex lies and videotape), Tina Majorino (Corrina Corrina, Napoleon Dynamite) Miguel Ferrer (Robocop, Traffic), Deborah Ann Woll (True Blood, Daredevil), Hong Kong's Tony Liu (Fists of Fury, The Way of the Dragon), Chris Rock (Top Five, I Think I Love My Wife), Ashton Kutcher (That 70s Show, Just Married), Alexander Dreymon (The Last Kingdom, Christopher and His Kind), Eddie Bracken (The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, Rookie of the Year), Gloria Talbott (All That Heaven Allows, The Cyclops), Jock Mahoney (Tarzan Goes to India), Essence Atkins (A Haunted House, Same Difference), Philip Wiegrats ("Augustus" in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), David Castro (Shadowhunters, 27 Dresses), Japan's Keiko Tsushima (Seven Samurai, Fireworks Over the Sea), Taiwan's Gingle Wang (Detention, All Because of Love), stuntman Joey Box (I Am Legend, Charlies Angels, Star Trek), much adapted novelist Charles Dickens (Oliver!, A Christmas Carol, Great Expectations), writer Laura Ingalls Wilder (Little House on the Prairie), Puyi the child emperor of China (his story was told in The Last Emperor), country legend Garth Brooks, comedian Emo Phillips.