7 random things that happened on this day, March 11th, in showbiz history
1958 Charles Van Doren loses on the game show "Twenty-One" an event that causes a huge scandal when the public realizes it was a fix. This event is detailed in the 1994 Best Picture nominee Quiz Show with Ralph Fiennes as Charles Van Doren.
1964 The 21st Golden Globes were held honoring the films of 1963...
Conflicted priest period film The Cardinal, dramatizing a huge list of social issues including racism, abortion, interfaith marriage, and the rise of fascism takes Best Drama while randy chaotic period piece Tom Jones takes Best Comedy. In a twist on the more stereotypical result, it was the Comedy winner and not the heavy message movie that went on to Oscar glory. The Cardinal received six Oscar nominations but missed the top category (clearly in sixth place given its other big nominations). It was the last time in history that the Globe Drama winner failed to secure an Oscar nomination for Best Picture.
Another twist on the usual Globe to Oscar awards train, future Best Actress winner Patricia Neal (Hud) competed in Best Supporting Actress at the Globes and lost; Usually if there is a difference of agreement in which category someone belongs in it's the Globes that stick them in lead, and definitely not the Oscars.
1977 Airport '77, the third in the franchise which packed movie stars into doomed planes, opens in movies theaters. This time around it was Olivia de Havilland, Jack Lemmon, Jimmy Stewart, Brenda Vacarro, Joseph Cotten, Christopher Lee, and Lee Grant, alongside dozens of other less famous familiar faces. Like its predecessors it was a box office success but the blockbuster spoof Airplane! just a few years away would put the genre in its grave. Airport '77 received two Oscar nominations: Costume Design and Art Direction.
1994 Hollywood banked on moviegoers wanting only comedies on this day when Guarding Tess, The Hudsucker Proxy, Lightning Jack, and The Ref were the new relases. Weird timing for the underappreciatd and quite hilarious The Ref since it's a Christmas movie!
1997 Beatle Paul McCartney was knighted by the Queen. It's now Sir Paul McCartney, thank you.
2011 Battle of Los Angeles, Red Riding Hood, and Mars Needs Moms are the three new wide releases in movie theaters while Cary Fukunaga's take on Jane Eyre and the incredible Certified Copy starring Juliette Binoche both open at the arthouses. Certified Copy puts me in a trance when I think of it. How about you?
2022 Next year on this date Pixar will release Turning Red, a film by Domee Shi who won the animated short Oscar for Bao (2018). We're always so pleased when Pixar makes originals rather than sequels even if we wish Oscar would sometimes let other studios have some earned gold, as in this year when Cartoon Saloon topped themselves (no small task given the quality of their filmography) with Wolkwalkers.
Today's Birthday Suit
Happy 40th birthday to one of Germany's most reliably joyful exhibitionists Matthias Schweighöfer (Valkyrie, You Are Wanted, Eight Miles High, Offbeat, Kurske, 100 Dinge).
Here he is at the Oscars last year, in his fun directorial debut What a Man (2010), and from his Instagram goofing around with a co-star. Up next: Zack Snyder's Netflix zombie comedy Army of the Dead (2021) which arrives in May.
Bonus Suit: Ha Jung Woo Other showbiz birthdays today: South Korea's Ha Jung-Woo, pictured left of The Handmaiden and Time fame. Plus: Emmy winner Jodie Comer (Killing Eve, Free Guy), Oscar nominee Terrence Howard (Hustle & Flow, Empire), Canada's Marc-André Grodin (C.R.A.Z.Y., Goon), Johnny Knoxville (Bad Grandpa, A Dirty Shame), Thora Birch (Ghost World, American Beauty), Elias Koteas (The Thin Red Line, Crash), Alice Kingston (ER, Discovery of Witches), Peter Berg (Chicago Hope, A Midnight Clear), John Barrowman (Torchwood, Zero Dark Thirty), David Anders (Alias, The Revenant), Jeffrey Nordling (Big Little Lies, Flight 93), James Fleet (Sense & Sensibility, Four Weddings and a Funeral), Nancy Kovack (Jason and the Argonauts, Marooned), Wallace Langham (CSI, Hitchcock), Director Jerry Zucker (Airplane!, Ghost), Sweden's Jonas Karlsson (The Snowman, Details), director/producer Simon Curtis (My Week with Marilyn, Woman in Gold), Tunisia's Sandra Milo (8½, Juliet of the Spirits), Director Marco Kreuzpaintner (Summer Storm, Soulmates), Oscar nominated composer David Newman (Anastasia, War of the Roses), composer Rob Simonsen (The Spectacular Now, The Way Back), and singer Lisa Loeb.
And late greats like Anton Yelchin (Star Trek, Like Crazy), Angelique Pettyjohn (Star Trek, Get Smart), Director Raoul Walsh (Sadie Thompson, White Heat), silent film star Dorothy Gish (Judith of Bethulia, Orphans of the Storm), drag queen Lady Chablis (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil), TV variety star Lawrence Welk, and novelist Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)