Showbiz History: Horny Pussycats, Photoshopped Gosling, and Julie's Second Marriage

9 random things that happened on this day, November 12th, in showbiz history...

1880 Lew Wallace's novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ is published. It was  the best-selling American novel of all time (for awhile). The film adaptation in 1959 won 11 Oscars, a feat that's never been bested though Titanic and Return of the King later tied its haul. 

1946 Disney's Song of the South has its world premiere in Atlanta, Georgia. Disney has long since hidden it from view though it was celebrated in its time, winning one competitive and one Honorary Oscar

More after the jump including Penelope Pussycat, Julie Andrews, and Ryan Gosling...

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News & Tidbits: France, Brad Pitt, Julie Andrews and more...

Deadline France will send contemporary police/citizens/gang tensions drama Les Miserables to the Oscars (sorry, Portrait of a Lady on Fire fans)
Latino Entertainment Journalists Association - In their first ever TV awards, Barry, When They See Us, Chernobyl, and Euphoria lead the nominations. Jimmy Smit (Lifetime Achievement) and Isabella Gomez (Breakout) will also be honored.
Indie Wire - Have you heard that Brad Pitt is “abstaining” from Oscar campaigning. In our long years of following the Oscar race this only works for mega-stars and those who have just given undeniable performances (like Mo’Nique in Precious). Everyone else has to play the game. 

After the jump Julie Andrews, Maggie Cheung, Downton Abbey, Kevin Spacey and more…

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William Holden in "S.O.B."

Mini William Holden Centennial celebration. We're beginning, oddly enough, with his final film. Here's Tim Brayton...

The 1981 film S.O.B. wasn't meant to be William Holden's final film: the star died in a household accident a few months after the film premiered, at a mere 63 years old. But it offers a pleasing symmetry to his career to end this way: Holden's big breakthrough, in 1950, was the acid-laced Hollywood satire Sunset Blvd., and there's a comforting rightness that it was with an acid-laced Hollywood satire that his career would end.

Not that S.O.B. has anything on Sunset Blvd., though it's a compelling oddity, and it's one of the few films made by writer-director-producer Blake Edwards after his 1960s heyday that offers all that much to chew on. The film is a deeply caustic fable of how superproducer Felix Farmer (Richard Mulligan) churned out the biggest money-loser in Hollywood history one day, went insane from the stress of it, and decided to turn his family-friendly musical into a pornographic extravaganza...

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