Sunday, March 28, 2021 at 9:00AM 5 random things that happend on this day, March 28th, in showbiz history...
1920 It's the "marriage of the century" as silent superstars Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford wed. Their marriage last only 16 years but their only child together is still going strong: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
Monday, June 24, 2019 at 9:00AM 10 random things that happened on this day (June 24th) in showbiz history
1916 Mary Pickford, a very savvy businesswoman, becomes the first female movie star to get a million dollar contract. That was on top of her $10,000 a week (The average US income was under $20,000 in 1916... for the whole year). Can you imagine how much money that was in 1916 ???
1960 Opening weekend for the musical Bells are Ringing starring Judy Holliday (reprising her Tony-winning Broadway role). It proved to be the Oscar winner's last movie, tragically, since she died at only 43 years of age from cancer.
Saturday, February 2, 2019 at 5:00PM As is our practice we've selected two handfuls of titles of note and frozen the films at utterly random moments without cheating (whatever comes up comes up) for this quick preview. Do any of these screencaps make you wanna watch the movie? At the bottom of the page full listings for Netflix, Hulu, Prime, and HBO this month. Okay, let's go...
Guess what? You're my favorite student.
The Edge of Seventeen (2016) on Netflix
Remember how good this Hailee Steinfeld high school comedy was? She was nominated for a Golden Globe even! But why has Hayden Szeto, her love interest, not busted out yet as a star? He was great, too. Turns out (just looked it up) that he's got three movies coming out this year and will also be a guest star on the TV series adaptation of Taika Waititi's What We Do in the Shadows so there's still hope that people (or in this case Hollywood) will realize how fab he is. Yay!
A whole lotta lovin' is what we'll be bringin'
We'll make you happy 🎵
Sunday, August 24, 2014 at 10:03AM Which power couple will be obsessing over in just six months time? The 87th Oscars approach and as long as the movies have been around there have been fabulously wealthy and glamorous movie star couples. Take Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks for instance, the original celebrity power couple. If you must know (I know you are too shy to ask) my favorite films of theirs are His: The Thief of Bagdad (1924) and Hers: Stella Maris (1918) though admittedly I have many more left to see.
Fairbanks & Pickford were married in 1920 when both were superstars, he the original Zorro and she Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and other big hits. He famously gave Pickford "The Star of Bombay," a 182-carat sapphire which was not actually from Bombay but from Sri Lanka. She later bequeathed it to the Smithsonian where it remains. There's your priceless (okay, $½ million in today's dollars) piece of trivia for the day. You're welcome.
Pickford (the original "America's Sweetheart") and Fairbanks (the original "King of Hollywood") were among the 36 co-founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Fairbanks served as its first President and both would eventually receive Honorary Oscars with Mary also winning a regular statuette for Coquette). Could they have ever imagined how obsessive we'd all be about their little annual banquets 87 years later?
At the 86th Oscars, contemporary Hollywood's most glamorous megastar couple Angelina Jolie & Brad Pitt famously ate a pizza (well, he did) but they were also honored. She took home an Honorary (albeit non televised. argh) and he won his first competitive Oscar for producing 12 Years a Slave. They could theoretically both take home Oscars again if Fury and Unbroken are massive hits with AMPAS and reasonably well liked by audiences.
Do you think they will be?
CURRENT OSCAR PREDICTIONS (which category needs a major rethink?)
Thursday, February 13, 2014 at 1:10PM Today's Useless But Fun Oscar Trivia Numbers Chain!
• 17 years ago The English Patient (1996) won 9 Oscars, driving Julia Louis-Dreyfus Elaine to the brink of madness "quit telling your stupid story about the desert and just die already. die!!!" and making it one of the seven most-Oscared films of all time. (Only Titanic and Return of the King have since beat it). Can Gravity, which has 10 nominations but will definitely lose Best Actress, tie The Patient's record -- it would have to win ALL of its other nominations -- or do you foresee a "spread the wealth" year?
• Sal Mineo is the only 17 year-old of either gender ever nominated for an Oscar. That nomination came for his role as "Plato" in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). Mineo also holds the record of youngest (male) actor to two nominations as he was nominated for Exodus (1960) by the age of 22. He would have turned 75 this very year had he not been murdered at the age of 37 in West Hollywood.
• Nomination #17 was the lucky number for Meryl Streep with The Iron Lady, finally giving her her controversial and long-awaited third win (2011). If it had only been for The Devil Wears Prada (2006) instead!
• There are only three people who've ever been nominated for an Oscar exactly 17 times. Those lucky souls are the production designer George W. Davis who won Art Direction Oscars for The Robe (1953) and The Diary of Anne Frank (1959), the composer Miklós Rosza who won Best Original Score for Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945), as well as A Double Life (1947) and Ben-Hur (1959) and, finally and most recently, Gary Rydstrom who has been nominated in three different categories (Animated Short Film and both Sound categories) and has won 7 Oscars!
• In 1917 the Oscars hadn't been invented yet but if they had I'm reasonably certain that Mary Pickford would have won Best Actress unless scary Theda Bara had intervened (Pickford had at least three hits that year and then we could have been spared her career-tribute Oscar win for Coquette which so embarrasses Oscar historians!)
And finally I made this photograph (and also the snowballs) this morning which I have christened
SEVENTEEN SNOW DAYS TIL OSCAR
I had planned to do something far more elaborate an hour or two afterwards. (Yes, I am one of those sick sick people who loves winter and the snow) but then it quickly turned to sludge. Boo!
