Showbiz History: Aretha, Mame, and Florence Pugh

5 random things that happened on this day, January 3rd, in showbiz history

1897 Marion Davies born in Brooklyn. The 1930s film star is best remembered in history as the mistress of tycoon William Randolph Hearst. Multiple films have featured their relationship including current Oscar hopeful Mank (2020).

1952 Dragnet begins airing in its regular time slot Thursdays at 9:00 PM on NBC (a couple of weeks after the pilot airs). The influential series -- which basically created the #1 tv genre, the procedural, will run for eight seasons, be relaunched in the late 1960s for another four seasons and spawn three movies. The last of those was a comedy in 1987  starring Tom Hanks just before Big served as the bridge between popular comic actor and serious actor, netting Hanks his first Oscar nod. Two short-lived one season attempts to revive Dragnet were attempted in 1989 and 2003 respectively...

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"Respect" moving to summer 2021

R-E-S-P-E-C-T the release date chaos, since you have no other choice! The movie calendar has been in serious chaos since March and it will continue to be so until there's a vaccine. There has always been an element of uncertainty surrounding release dates, even in the before times, but we've never before had uncertainty about when EVERY movie might arrive before. Unprecedented times we live in. Anyway, Respect, the Aretha Franklin biopic, is moving to August 2021. Maybe theaters will be open by then? This takes Jennifer Hudson out of the Oscar race (at least until the 94th Oscars in 2022) so we've had to adjust the Best Actress chart yet again. 

Strange timing though since just last week she was on the cover of Entertainment Weekly promoting the movie (which is a much more normal 3 month out promotional window but now that press was 10 months early!)