Showbiz History: The Vamp, a Psycho, and The Others

8 random things that happened on this day in history (Aug 10th)...

1918 Today is the centennial of Salome, one of Theda Bara's key pictures. Sadly, the film is lost as are so many silents of historic significance and almost all of Theda's films. She was nicknamed 'The Vamp' setting an archetype that would stay with the cinema forever basically. Theda was in her 40s by the time sound killed off the silents; she never even attemped a talkie.

1933 Hedy Lamarr marries her first husband (of six!) when she is just 19 years old. If you haven't yet watched Bombshell the Hedy Lamarr story on Netflix I urge you to do so. She's fascinating. Currently both Diane Kruger and Gal Gadot are planning to play her in different biographical projects for film and television. 

1950 Sunset Boulevard, only one of the all time greatest films, has its world premiere at Radio City Musical Hall in NYC

1959 Rosanna Arquette born in NYC. She's the first child in what will become a bustling family of acting siblings.  

1960 Antonio Banderas born in Málaga Spain. Meanwhile over in Los Angeles Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho premieres in Los Angeles. Banderas will later play three psychos superbly for Pedro Almodovar in Law of Desire, Tie Me Up Tie Me Down! and The Skin I Live In. 

1971 Justin Theroux is born in DC. 

2001 The Others opens in movie theaters just two months after Moulin Rouge! making it the summer Nicole Kidman went supernova.

2007 Stardust opens in movie theaters with Michelle Pfeiffer terrorizing Claire Danes and Charlie Cox with her ooh ah ah sorcery.

17 Days Til Oscar

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! 

Vamp Glenn, Crook Michael, and Killer Viola!

If The Film Experience were its own media empire the first thing we would do is some sort of annual gallery of celebrities a la Vanity Fair or the New York Times. For this year's New York Times video gallery ["Vamps, Crooks and Killers" (photos) "Touch of Evil" (video)] the Times has famous actors playing famous film baddies or villainous archetypes. We've mentioned we love this actors as actors business muchly before. It always thrills. 

Here's Glenn Close as Theda Bara the vamp and Viola Davis as Nurse Ratched (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) for appetizers.

The Close image reminds us that Glenn has always been thisclose to being a cartoon character who just happens to be made of flesh and blood. That's how most iconic film stars and characters come across... at least after decades in the pop cultural air, though it didn't take Close that long to achieve it.

Doesn't the Nurse Viola Davis Ratched immediately make you want to see her in a villainous role? It hadn't even occurred to me before but it'd be super scary to watch her soulfulness curdle in some choice role. I bet she'd be great. On her performance in this video she says...

I tried to channel all the parts of myself that are probably not pretty. That are not necessarily nice."

Rooney Mara, Michael Shannon, Kirsten Dunst, Brad Pitt and Mia Wasikowska, after the jump...

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