On this day in history as it relates to the movies...
1802 Alexandre Dumas is born. He dies just before cinematic technology begins to blossom so he couldn't have known that his novels like The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers series, and Queen Margot will all be adapted multiple times in a new artform.
1821 Gang leader William Poole, "Bill the Butcher" is born. Daniel Day-Lewis taps his fictional glass eye 181 years later on the big screen...
1897 Aviatrix Amelia Earhart is born. Disappears into legend nearly 40 years later. Has been played by multiple actresses since including Diane Keaton and Hilary Swank.
1929 Four time Oscar nominee Peter Yates (Breaking Away, The Dresser) is born in England
1937 The state of Alabama drops charges agains four of "The Scottsboro Boys". It's kind of amazing that nobody has made this long complicated and devastating story into a movie, though a stage musical received acclaim in 2010
1940 Character actor Dan Hedaya (First Wives Club, Dick, Blood Simple) is born
1942 Former hubbie to Susan, Chris Sarandon (The Princess Bride, Dog Day Afternoon) is born. Did you know he was the voice of Jack Skellington in The Nightmare Before Christmas?
1951 Wonder Woman Lynda Carter is born. Next up for Lynda is playing POTUS in the second season of Supergirl
It's Lynda Carter's birthday so here's an original sketch for her Wonder Woman costume by Donfeld. pic.twitter.com/PzXCQgGCRu
— Christopher Laverty (@Clothesonfilm) July 24, 2016
1952 Gus Van Sant is born in Kentucky of all place. Goes on to indie, LGBT, and Oscar fame in cinema
1965 Flora the Red Menace closes on Broadway gifting its young star Liza Minnelli with the first prize of her EGOT. She hits the cinema with force soon thereafter
1968 Kristin Chenoweth, like Liza a triple threat, is born. Later wins the Tony (You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown) and the Emmy (Pushing Daisies) though she's never been nominated for a Grammy despite that killer voice and 5 studio albums and multiple Broadway OCRs. Next up for Cheno --Bryan Fuller's Neil Gaiman adaptation American Gods on TV
1969 Jenny is born on the block
1971 Film director Patty Jenkins (Wonder Woman - we'll discuss that trailer in a hot minute)
1974 The Supreme Court rules that Nixon must surrend the Watergate tapes. That whole mishegoss has led to numerous film and television classics
1979 Rose Byrne is born in Australia. Gets famous as a dramatic actress. Later pulls the rug out from under audiences by revealing that she was meant to be a comedy icon all along (Bridesmaids, Spy)
1981 Summer Glau is born. Has brief run playing superpowered humanoid assassins (Firefly, Terminator: The Sarah Connors Chronicles)
1982 Oscar winner Anna Paquin and future award winner (of some kind... where are her prizes?) Elisabeth Moss are both born. And P.S...
First time i've ever seen this :) Entire top ten on IMDb's "most popular people born today" are women! pic.twitter.com/QbBR2AmfO5
— Nathaniel Rogers (@nathanielr) July 24, 2016
1987 Superman IV Quest for Peace opens, killing the original Superman franchise. It would take 19 years before he returned to live action cinema
1991 Emily Bett Rickards is born. Happy 25th Emily! She's currently in the cast of multiple CW superhero shows but she made a fine boarding house friend to Saoirse Ronan in Brooklyn. Will more movies follow?
1998 Saving Private Ryan opens, becoming another mega hit for Steven Spielberg and netting him his second Oscar for Best Director. Loses Best Picture Oscar famously to Shakespeare in Love but hey, Shakespeare in Love was better. Suck on that. (Unfortunately between them they totally hogged all Oscars that year - we hate sweeps!)
Who would you have voted for that year?
- Elizabeth
- Life is Beautiful
- Saving Private Ryan
- Shakespeare in Love
- The Thin Red Line
2005 Lance Armstrong wins his seventh consecutive and last Tour de France. Later the win is disqualified due to doping. Ben Foster plays him in the ill-fated The Program
2009 Political satire In the Loop hits US theaters. Bears very popular child Veep a year later on HBO
2020 Warner Bros/DC threatens another Green Lantern movie on this date