We're still so terribly depressed about the Academy's foolhardy new decisions, that we're looking for ANYTHING else to think about today as distraction. Herewith...
12 random things that happened on this very day (Aug 9th) in history...
1918 HAPPY ROBERT ALDRICH CENTENNIAL! The director was born 100 years ago today in Rhode Island. Among his best known films: The Big Knife, The Dirty Dozen, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, Autumn Leaves, Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte, and The Longest Yard. Alfred Molina was recently Emmy-nominated for playing him in the TV series Feud: Bette and Joan...
1930 Betty Boop debuts in the short Dizzy Dishes. Her look isn't perfected yet -- she's actually a take on a humanoid French poodle at this point (note the ears!) and not actually the star of the short. Nevertheless she makes quite an impression with her va va voom 'boop-boop-bee-doop'
1944 Sam Elliott is born in Sacramento. He becomes an enduring actor on screens large and small. We're looking forward to his Oscar nomination for A Star is Born ;)
← 1949 Jimmy Stewart marries Gloria Hatrick McLean in Los Angeles. It was his only marriage and her second. They raised four children together and remained together until her death in 1994.
1963 Whitney Houston is born. She's a superstar in music by the time she's 22. Then, briefly, a movie star with two quintessential 90s flicks, The Bodyguard (1992) and Waiting to Exhale (1995) and one additional starring role The Preacher's Wife (1996) with Denzel Washington. This year's documentary Whitney was a hit at the box office.
1967 Playwright Joe Orton is murdered. His life and violent death is dramatized in the 1987 film Prick Up Your Ears starring Gary Oldman. That's an interesting case study of failed Oscar buzz, actually, since the film won an award at Cannes, was runner up for some key critics awards, received a Golden Globe nomination for Vanessa Redgrave in supporting actress, and 3 BAFTA nominations but Oscar didn't bite in any category.
1969 Sharon Tate, Valley of the Dolls star and wife of Roman Polanski, is murdered by the Manson cult. She'll be played by Margot Robbie in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019).
Stephen Fung and Shu Qi were married 18 years after co-starring in the gay drama Bishonen.
1974 Actor/Producer/Director Stephen Fung born in Hong Kong. Some readers will know him as Jet in the gay romantic drama Bishonen (1998). A very young Shu Qi co-starred in that film and they were married just two years ago. Fung's current project is producing the AMC's series Into the Badlands.
1985 Anna Kendrick is born in Portland. Goes on to minor fame via a Tony nomination at just 12 years of age in Broadway's "High Society" followed by a bitingly funny film debut in Camp (2003). Mainstream fame hits at 24 when she grabs her first Oscar nomination for Up in the Air (2009).
1991 Double Impact starring Jean Claude Van Damme, the Muscles from Brussels, opens in movie theaters
2002 Action franchise of mild popularity xXx kicks off starring Vin Diesel, Asia Argento, and Vin Diesel's fur coat.
2019 Disney's adaptation of Artemis Fowl, directed by Kenneth Branagh is due in theaters next year on this day.