Showbiz History: Nat, Kurt, "She's the Man" and "Goodfellas"
Sunday, March 17, 2019 at 10:00AM 9 random things that happened on this day in showbiz history should you feel like commemorating any of them in your own way...
1906 Brigitte Helms, immortalized in Metropolis (1927) as "Maria / False Maria" is born.
1919 Iconic musician Nat 'King' Cole born 100 years ago on this very day in Montgomery, Alabama
1941 The National Gallery of Art opens in DC. This month (right now, 2019) they're showing "films from Poverty Row" a series of low budget B films from Hollywood's glory days but made outside the big studios...
1951 Kurt Russell, future Disney star, future man o' Goldie, future enduring star born in Massachussetts. He was also robbed of a Supporting Actor nomination for Silkwood (1983) but who's complaining (hint: we are).
1989 Rooftops, the now-forgotten last feature film of Oscar winner Robert Wise (The Sound of Music, West Side Story) opens in movie theaters. Have any of you seen it?
1991 The 44th annual BAFTA Awards honoring the films of 1990 are held. Italy's Cinema Paradiso is a huge hit winning 5 awards and Goodfellas emerges triumphant with the top prize (Dances with Wolves, which will beat it at the Oscars a week later isn't up for the BAFTAs until the following year, but it loses then to the homegrown title The Commitments)
1993 Two time Oscar winner Helen Hayes dies at 92 years of age. We weren't crazy about that second win.
2006 She's the Man, a star vehicle for Amanda Bynes, opens in theaters. Audiences gasp and squeal when the then unknown Channing Tatum removes his shirt (at least they did in our theater). By the end of 2006 he was a major star with Step Up and A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints following hot on She's the Man's heels that same calendar year.
2017 Disney's live action remake of Beauty and The Beast opens to a gargantuan $174 million dollars at the box office, despite a lead who can't sing, dooming us to endless regurgitations of animated classics always referred to as "live action remakes" even when they're animated.
Reader Comments (2)
A confession: I have the dvd of Metropolis and everytime I put it on, I fall asleep.
"Metropolis" is one of the most influential works in the history of cinema. You can see it every sci-fi fantasy horror film - from "Bride of Frankenstein" to "Flash Gordon" to "Blade Runner"- Pedro you should see the Giorgio Moroder edition that will keep you awake. Mr Tatum's body was made for the movies