Showbiz History: Valentino's Wedding, Shirley's Discovery, Frasier's Ending
Monday, May 13, 2019 at 9:16AM Six random things to celebrate on this day (May 13th) in showbiz history...
1919 It's the centennial today of the silent film Broken Blossoms starring Lillian Gish (which you can watch in full on YouTube), an interracial weepie romance with Richard Barthelmess in "yellow face" as a Chinese Man that Gish falls for. Some critics consider it D.W. Griffith's best film.
Valentino and Rambova
1922 Silent film superstar Rudoph Valentino, who made millions swoon all over the world, weds costume and set designer Natacha Rambova at the age of 27. Valentino would then be arrested for bigamy since he'd been divorced for less than a year at the time (which was legally a no-go back then in California)...
They'd have to live separately and remarry 10 months later, though they divorced non-amicably by 1925 (he supposedly left her just $1 in his will).
1954 "The Pajama Game" opens on Broadway. This is the musical that brought Shirley Maclaine to fame. She was an understudy for the lead (Carol Hainey) who injured her angle shortly after opening night. Shirley Maclaine took over by the end of May and was "discovered" and signed to Paramount, becoming an instant movie star when her first two films became hits the following year (Hitchcock's The Trouble With Harry, and the Dean & Lewis comedy Artists and Models)
1970 The Beatles Let it Be documentary, featuring their last public performance together, has its world premiere in NYC.
1994 Two memorable movies opened in theaters on this day in history. Happy 25th anniversary to Spike Lee's Crooklyn with a much-beloved Alfre Woodard star turn at its center (one of the rare Spike Lee joints with a female in the lead role) and the Detroit-set supernatural fantasy The Crow starring the late Brandon Lee (son of movie legend Bruce Lee) who had tragically died on the set of the movie in an accident with blanks which makes all the gratuitous gunfire directly at him (the character being impervious to bullets) in the movie quite sickening in retrospect.
2004 Frasier airs its final episode "Goodnight, Seattle" after 11 seasons on the air. It shares the all time record for most Outstanding Comedy Series Emmy wins (5 of them) with Modern Family, from its 8 nominations. (For comparison's sake Cheers and M*A*S*H*, which also ran 11 seasons, share the record for most nominations in the category with 11 each, nominated every year of their runs, though they won only four times and once, respectively.)
Reader Comments (5)
Doris Day has died.
I love Frasier!
I struggled through Broken Blossoms. Lillian Gish is excellent and it is inventively shot but I found it very stilted and SO incredibly depressing.
I love Frasier to this day. What a brilliant lineup of performers and whip smart writing and directing.
I have a soft spot for the play of the Pajama Game, though I don't love the film. What talented women both Shirley MacLaine and Carol Haney are and were.
Brokenhearted about Doris Day!!
Lillian Gish is always a revelation. I’m always amazed that I can “hear” her in her silent movies.
A deaf colleague of mine once told me that certain people were easier for him to understand, because they had no disconnect between their feelings and their words (I wasn’t one of them).
Lillian Gish is like that. Her heart and her words are so strong and together that you know what she’s saying without subtitles.
D.W. Griffith, otoh, I become more and more distanced from.
Doris Day has the same kind of commitment that Gish had. Doris committed to a vision of an independent woman, who was smart and hard-working and great at her well-paid job. Her characters dressed to please themselves and looked fabulous. They didn’t put up with fools or bullies, and spoke right up about it. Their sexuality belonged to themselves.
Owning your sexuality was called being “a professional virgin” by men trying to undercut this independence. But Doris, unitimidated, stuck to her vision, and we love her for it.
I can't believe Doris Day died. I thought she died a long time ago. Damn.... she was awesome.