7 random things that happened on this day (July 15th) in history as it relates to showbiz
1858 Emmeline Pankhurst is born in Manchester. She becomes a major and controversial leader in the suffragrette movement in the UK. She became so culturally famous that Glynis Johns even sang about her in the family musical Mary Poppins
Political equality and equal rights with men!
Take heart for Missus Pankhurst has been clapped in irons again! 🎵
She's been the subject of a BBC miniseries in the 1970s starring Siân Phillips and Meryl Streep played her in a cameo in Suffragette (2015). Why she's never had her own biopic is a curiousity that can only be explained by the general lack of biopics about influential women.
1919 Iris Murdoch born in Dublin. Her life, marriage, and Alzheimer's diagnosis became the subject of the Oscar winning film Iris (2001) which we discussed recently on the podcast.
1968 One Life to Live premieres on ABC. The daytime soap will run for 43 years but only wins the top daytime Emmy once in 2002. Among the many stars who appeared on the soap before primetime or movie fame beckoned were Tom Berenger, Bryan Cranston, Nathan Fillion, Judith Light, Laurence Fishburne, Tommy Lee Jones, Hayden Panettiere, and 17 year old Ryan Phillipe in his very first role which featured an historic "coming out" storyline for daytime television.
1972 "Honky Chateau", hits #1 on the Billboard charts, Elton John's first time at the top in the US. The US breakthrough is a huge chunk of the current biopic/musical Rocketman.
1974 News reporter Christine Chubbuck shoots herself live on TV in Florida. The shocking tragic event later becomes the basis of the indie Christine (2016) starring Rebecca Hall in an acclaimed performance.
2006 Twitter launches quickly altering the social media and entertainment landscape. There are currently 321 million active users.
2016 The divorce of Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin is official after much press ado about their "conscious uncoupling"
Today's birthday suit
<-- Happy 44th to the very talented German actress Diane Kruger. She's one of the few super successful models to have transferred exquisitely to the big screen and able to work in French, German, or English language cinema with ease. She's turned in fine or Oscar nomination worthy work in films like Inglorious Basterds (2009) and In the Fade (2017) for which she took home Best Actress at Cannes. Next up for Kruger is 355, the all-star female spy film engineered by Jessica Chastain. Kruger is replacing Marion Cotillard but the other formerly announced headliners have stuck with the project which is finally filming.
Other showbiz people celebrating birthdays today
Oscar winners: Actor Forest Whitaker (Last King of Scotland, Black Panther, etc), Documentarian D.A. Pennebaker (War Room), Animator Michael Dudok de Wit ("Father and Daughter" and The Red Turtle)
Oscar nominees: Production designer Jess Gonchor (Hail, Caesar), Sound editor Sergio Diaz (Roma)
Directors: Anne Fontaine (Coco Before Chanel), Alain Guiraudie (Stranger by the Lake)
Spawn of Celebrity: John Wayne's second son, Golden Globe winning Patrick Wayne is 80 years old today. He co-starred with his father nine times and nabbed at least one lead role Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977) thereafter.
Actors and Stars: Linda Rondstadt (who, incidentally, is the subject of a documentary coming out later this year), Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Brigitte Nielsen, Scott Foley, Gabriel Iglesias, 90210's Brian Austin Green, Vincent Lindon, Terry O'Quinn, Willie Aames, Lady Gaga's ex boyfriend Taylor Kinney, Celia Imrie, Lolita Davidovich, Masatoshi Nagase, Jasper Pääkkönen (BlacKkKlansman), Joe Turkel (Blade Runner), Tristan Mack Wilds, Kieslowski muse Irène Jacob, Broadway superstar Laura Benanti.
The Luu brothers in Pacific Rim (2013)
And finally a happy 32nd birthday to the Canadian triplets Mark Luu, Charles Luu, and Lance Luu. We've been wondering why we haven't seen them on movie screens post Pacific Rim (2013) but it looks like a relocation to Beijing has paid off. They're costarring in both of Jackie Chan's 2019 action fantasies, the chinese language The Knight of Shadows and the mostly English language picture The Mystery of Dragon Seal: Journey to China which also stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rutger Hauer, and Charles Dance.