Showbiz History: Melina Mercouri, Tyler Posey, and Jon-Erik Hexum
Sunday, October 18, 2020 at 10:00AM 7 random things that happened on this day, October 18th, in showbiz history. If it's your birthday, happy birthday!
1910 E.M. Forster's masterpiece Howards End is published. It will later become another masterpiece in a different medium with the Oscar-winning Merchant Ivory film version in 1992.
1920 Greek superstar Melina Mercouri born on this day in Athens 100 years ago. Happy Melina Mercouri Centennial...
Have you ever seen her Best Actress nominated performance in Never on Sunday (1960)? She married her frequent collaborator, the American writer/director Jules Dassin (Rififi, Never on Sunday, Promise at Dawn, Topkapi) in 1964 and they were married until her death in 1994. He never remarried and died in 2008. Last week both the Los Angeles Greek Film Festival and the San Francisco Greek Film Festivals honored Mercouri with screenings and Daniel just discussed one of her other big international hits Topkapi (1964).
1961 West Side Story hits movie theaters! We did a deep dive retrospective in 2018 which you really should read if you love West Side Story. The remake has been delayed til December 2021.
1984 Television star Jon-Erik Hexum (Voyagers, Making of an Male Model) dies at just 26 years of age at the peak of his fame, accidentally, from a gun loaded with blanks on the set of his new TV show Cover Up. He was actually on the cover of Playgirl (not intended as a posthumous tribute) when he died and his new series had launched just the month before.
1996 It was opening weekend in movie theaters for new films starring Kate Winslet (Jude), Michelle Pfeiffer (To Gillian on her 37th Birthday), as well as indie sleeper hit Swingers, and the all-star ensemble picture Sleepers with Bacon DeNiro, Hoffman, Pitt, and Jason Patric.
2000 Superstar couple of the 1990s, Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, divorced after 13 years of marriage twenty years ago on this day.
Today's Birthday Suit
Happy 29th to Tyler Posey who has become an exhibitionist post Teen Wolf stardom. He even has an OnlyFans account already. Hey everyone's gotta make a living.
Frying sausage in the nude. I like to live dangerously."
Other Actors Celebrating Birthdays Today:
Toby Regbo (29), Zac Efron (33), Freida Pinto (36), Elmer Bäck (39), Joy Bryant (46), Zhou Xun (46), Marco Hofschneider (51), Vincent Spano (58), Jean Claude Van Damme (60), Arliss Howard (66), Pam Dawber (69), Joe Morton (73), and Dawn Wells (82).
Other Birthdays Today:
Screenwriter Graham Moore (39) who curiously hasn't made a movie since his Oscar win for Imitation Game six years ago, French director Stephane Brizé (54), Oscar nominated cinematographer John Schwartzman (60), Tennis superstar Martina Navratilova (64), and Oscar winning composer Howard Shore (74).
Calvin LockhartGone But Not Forgotten:
Tony winner and Oscar nominee Lotte Lenya (The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone) born on this day in 1898, Golden Age actress and Bette Davis arch-enemy Miriam Hopkins (Trouble in Paradise, Becky Sharp, The Heiress) born on this day in 1902, Oscar winning Waldo Salt (Midnight Cowboy, Coming Home) born on this day in 1914, Mad man movie star Klaus Kinski (Agguire the Wrath of God) born on this day in 1926, Oscar winner George C Scott (Patton, Anatomy of a Murder) born on this day in 1927, Swedish star Inger Stevens (Hang 'em High, The World The Flesh The Devil) born on this day in 1934, late 60s and 70s film regular and blaxploitation star Calvin Lockhart (pictured left) born on this day in 1934 in the Bahamas, Everybody Loves Raymond's Peter Boyle born on this day in 1935, and Joanie Loves Chachi star Erin Moran born on this day in 1960.
Reader Comments (7)
I have seen many Melina Mercouri films. What an effervescent star she was !
I wouldn't say I've seen a huge amount of Melina's films but she's a delight in both Never on Sunday and Topkapi. I also really enjoyed Tony Perkins and she in Phaedra.
Oh Miriam Hopkins! A very gifted actress and her own worst enemy. So consumed with the need to be the center of attention she alienated nearly everyone she ever worked with except William Wyler who had no problem putting her in her place and who she respected enough to buckle down and cut the scene stealing tricks.
Milina Mercouri had one of the most ironic lines during the Oscar season. She didn't want to campaign. "I'm an actress not a politician." She later criticized a dictator in Greece and her citizenship was revoked. After he left office she returned to Greece and won a seat in parliament. Hollywood lost an actress but Greece gained a new voice in politics.
I think Peter Boyle should be on the Gone but Not Forgotten list. He died in 2006.
Celebrities should not have access to OnlyFans. It takes away money from real sex workers who need it a lot more than these rich assholes.
I haven't seen Never on Sunday but she's a marvel in the little seen Promise at Dawn from 1970;
Gosh, what a gorgeous creature is Jon-Erik Hexum!