Showbiz History: Liberace's funeral, "The" Facebook, and Lewis Tan's big test
Thursday, February 4, 2021 at 8:00AM 8 random things that happened on this day, February 4th, in showbiz history
1932 Josef Von Sternberg's Shanghai Express starring Marlene Dietrich and Anna Mae Wong has its world premiere in Los Angeles. The Chinese media was already upset about it before the premiere. It will open in theaters a week later...
1938 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs finally opens in theaters after its much buzzed exclusive run in Los Angeles (which we discussed previously) and becomes an instant blockbuster. For one year it was the highest grossing film of all time. And then Gone With the Wind arrived.
1983 A creepy weekend at theaters as The Entity starring Barbara Hershey and David Cronenberg's Videodrome both open. On this same day, one of the most popular singers Karen Carpenter dies.
1987 Liberace dies at 67. Remember that fantasy funeral ending in Steven Soderbergh's Behind the Candelabra?
1994 Ace Ventura: Pet Detective opened in theaters making Jim Carrey a huge comedy star. The other new releases that weekend were My Father thee Hero, I'll Do Anything, and Gunmen and in limited release the super violent and psychologically unhinged Romeo is Bleeding.
2004 "The Facebook" launches from Harvard. David Fincher makes a classic movie out of the fraught world-changing story just six years later.
2005 Horror flick Boogeyman and the Debra Messing romcom The Wedding Date were the new releases and top box office grossers in the US on this Friday
2011 The Leighton Meester and Minka Kelly thriller The Roommmate and the underwater cave diving movie Sanctum were the new releases and top box office grossers in the US on this Friday. I was at Sanctum for some reason though I have next to no recollection of it. Do you?
Today's Birthday Suit
Happy 34th birthday to Lewis Tan of Wu Assassins and Into the Badlands fame and that one scene in Netflix's short-livd Iron Fist wherein he proved they should have given him the lead role instead of a tiny role. He's fun on social media but next up is the biggest challenge of his career and leading man potential as the headliner of the reboot of Mortal Kombat. It's due to open on April 16th. (But will it?)
I never thought I’d say this but, please stop sending me nudes.
— Lewis Tan (@TheLewisTan) May 22, 2018
Other birthdays today: Hollywood trailblazer Ida Lupino (The Trouble with Angels, Outrage, The Bigamist) one of the first actress/directors, zombie mastermind George A Romero (Night of the Living Dead), Michael Beck (The Warriors, Xanadu), Lauren Ash (Super Store, Lars and the Real Girl), Jenette Goldstein (Aliens, Near Dark), Ireland's Patrick Bergin (Patriot Games, Robin Hood), Gabrielle Anwar (Scent of a Woman, Burn Notice), Lisa Eichhorn (The Vanishing, Cutter's Way), China's Chen Kun (Painted Skin, The Knot), William Phipps (War of the Worlds, Cinderella), Andrew Gray (Shadow Wolves, Power Rangers Mega Force), Germany's Langston Uibel (Dogs of Berlin, Unorthodox), cinematographer Lawrence Sher (Joker, Garden State), pop star Natalie Imbruglia, boxer Oscar de la Hoya, and Civil Rights icon Rosa Parks.
Reader Comments (8)
Kind of a full circle going on here, where Lewis Tan (offered a tiny role instead of the lead in “Iron Fist”) reminds us of Anna Mae Wong (offered a tiny role instead of the lead in The Good Earth, according to the article linked above).
Brevity -- it's neat when I can find throughlinees in history on a single day. History is not always cooperative. I'm so glad things are changing for actors of color. More opportunities lately.
Ida Lupino has gotten more acknowledgement in recent years but she really should have more. Her directing career, which she humbly admitted to stumbling into out of necessity when the director of the film Not Wanted (which she had already co-wrote and co-produced) fell ill, was so remarkable for the time since she was the only female member of the DGA in the fifties. She was more than a director, with her second husband she formed a production company and often used her acting fees to finance her low-budget pictures. A great actress as well and yet with all that multi hyphenate activity she never scored a single Oscar nomination!! The price of excellence-being taken for granted.
If "Behind the Cadelabra" had been released to theaters it would have earned a lot of Oscar nominations
It's been 17 years and I still use "The" when I go to Facebook on my computer.
hello
Great article on showbiz and the impact of Facebook. Indeed, social networks in our modern time can be of great importance for the development and promotion of business. Therefore, many companies have facebook business page through which they constantly communicate with customers and visitors. It is very convenient and necessary for the successful building of a business because the audience of this social platform is constantly growing.