Showbiz History: Eddie Izzard, Blazing Saddles, and Berlinale Prizes
Sunday, February 7, 2021 at 9:00AM 10 random things that happened on this day, February 7th, in showbiz history
1914 Charlie Chaplin's world famous film character "The Tramp" debuts in Kid Auto Races at Venice
1940 Pinnocchio, Walt Disney's second full length animated feature premieres...
1944 Bing Crosby records "Swingin on a Star" which will go on to win the Oscar for Best Original Song for the film Going My Way
1974 Blazing Saddles opens in movie theaters. That year prove to be the peak of Mel Brooks' big screen popularity since at the end of the year he released ANOTHER comedy classic Young Frankenstein. They were the second and third highest grossing movies the year (only the all-star disaster film The Towering Inferno was more popular)
1986 Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters opens in theaters to instant critical success and good leggy box office. Yes, well before the Oscars for the previous year had even been handed out but it still scored big the following awards season.
1987 Madonna scores her fifth number one single with "Open Your Heart". By the end of the decade she had scored seven #1s, a distinction she shared with Whitney Houston. Only Michael Jackson bested them with eight #1s in the 1980s.
1988 Boxer Mike Tyson marries actress Robin Givens. There will be scandals and the media will be all over them through their divorce the following year; celebrity marriages without prenups always make the tabloids salivate.
2003 Kate Hudson taught us How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, new in theaters
2008 The 58th annual Berlinale begins with Martin Scorsese's documentary Shine a Light. Brazil's Elite Squad wins the Golden Bear at festival's end with Sally Hawkins taking Best Actress, the first of many prizes for her work in Happy-Go-Lucky.
... Neither has luck with Oscar later. Brazil selects another film to represent them (Last Stop 174) and Hawkins becomes one of those super-darlings of critics award season that fails to transfer to the Oscar shortlist.
2013 The 63rd annual Berlinale begins. Wong Kar Wai's The Grand Master opens the festival and Romania's Childs Pose with a brilliant savage performance from Luminita Gheorghiu closes the festivities and also wins the Golden Bear. Both are submitted for Oscar's International Feature category but Oscar's love goes elsewhere.
Today's Birthday Suit
Happy 59th to genius comedian Eddie Izzard who has had a busy month in the British press, announcing that she'd like to be the UK's first transgender Prime Minister while raising lots of money running 31 marathons in 31 days for "Make Humanity Great Again," a selection of charities.
True story: Three weeks ago before we heard this news we had a sudden hankering to watch one of her classic comedy specials only to discover that they aren't available to rent online -- UGH! But good news - if not great news since it does not involve a new comedy special -- she'll be back on TV soon playing a small town lawyer in a British Netflix drama series called Stay Close that will be filming soon.
Other showbiz birthdays today: Olympian and Tarzan / Flash Gordon star Buster Crabbe (pictured left) , Serbian director Predrag Antonijevic whose Oscar submission Dara of Jasenovac opens this week in virtual cinemas, Oscar nominated Argentinian-Brazilian director Hector Babenco (Carandiru, Kiss of the Spider-Woman), Oscar nominee Pete Postlethwaite (In the Name of the Father, The Town), James Spader (Pretty in Pink, sex lies and videotape), Tina Majorino (Corrina Corrina, Napoleon Dynamite) Miguel Ferrer (Robocop, Traffic), Deborah Ann Woll (True Blood, Daredevil), Hong Kong's Tony Liu (Fists of Fury, The Way of the Dragon), Chris Rock (Top Five, I Think I Love My Wife), Ashton Kutcher (That 70s Show, Just Married), Alexander Dreymon (The Last Kingdom, Christopher and His Kind), Eddie Bracken (The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, Rookie of the Year), Gloria Talbott (All That Heaven Allows, The Cyclops), Jock Mahoney (Tarzan Goes to India), Essence Atkins (A Haunted House, Same Difference), Philip Wiegrats ("Augustus" in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), David Castro (Shadowhunters, 27 Dresses), Japan's Keiko Tsushima (Seven Samurai, Fireworks Over the Sea), Taiwan's Gingle Wang (Detention, All Because of Love), stuntman Joey Box (I Am Legend, Charlies Angels, Star Trek), much adapted novelist Charles Dickens (Oliver!, A Christmas Carol, Great Expectations), writer Laura Ingalls Wilder (Little House on the Prairie), Puyi the child emperor of China (his story was told in The Last Emperor), country legend Garth Brooks, comedian Emo Phillips.
Reader Comments (17)
Wouldn't it had been awesome if Mel Brooks took home BOTH Screenplay Oscars that year? Adapted for Young Frankenstein and Original for Blazing Saddles. Difficult to choose which Madeline Khan performance was more worthy of the nomination, even, she's awesome in both. And the question, of which of both films was the closest to a Best Picture nomination...
It’s crazy to think Hawkins missed the nomination that year. Easily my winner. 2008 was a great year for actresses; not that you’d get that looking at the ones Oscar nominated. Imo only Hathaway deserved to be there;
@Nathaniel
Watching Amazon's "Uncle Frank"... actually pretty good? May I suggest a FYC for your Film Bitch Awards? For small role or cameo, Stephen Root... (Office Space, Get Out)... role is too tiny for normal Award contention but... his bits are maybe the best of an overall very good film?
Ah Buster Crabbe, the most beautiful face and the most ridiculous name. I sort of miss the days when winning a gold medal could turn you into a movie star as opposed to, say, releasing a sex tape or getting a lot of internet followers by saying outrageous things.
I had no idea Eddie Izzard was trasgender and I always refered her as he. I've only seen her on United States of Tara and some episodios of The Riches. My bad.
J -- she only *just* announced that she prefers she/hers pronoun. Before she often referred to herself as "gender-fluid" and a "transvestite" within her shows and in interviews.
Pinocchio's claim of being the "brightest, merriest, warmest entertainment of them all" intrigues me because I consider Pinocchio to be one of Disney's darkest animated movies. He gets locked in a cage, he and his friends are to be turned into donkeys and forced to work in salt mines, he's swallowed by a whale, and then dies saving his father. It's pretty dark.
Hannah and Her Sisters is such a delightful movie…I wanted to keep enjoying without complexity, but that's not possible anymore.
Even though it had been years since the movies were first released, the 1970s Mel Brooks movies were the movies of my childhood, watched daily with cousins over summer breaks. Many jokes went over our collective heads, but we quoted them nonstop anyway. (I asked my Mom what Trojans were, mentioned in History of the World, as a cameo-ing Henny Youngman said he "just ran out!" My Mom said Trojans were cigarettes. Made sense?)
Lastly, "Open Your Heart" is my personal best Madonna song.
Best (on this) day ever! :D
Flash Gordon!!!
(accept no substitutes)
Buster Crabbe should have been your birthday suit star- a man with a timeless beauty and whose images still have an erotic appeal.
Jaraon -- have actually posted about him a few times times so i like to surprise y'all. If you click here you'll see lots of sexy photos in other posts.
Who gets your vote for most beautiful male movie star of all time? My vote goes to Cornel Wilde. His body was insane.
Always hate the word ‘snubbed’ being bandied about as flippantly as it is but Sally Hawkins was the definition that year especially considering how she dominated the critics awards.
Robin Givens is an awful bitch who really messed up Tyson big time. Tyson admitted that they shouldn't have gotten married in the first place. She and her mother were controlling him as well as Don King. Plus, she was cheating on him with... oh now why you had to spoil it for everyone? Yes, it was Brad Pitt.
Pitt does owe Tyson some pussy money.
"Head them off at the pass! Head them off at the pass? I hate that cliche!"
thevoid99 -- can you please watch the misogyny in your commeents? I dont want to have to start deleting but lately your comments are getting more vulgar and more toxic about women. Please be more considerate when posting and think about what you're saying. I dont want to have to start moderating every comment again. I do not have the time.
HOW to lose a Man in 10 Days will never be considered "Great Aet" but it is a perfect rainy day romantic comedy.
HANNAH & Her Sisters will always be considered Great Art, but is a perfect any day romantic comedy.
I apologize but remember there is a difference between a lady and a bitch. *shrugs*