Showbiz History: Ellen Burstyn's big month and Corey Stoll appreciation
Sunday, March 14, 2021 at 9:44AM 8 random things that happened on this day, March 14th, in history...
1885 The Mikado, Gilbert & Sullivan's beloved comic opera, premieres in London. The Oscar winning film Topsy Turvy (1999) depicts its production in exquisite detail. Topsy-Turvy was a very late entry in the 1999 Oscar race and threw a lot of categories out of whack -- proving a formidable competitor to design heavy films like The Talented Mr Ripley and Sleepy Hollow. In the end it won Costume Design and Makeup and received nominations for Screenplay and Production Design. 1999 was a damn good film year, even if the actual Best Picture list was a sorry sorry slate...
1940 The Road to Singapore opens in movie theaters starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Dorothy Lamour. It's the first of seven "Road to..." films the three of them made togethe -- an early comedy franchise in film history.
marriage #1 or #2?
1943 Lana Turner remarries Stephen Crane just one month after their first marriage was annulled. That woman and offscreen drama! (She married eight times, as often as Liz!)
1966 The highly storied British adventure film Born Free about a couple adopting an orphaned lion, receives a Royal Film Performance in London a few days before its release.
1975 An untimely death for one of the biggest stars of the 1950s. Best Actress Oscar winner Susan Hayward dies at just 57 of brain cancer. Roughly half the cast and crew of Hollywood's Genghis Khan biopic The Conqueror (1956) were later diagnosed with various forms of cancer and speculation arose that they'd all been fatally exposed to fallout from atomic bomb testing in the 1950s in Utah (where the film was shot).
1975 Same Time Next Year opens on Broadway. A few months later Ellen Burstyn wins the Tony Award for Best actress (just 12 days after she had won the Best Actress Oscar for Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore.) Someone was having a good month!
1991 Howard Ashman dies of AIDS at 40 but his work lives on forever. Such awesome musicals: The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Little Shop of Horrors. Have you watched the documentary about him yet on Disney plus, Howard?
1997 The "special edition" of Return of the Jedi opens in theaters, adding yet more millions to the Lucasfilm coffers and amping up audiences for the prequels which arrived between 1999 and 2005
Today's Birthday Suit
Happy 45th to the sexiest bald man in Hollywood, Corey Stoll.
He's great in everything but we're especially fond of his turns in Midnight In Paris (2011), as Andrew Rannell's bossy bottom boyfriend on Girls (2016), as a sympathetic union member in North Country (2005) and as Buzz Aldrin in First Man (2017). 2021 is a stuffed year for him (though sadly no leading roles). He's in three films: the remake West Side Story, the Soprano's prequel Saints of Newark, and something called What We Do Next. Plus two TV projects, the miniseries Scenes from a Marriage, and voicework in the sci-fi series Pantheon.
Other showbiz birthdays today: Johnny Flynn, pictured left, who we were just talking about as a "sexpot" nominee for Emma and in regards to Emma's underpants free scenes in costume design, TFE favourite Jamie Bell (Billy Elliott, Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool), Oscar winner Michael Caine (Hannah and Her Sisters, Alfie), frequent Oscar host Billy Crystal (When Harry Met Sally, City Slickers), Bollywood's Aamir Khan (Lagaan, 3 Idiots), Mercedes McNab (Buffy, Addams Family Values), German director Wolfgang Peterson (Das Boot, Troy), Chris Klein (American Pie, Election), Meredith Salenger (Journey of Natty Gann, Lake Placid), Ansel Elgort (Fault in Our Stars, West Side Story remake), voice actor Gary Anthony Williams (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, American Dad), Johnny Flynn (Emma, Clouds of Sils Maria), Jaimie Alexander (Thor, Blindspot), Grace Park (Battlestar Galactica, Hawaii Five-O), James Frain (Star Trek Discovery, Tron Legacy), Daniel Gillies (The Originals, Bride & Prejudice) , Adrian Zmed (Grease 2, TJ Hooker), Corey Stoll (Midnight in Paris, Ratched), and 7 times Oscar nominated composer/producer Quincy Jones (The Color Purple, In Cold Blood)
Reader Comments (21)
The Howard Ashman doc on Disney+ is a must-see. I mourn for all he still had to offer, but celebrate everything he was able to do.
Susan Hayward would have slayed the 80's soaps like Dynasty, Hotel, etc.
I think a big part of the reason Susan Hayward isn't as well remembered as some of the biggest Golden Age actresses with her same sort of energy, Davis, Hepburn etc., is tied to her early death. She was just re-emerging, after a period of mourning following the sudden death of her husband, as a force in television. She had two very successful TV films the last of which, Say Goodbye, Maggie Cole would have gone to series had her illness not made that impossible that might have led to her being a prominent presence along the lines of Barbara Stanwyck or Angela Lansbury. She was such a force on screen it's terribly sad.
I know she's a long shot but I hope Ellen Burstyn manages to garner a nomination this year.
Love Corey Stoll, he works alot but he should still be a bigger star.
I miss the days when the Oscars and Tonys were close enough the time that the double win could be so overwhelming to the winner ("twice blessed!") and when stage performers could feel comfortable choosing their stage work over making awards show appearances (the way Laurie Metcalf had to keep flying west just to show up for awards shows during her Three Tall Women prep got so crazy that she barely made the Oscars red carpet during that last trip). And I am really hoping that tomorrow is a good day for Burstyn! The supporting actress category should be fluid enough to let her in and set that record!
Love Corey Stoll! He first came to my attention because of all the love on this site for his MIDNIGHT IN PARIS performance (which I loved as well), so now whenever I see him on screen I get excited to see what he does. Hope he can land that big role someday and get some awards love.
I don't think people realize how big the ROAD TO... films were in their day. ROAD TO RIO was, according to some sources, the top grossing film (US/Canada) in its year. (Records are fuzzy that far back.)
My favorite Corey Stoll performance is in Glass Chin. It may be hard to find, but it's well worth the search.
Corey Stoll stole the spotlight in Midnight in Paris. Now, that’s an actor who knew how to deliver lines.
Corey Stoll is Paul Rudd's sexy bald brother.
Too bad you have to single out bald men in a separate category.
Corey Stoll was phenomenal in House of Cards
re: Corey Stoll, also Yellow Jacket in "Ant Man" (memorable fight scene with "Closedown" by The Cure, inside a briefcase and later finished with a toy train) and star of the flawed del Toro series "The Strain".
re: Howard. Saw the documentary, extremely moving. Little Shop of Horrors is one of my favorite films and musicals of all time, so you can imagine how much it moved me... also the first time I ever saw an Oscar winner greet his boyfriend, which was a sign of visibility that I needed to start thinking in coming out (in an homophobic family)
wow, that was a formidable lineup in the leading actress in a play category that tony year
@brandz Gawd. People are triggered by EVERYTHING these days, aren't they? People say things like, "hottest ginger in the movies" or "sexiest new blonde on television" all the time. Relax.
Is Corey Stoll really paul rudd’ bro?
Taye Diggs, Djimon Hounsou and Mark Strong all give Stoll a run for his money in the sexiness department, one has to admit.
True Working Stiff, and welcome back to your old self. We all have cranky days.
Feline Justice. —— what does your reference to Rudd & Stoll being brothers mean?
Mark, God, no. Paul Rudd is very handsome.
Mark, I see a similarity between them. But maybe - probably - just me. 😉
Topsy Turvey!!! Imagine a film that good being overlooked at the Oscars. Nowadays it would be a lovely mini-series on HBO.