New Year's Babies. Start Fresh!
I was an illustration major at university and one era we studied repeatedly was "The Golden Age". For illustrators that was roughly the 1900s through the 1940s. One of the the most sentimental traditions of this time was JC Leyendecker's 'New Years Babies' covers. The babies were always white and cutesy but weren't always "happy" and sometimes politics entered the picture. Here is the 1917 painting to your left a full one hundred years ago wherein there's a scary hole where Europe should be. This diapered cherub is not at all sure he wants to arrive into this (World War I was raging and would not end for another 23 months.)
The New Year's Baby tradition reminds us that whatever may be ending or happening, there are always opportunities for fresh starts. 2016 was a shit show but maybe a whole lot of really cool human beings that will one day be giants of the arts, world peace, human rights, or whatnot were born? Who knows what New Years Babies joining the world today future generations will worship the way society currently obsesses over, say, Meryl Streep or Ryan Gosling or [Insert Name Here].
HEREWITH A RANDOM COLLECTION OF MOVIE/TV RELATED NEW YEARS BABIES BY YEAR...
1879 - EM Forster, gay literary giant whose books made for delicious cinema (Howard's End, Maurice, A Room With a View, Where Angels Fear to Tread, A Passage to India)
1891 Charles Bickford, 3 time supporting actor Oscar nominee...