Tuesday, January 24, 2017 at 8:10AM The Oscar nominations for the 89th annual Academy Awards are announced within the hour (eep). But if you'd rather think about something else (you may have your reasons, crazy person) here are other things you could celebrate today...
Wednesday, November 16, 2016 at 7:39AM On this day in history as it relates to showbiz...
1873 WC Handy famous musician is born in Alabama. The first credited use of his music in a movie was in the original Scarface (1932). That same song "St Louis Blues" is his most popular with Hollywood and has been used in dozens of movies since including The Aviator and The Great Gatbsy recently. But Blue Jasmine got all feisty and went with "Aunt Hagar's Blues" instead.
1889 Playwright George S Kaufman is born. He wins two Pulitzers and his work has been adapted to films many times including classics like You Can't Take It With You, Dinner at Eight, The Man Who Came to Dinner and Stage Door.
1907 Oklahoma becomes the 46th State...
Thursday, October 20, 2016 at 8:00AM 
It's a big day for your Lord of the Rings fans, even if you don't know it. Read on.
On this day in history as it relates to the movies
1882 Bela Lugosi is born in what was then Hungary (and now Romania). He vants to suck your blood as the original big screen Dracula. A century later Martin Landau will win a justly deserved Oscar for playing him in Tim Burton's wonderful Ed Wood (1994).
1895 Rex Ingram, one of the earliest successful black actors in Hollywood was born. Credits include: The Thief of Baghdad (as the genie), Huckleberry Finn (as Jim), and Cabin in the Sky (as Lucifer Jr)...
1901 Frank Churchill is born in Maine. He wrote songs people still listen to today including "Baby Mine" from Dumbo and "Someday My Prince Will Come" from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Tragically he committed suicide at age 40 mere months after his winning his Oscar for Dumbo...
Tuesday, October 11, 2016 at 9:00AM Happy National Coming Out Day! Coming out may be a political act but it's also a personal one, and life-saving for most because who wants to live a lie? It also shifts the world like nothing else when it comes to civil rights for LGBT people. If you had told us in the 1980s how many celebrities would be "out" by 2016 we'd have cried tears of joy. Thanks to everyone who has been brave enough to change the larger world by changing their own. Ripple effects, people. One of my favorite annual events in this regard is Towleroad's "Most Powerful Coming Out" lists for each year. Here's 2015, 2014, 2013, and 2012. The most recent celebrity to publicly out themselves is Sara Ramirez of Grey's Anatomy and Spamalot! fame who is bisexual.
We don't watch Grey's Anatomy but any excuse to share Sara singing "Whatever Happened to My Part?" we'll take it.
IT'S THE UNOFFICIAL ANTHEM OF (SUPPORTING) ACTRESSING
But that's not the only thing to celebrate today, not even within Supporting Actressing. On this day in history as it relates to showbiz after the jump...
Wednesday, July 13, 2016 at 6:44AM On this day in history as it relates to the movies...
1793 Jean-Paul Marat is born in Prussia. Goes on to become a famous political activist and journalist during the French Revolution. His murder is dramatized in the famous play Marat/Sade (also known as The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade which was made into a film in 1968 starriing Patrick Macgee and Ian Richardson. I once saw a production of this play in Harlem and it was just fascinating.
1863 British Egyptologist, "Grandmother of Wicca" and proto-feminist Margaret Alice Murray is born in India. I only mention this because so many fascinating, influential and controversial women exist in history but we only ever get biopics of men. Why doesn't she have a biopic? It could be great.
1923 The iconic HOLLYWOOD sign is officially dedicated in California. It originally says "Hollywoodland" but the "land" is dropped twenty-six years later.
more after the jump
