Showbiz History: The Best Cannes Year? The Birth of Cher!

Here are 10 things worth celebrating on this day in showbiz history, May 20th.

Federico Fellini and Jeanne Moreau were both winners at the 1960 Cannes festival but they look none too happy about it!

1891 Thomas Edison's prototype kinetoscope gets its first public display (to the National Federation of Women's Club). Could any of them have imagined the colossal artform that would spring forth in those early days?

1960 The 13th annual Cannes Film Festival wraps up with Federico Fellini's masterpiece (well, one of them at any rate) La Dolce Vita taking the Palme d'Or. The competition lineup was insanely rich...

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50th Anniversary: Bob Fosse's "Sweet Charity"

by Eric Blume

Fifty years ago today, audiences saw their first Bob Fosse film:  Sweet Charity, the Cy Coleman/Dorothy Fields musical for which he won the Tony for Best Choreography three years earlier.  It’s fascinating to look back at this movie five decades later to see all the seeds that Fosse later brought to fruition in his subsequent films...

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It's Finally Here -- Happy Oscar Day!

Just chanced upon this image of Best Actress competitors Judy Holliday and Gloria Swanson freaking out with joy at Jose Ferrer's Oscar win for Cyrano de Bergerac (1950). Gloria, naughty naughty, he just beat your amazing costar William Holden in Sunset Boulevard!

After the jump, a very random Beauty Break of glorious moments from past Oscar nights to whet your appetite for tonight...

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Albert Finney (1936-2019)

by Nathaniel R

We had dreaded this day coming. Albert Finney has passed away at 82 years of age from a chest infection. He'd been battling health troubles for years, which is why the filmography abruptly ends at Skyfall (2012) but what a elegiac blockbuster of a swansong, yes? In recent years we'd repeatedly suggested him for an Honorary Oscar but the Academy rarely listens to our brilliant ideas. Instead he'll retain the sad distinction of being the second most-nominated male movie star never to have received a competitive OR honorary Oscar behind only Richard Burton (Character actor Arthur Kennedy was also nominated 5 times without a win, mostly in supporting, but he wasn't a headliner like Finney). But, as we've often said, awards aren't everything and cinematic legacy is far more crucial. And that, Albert Finney has. He will live on given that impressive filmography filled with rich performances.

Finney wasn't born to a family in showbusiness but was in the right place at the right time to capitalize on the 'angry young man' and kitchen sink era of British filmmaking -- he reportedly disliked "snobbery" enough to turn down the British Knighthood the year of Erin Brockovich (2000). Despite humble origins he was a quick success as an actor landing his first professional gigs on stage and TV by the age of 19. At the age of 24 he was an immediate movie star... 

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62 days until the Oscars

On this countdown occasion, the role of Best Actress 1962 will be played by Miss Anne Bancroft "Dear Joan," Miss Joan Crawford.

If Gaga or Glenn go absent in 62 days who should they have thank them for the gold?