Friday:
We note the death of three show business giants today. The first is George M. Cohan, who died in 1942. Cohan was the first Broadway star of the
modern age, a quadruple-threat who acted, wrote, composed, and produced scores of plays and musicals. Unlike the energetically over-the-top Oscar-winning portrayal of him by James Cagney in Yankee Doodle Dandy, Cohan's actual on-stage style was simple (despite the unfortunate blackface),
warm, and intimate, contrasting sharply with the bombast
of most other performers of the time.
In 1956, pianist Art Tatum died at the age of 47. Despite his near-blindness, Tatum
was certainly the greatest jazz pianist
who ever lived, if not the greatest musician, period. His dazzling runs
and breathtaking virtuosity have never been equaled. Vladimir Horowitz,
no mean piano player himself, was in awe
upon hearing Tatum's unrivaled technique and improvisational skills, saying
that if Tatum ever took up classical music, he'd quit the next day.
This day in 1960 saw the passing of Mack Sennett. In the 1910s and '20s, Sennett's film comedies
were unsurpassed.
He had a flawless eye for talent, discovering (among others) Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin, Gloria Swanson, Roscoe Arbuckle, Marie Dressler, Mabel Normand, Ben Turpin, and Harry Langdon.
Unfortunately, Sennett's vision did not include business
acumen, and his career began a slow decline with the coming of sound in the
late 1920s. He mostly retired in the mid-'30s, but spent the final
quarter-century of his life making occasional cameos in other people's comedies
and announcing projects that never quite got off the ground. His Keystone
comedies remain the gold standard for early silent comedy.
Sennett retired in 1935, but we don't know if he ever played Monopoly, the board game that was introduced by Parker Brothers
on this day in that year.
All this talk of movies has made us wonder just what’s opening today, and it’s
actually a fair bunch of films (none of which are summer blockbusters,
indicating it's probably the start of awards season). For example, there’s Fair Game,
starring Naomi Watts
as exposed CIA agent Valerie Plame and Sean Penn
as her husband Joseph Wilson; For Colored Girls, directed by the ubiquitous Tyler Perry, and starring Janet Jackson; Megamind, an animated superhero comedy starring the voices of Will Ferrell,
Brad Pitt, and Tina Fey; 127 Hours,
with James Franco as hiker Aron Ralston, who was forced to amputate his own arm when it became
trapped under a boulder; and Client 9, a documentary about former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer.
If motion pictures don't appeal to you, you might travel to England, to celebrate Guy Fawkes Night, which commemorates the 16th century plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament by burning scarecrow effigies of the "Gunpowder Plot's" alleged ringleader.
Saturday and Sunday:
Saturdays in the fall are college football days, and this is the anniversary of the day in 1869 when Princeton University (then known as the College of New Jersey) traveled to Rutgers College to play the first intercollegiate football game. (Rutgers
won, 6-4.)
What more appropriate way to celebrate that anniversary than by watching a
modern college football game? Perhaps you could make it better by watching that
game in Forest Grove, Oregon (fifteen miles west of Portland) and indulging in the Verboort Sausage and Kraut Dinner. Then throw in some delicious nachos as a part of National Nachos Day, and with all the resulting wind you'll be producing, you could
pick up your saxophone and blow a tune; after all, it is the 196th birthday of Antoine-Joseph (Adolphe) Sax, the inventor of both the saxophone and saxotromba, and hence, Saxophone Day.
Two more birthdays of note today. Thomas Ince
(1882), who in a brief 14-year career, wrote, directed, produced, or acted in nearly 200 movies,
and provided the fodder for one of Hollywood's first big scandals when he met his death on board the yacht of newspaper
magnate William Randolph Hearst.
While the official story was that Ince died of heart
trouble (at the age of 42), rumors have persisted that Hearst shot and killed
Ince over the latter’s undue interest in Hearst’s mistress, Marion Davies. (This incident supposedly led to the long career of gossip columnist Louella Parsons, who allegedly was a witness to the crime and supposedly given a
lifetime contract to shut her up.)
In 1892, Harold Ross was born in Aspen, Colorado. After working in his teen years on various newspapers and
serving as an editor on the Army’s paper Stars and Stripes
during World War I, he settled in New York City, founding and editing The New Yorker in 1925. For the last 85 years, it's been the gold
standard of American magazines, hailed for its in-depth reportage, fiction, and
cartoons.
Had Ross been near a television (still a relatively new invention) on his 55th
birthday in 1947, he could have watched the inaugural broadcast of Meet the Press, which began its reign as the longest-running
television show in the world on that day. After 63 years, the show can still make
news, unlike Sunday's other big event, the end of daylight saving time.
In spite of the fact that daylight saving ends every year, for reasons we'll
never be able to figure, our evening commute home is always plagued with
bumper-to-bumper traffic as people apparently forget how to drive in the dark. Since
we expect traffic to be bad, we'd better take off now.
See you next time!
Suggested Sites...
- George M. Cohan 101 - introduction to the "Man Who Owned Broadway."
- NPR - Art Tatum: A Talent Never to Be Duplicated - audio report on Tatum's life and legacy.
- History.com: The Gunpowder Plot - "remember, remember, the fifth of November."
- The First Intercollegiate Game - report on Rutgers vs. Princeton.
- The Mysterious Death of Thomas Ince - just what did happen on that yacht?
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