TODAY IS:
- New Year’s Day
- Why is New Year’s day January 1st?
- At first I thought it must have something to do with the re-birth of the sun; or the Winter Solstice.
- It yet may, but the historical answer lies with Julius Cesar, who in 46 BC instituted the new year holiday to honor the Roman God Janus; God of Beginnings.
- Janus (as in the film company) is depicted with two faces; one looking forward and one looking back.
- The Romans would exchange gifts and attend ruckus parties. Not much different than today. They also offered sacrifices.
- Why is New Year’s day January 1st?
- In order to align the Roman Calendar with the Sun; Cesar added 90 extra days to the calendar that introduced the new Julian Colander that more closely aligned with the sun and our current calendar.
- Before that the new year was March.
Famous People’s Birthdays:
- Humphry Bogart 1899-1957
- Actor in more than 50 films.
- Warner Brothers changed his birthdate to January 23rd because they felt any man born on Christmas day could not be a villain on screen.
- The American Film Institute selected him as the greatest male start of Classic American Cinema.
- In School he was cited for smoking, drinking and doing poorly in his studies.
- After returning from the Navy he tried screen writing and production with friend Spenser Tracey. With all else failing, he tried acting and we know the rest of the story.
- Won the best actor academy award for “African Queen” and was nominated for a couple more.
- FILMS:
- Casablanca
- The Maltese Falcon
- Sam Spade from Dashiell Hammett
- The Big Sleep
- Philip Marlow from Raymond Chandler. The two main detectives from the two Major CA cities.
- Key Largo
- The Kane Mutiny
- To Have and Have Not
- Interesting point about the filming of “Beat the Devil”, When Bogart was in a serous car accident that knocked out most of his teeth; Peter Sellers stepped in to record Bogart’s dialogue that he missed.
- Rod Sterling 1924-1975
- Bull’s Eye for a specialist like me, not a general lender.
- He was encouraged by his parents and helped him build a stage at home and let him put on plays, with or without friends.
- We all know him from The Twilight Zone television show that ran from 1959-1964; he also wrote such plays as “Requiem for a Heavyweight”, “7 Days in May” and “Planet of the Apes”
- First choice for the name of the series Twilight Zone was The Time Element. The first writers he hired were Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont.
- We covered a lot about Beaumont last week, he wrote “the howling man” and many others for Twilight Zone.
- Stars who appeared in the series:
- William Shatner
- Denis Hopper
- Charles Bronson
- Robert Redford
- Lee Marvin
- Lenard Nimoy
- Martin Landau
- Donald Pleasance
- George Takei
- Inger Stevens
- Elizabeth Montgomery
- Ann Frances
- Honorable Mention:
- D. Salinger 1919-2010
- Catcher in the Rye and Banana Fish.
- Dana Andrews 1909-1992
- Night of the Demon
- Jacques Tourneur
- Val Lewton-showing monsters.
- Of course not Laura
- Night of the Demon
- D. Salinger 1919-2010
- Frank Langella 1938
- That we know of; the introduction of a romantic Dracula.
- Xavier Cugat 1900-1990
- Alfred Stieglitz 1864-1946
This Day in History:
- 20 Thousand Leagues on December 23rd, 1954.
- Directed by Disney’s competitor’s son Richard Fleisher.
- Oscars for Production design and best visual effects.
- The Innocents will be a subject for next week.
- 20 Thousand Leagues on December 23rd, 1954.
- Humphry Bogart 1899-1957