TODAY IS:

1. New Year’s Day
   1. Why is New Year’s day January 1^st?
      1. At first I thought it must have something to do with the re-birth of the sun; or the Winter Solstice.
      2. 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.
         1. Janus (as in the film company) is depicted with two faces; one looking forward and one looking back.
         2. The Romans would exchange gifts and attend ruckus parties. Not much different than today.  They also offered sacrifices.

• 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.

1. Before that the new year was March.

   Famous People’s Birthdays:

   1. Humphry Bogart 1899-1957
      1. Actor in more than 50 films.
      2. Warner Brothers changed his birthdate to January 23^rd because they felt any man born on Christmas day could not be a villain on screen.
      3. The American Film Institute selected him as the greatest male start of Classic American Cinema.
      4. In School he was cited for smoking, drinking and doing poorly in his studies.
      5. 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.
      6. Won the best actor academy award for “African Queen” and was nominated for a couple more.
      7. FILMS:
         1. Casablanca
         2. The Maltese Falcon
            1. Sam Spade from Dashiell Hammett
   • The Big Sleep
     1. Philip Marlow from Raymond Chandler. The two main detectives from the two Major CA cities.
   1. Key Largo
   2. The Kane Mutiny
   3. To Have and Have Not
   1. 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.
   2. Rod Sterling 1924-1975
      1. Bull’s Eye for a specialist like me, not a general lender.
      2. He was encouraged by his parents and helped him build a stage at home and let him put on plays, with or without friends.
      3. 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”
      4. 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. 
         1. We covered a lot about Beaumont last week, he wrote “the howling man” and many others for Twilight Zone.
      5. Stars who appeared in the series:
         1. William Shatner
         2. Denis Hopper
         3. Charles Bronson
         4. Robert Redford
         5. Lee Marvin
         6. Lenard Nimoy
         7. Martin Landau
         8. Donald Pleasance
         9. George Takei
         10. Inger Stevens
         11. Elizabeth Montgomery
         12. Ann Frances
      6. Honorable Mention:
         1. D. Salinger 1919-2010
            1. Catcher in the Rye and Banana Fish.
         2. Dana Andrews 1909-1992
            1. Night of the Demon
               1. Jacques Tourneur
               2. Val Lewton-showing monsters.
            2. Of course not Laura
   • Frank Langella 1938
     1. That we know of; the introduction of a romantic Dracula.
   4. Xavier Cugat 1900-1990
   5. Alfred Stieglitz 1864-1946

      This Day in History:

      1. 20 Thousand Leagues on December 23^rd, 1954.
         1. Directed by Disney’s competitor’s son Richard Fleisher.
         2. Oscars for Production design and best visual effects.
      2. The Innocents will be a subject for next week.