TODAY IS:

1. National Spinach Day
2. National Black Forrest Cake is the 28^th but so important to me and Ron Segal that it must be mentioned.
3. Saturday night is the first night of Passover.
4. The 28^th is weed appreciation day dedicated to all the weeds that spring up in yards, gardens and cracks in the sidewalk.
   1. Weeds after all are plants and many are very beneficial and for those stranded in the wilderness can be a life saver and not a nascence; providing food, shelter and oxygen.

Famous People’s Birthdays:

1. Leonard Nimoy 1931-2015
   1. American actor, film director, singer and author born in Boston to immigrants from Ukraine.
      1. His father owned a barber shop.
   2. He took miscellaneous jobs while growing up to supplement the family’s income such as selling newspapers and shining shoes. When he got older he sold vacuum cleaners.
      1. Can you imagine Spoke at your door with an electric gizmo?
   3. He also began acting at the age of 8 in a neighborhood theater, and began singing at 13 in his Synagogue’s choir.
   4. He took drama classes at Boston College and moved to Los Angeles and used $600 of vacuum cleaner earnings to enroll in Pasadena Playhouse.
      1. Marlin Brando was his role model and tried to dress like him. Not like Wally Cox.
   5. While studying, he took a job at an ice cream shop on the Sunset Strip.
   6. After being discharged from the army he became a cap driver while playing in several B movies and television series such as Perry Mayson, Dragnet, and serials like “Zombies of the Stratosphere”. Even small parts in “Them” and “The Brain Eaters”. 
   7. Best known for his role in the Star Trek television series and the films that followed.
      1. The series lasted from 1966 to 1969, but it’s offshoots continue to this day.
   8. Spoke’s skin was supposed to be reddish, but turned out to be greenish.
   9. The Vulcan salute is actually a Hebrew Blessing for a specific tribe.
   10. The Wrath of Kahn featured the first entirely computer generated sequence for the demonstration of the Genesis Device. Really a great film made especially so by the acting of Ricardo Montalban who revived his role from the television episode.
   11. Nimoy directed the most financially successful film in the franchise: Star Trek 4; The Voyage Home. He also directed Star Trek 3; The Search for Spock, not to mention the 1987 film “Three Men and a Baby” with Tom Selleck and Ted Danson.
   12. In 1970, after Star Trek was cancelled; Nimoy opened a pet shop dealing in exotic animals that he no doubt picked up on the many planets he visited.
   13. He released 5 albums of recordings and here are a couple of them. William Shatner also released albums as a singer.  He and Shatner became close friends that lasted until Nimoy passed away.
   14. In 1978, Nimoy starred in Philip Kaufman’s remake of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” with Donald Southerland, Jeff Goldblum and Brooke Adams and Veronica Cartwright who was also featured in “The Birds”.
   15. He rebuilt a camera at age 13 and in the 70s he studied photography at UCLA. He has had a few exhibitions including one at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary arts.
2. James Caan – 1940
   1. My wife cornered him near Columbus Circle to get his autograph.
   2. Born in the Bronx of Jewish immigrants from Germany and his father was a butcher and meat dealer.
   3. He attended Hofstra University in New York and one of his classmates was Frances Ford Coppola. He also studied acting at Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theater.  Then began appearing on off-Broadway productions and started to show up in some television series such as Naked City, Route 66, The Untouchables, Dr. Kildare, (50cent tip) Wagon Train and Death Valley Days. 
   4. His first film role was uncreated in Billy Wilder’s “Irma La Duce” with Jack Lemon and Shirley McClain.
   5. Movies:
      1. Rollerball
      2. Godfather
         1. With his classmate Francis Ford Coppola

• Misery

1. Thief
   1. Tangerine Dream
2. Funny Lady
3. Dick Tracey

• Bottle Rocket
  1. First Wes Anderson feature film.

3. Sterling Hayden 1916-1986
   1. A leading man who specialized in westerns and film noir.
   2. Born in New Jersey he dropped out of high school at 16 to take a job on a schooner from New London CT to Newport Beach CA.
   3. Later a fisherman in Newfoundland, ran a charter yacht, and served as a fireman on 11 trips to Cuba on a steamer. He also worked on large vessels and sailed around the world several time. 
   4. He was awarded his first command at 22 to skipper a square rigger from Mass to Tahiti in 1938.
   5. His photo was seen on the cover a sailing magazine and Paramount called him for a screen test and signed him for a seven year contract.
   6. After leaving the service he starred in John Huston’s “The Assault Jungle” then onto more westerns and Noir with Gloria Graham and Frank Sentara.
   7. His relationship with Stanly Kubrick started with “The Killing” in 1956 then his fantastic port rail of General Jack de Ripper in the classic “Dr. Strangelove”.
      1. I think that both he and George C. Scott should have shared the academy award for best actor for those roles. Another such rule that was a huge winner was Robert Shaw’s portrayal of Quint in Jaws.  This was a role that was first offered to Sterling Hayden but turned it down.

This Day in History:

1. Who returned payed by Christopher Ecclestone with his companion Rose.
2. The Birds were released on March 28^th
   1. Bud Cardos
      1. Associated with Sam Peckinpah and director of “The Day Time Ended”