Walt Disney pulled strings and got James Baskett awarded an honorary Oscar for his performance as Uncle Remus in the 1946 Song of the South, making him the first African-American male to win one. Baskett was not allowed to attend the film’s premiere in Atlanta, Georgia because Atlanta was racially segregated by law.
American poet William Carlos Williams was a practicing physician in New Jersey for most of his adult life; he served as Passaic General Hospital’s chief of pediatrics from 1924 until his death in 1963 at age 79. A number of his poems were first written down on the backs of prescription forms, especially when he was returning from house calls. He typed other poems in his office between seeing patients.
Unlike other poets of his time (such as T.S.Eliot and Ezra Pound) whose work was scholarly and loaded with classical allusions, Williams strove to capture the language of ordinary Americans, like his poetic hero Walt Whitman. Working with the suffering and the poor, Williams heard what he called the “inarticulate poems” of his patients.
While James Earl Jones has won 2 Tonys, 2 Emmys, and a Grammy Award, his only Oscar is an Honorary one. Yes, James Earl Jones NEVER won a competative Academy Award. Yes, James Earl Jones.
Technically, he is a member of the EGOT Club, but still…,.
James Earl Ray, born in 1928, was arrested and charged with the 1968 murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Following his arrest, Ray confessed to the crime to escape the death penalty. He was given a sentence of 99 years with no possibility of parole.
Ray later recanted his confession and said he was part of a larger conspiracy to assassinate the civil rights leader. Subsequent investigations yielded mixed results regarding the conspiracy.
Ray died in prison in 1998 at the age of 70.
The three tramps are three men photographed by several Dallas-area newspapers under police escort near the Texas School Book Depository shortly after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Since the mid-1960’s, various allegations have been made about the identities of the men and their involvement in a conspiracy to kill Kennedy. Records released by the Dallas Police Department in 1989 identified the men as Gus Abrams, Harold Doyle, and John Gedney.
On Nov. 11, 1963, President Kennedy laid a Veterans Day wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. Exactly two weeks later, he was buried there.
Actors have played President John F. Kennedy in the films The Missiles of October, Thirteen Days, Killing Kennedy, Jackie and 11.22.63, among others.
Stephen Lightfoot is convinced that this photo is actually 11.22.1963’s author Stephen King getting John Lennon’s autograph, and that King later assassinated Lennon. However, Stephen King is 6’3," John Lennon is 6’ and the guy in the photo is about 5’8".
Stephen King included references to the Shop, a top-secret US Government research, development and dirty-tricks agency, in Firestarter, The Mist and the expanded edition of The Stand.
Brigadoon’s song “Heather on the Hill” includes the line “The mist of May is in the gloaming.” Gloaming is a Scottish word for dusk or twilight.
The “Homer in the Gloamin’” was a game-winning home run, hit by Chicago Cubs catcher Gabby Hartnett, in a game against the Pittsburgh Pirates on September 28, 1938. The nickname for the play came from the popular song “Roamin’ in the Gloamin’.”
The game was tied 5-5 entering the 9th inning, and darkness was beginning to fall. As Wrigley Field did not have lights (and would not for another 50 years), the umpires had ruled that the 9th inning would be the final inning of the game; under the rules of that time, if the game were still tied after that inning, it would have to be replayed in its entirety the following day. As the Pirates and Cubs were locked in a fight for the National League pennant, the game’s outcome was highly important.
With two out in the bottom of the 9th, and the score still tied, Harnett hit a 0-2 pitch into the darkness, and over the wall for a home run. The win gave the Cubs the lead in the National League, which led to the pennant a few days later.
Wrigley Field tradition is that any visitors’ home run ball must be thrown back onto the field. Ball-catching people standing outside, on Waveland or Sheffield Avenues, are obliged to make relay throws into the bleachers, where a fan who bought a ticket will complete the task. The tradition seems to have begun in 1969, when Hank Aaron refused the return of a home run ball there, angry at having beer dumped on him by Wrigley bleacher “fans”. The same fan caught another Aaron ball the next year, and threw it back to him.
Hank Azaria is best known for his voice characterizations as a variety of Simpsons’ characters, including Moe Szyslak, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, Chief Wiggum, Comic Book Guy, Carl Carlson and others. He had joined the series with little voice acting experience, but became a regular in its second season. Matt Groening once remarked “You give the character’s words to Hank and he just nails it. Every Time.”
“A dingo ate my baby” is a cry falsely attributed to Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton upon realisation of the loss of her baby daughter Azaria Chamberlain in 1980, at Uluru, Northern Territory, Australia. Meryl Streep played Chamberlain in the movie Evil Angels (1988) – (also known as A Cry in the Dark).
For a time, Matt Groening worked at the Los Angeles Reader, an alternative newspaper. His comic strip, Life in Hell, made its official debut in the Reader in 1980. Groening also had his own weekly music column, “Sound Mix,” which started in 1982. However, the column would rarely actually be about music, as he would often write about his “various enthusiasms, obsessions, pet peeves and problems” instead. In an effort to add more music to the column, he “just made stuff up,” concocting and reviewing fictional bands and nonexistent records. In the following week’s column, he would confess to fabricating everything in the previous column and swear that everything in the new column was true.
“Angel” was a spinoff series from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” which speaks well to the quality of that series. But Buffy can’t hold a candle to “All in the Family,” which spawned SEVEN spinoffs either directly or from spinoffs: Maude, Good Times, The Jeffersons, Archie Bunker’s Place, Checking In, Gloria, and the short-lived 704 Hauser.
Happy Days also resulted in SEVEN different spin-off series, including two that were animated: Laverne & Shirley, Blansky’s Beauties, Mork & Mindy, Out of the Blue, Joanie Loves Chachi, The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang (animated) and Laverne & Shirley with Special Guest Star The Fonz (animated).
Happy Days ran from 1974 to 1984. Earlier, after his first audition for Arthur Fonzarelli, when Henry Winkler got the callback, he was taken aback when he saw that the other contender was former Monkees drummer Micky Dolenz. According to Dolenz, Winkler admitted to him later that he had thought, “Oh crap, Micky Dolenz is here. I’ll never get it!” Dolenz was Garry Marshall’s original choice to play Fonzie, on the strength of a recent guest appearance he had made as a biker on Adam-12. But at six feet tall, Dolenz towered over the five-foot-nine Ron Howard, so Winkler was deemed a better fit.
Both Monkees Mickey Dolenz and Mike Nesmith used variations of their middle name of “Michael.” Mickey’s first name is George, and Mike’s first name is Robert.
Tim Allen played Jason Nesmith, who played Commander Peter Quincy Taggart of the starship NSEA Protector on “Galaxy Quest”.