Emma Thompson first achieved fame in her native England, on stage, television, and cinema. She made her Hollywood debut in 1994, starring alongside Danny Devito and Arnold Schwaregnegger in the not-so-successful movie Junior.
Emma Thompson starred in the noir thriller Dead Again, released in 1991 by Paramount. She was praised for her dual roles as Grace, a woman from the 1990s suffering from amnesia, and Margaret, a concert pianist who was killed in the 1940s. Other actors in the film included Kenneth Branagh, her husband at the time, also in a dual role, Derek Jacobi and Robin Williams.
(Surely this was Thompson’s Hollywood debut, and not Junior?)
John Cazale, the actor who played Fredo in The Godfather, appeared in only five films, but all five were nominated for Best Picture: The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather Part II, Dog Day Afternoon, and The Deer Hunter.
John Cazale studied drama at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, but later transferred to Boston University. The Godfather, in which he appeared with his good friend Al Pacino and his idol Marlon Brando, was his screen debut. He later died of lung cancer at age 42; Meryl Streep was his lover at the time.
One of Allan Sherman’d few songs that doesn’t parody an existing song is Pop Hates the Beatles, which ends:
Back in 1776, we fought the British then folks.
Parents of America, it’s time to do it again, folks.
When they come back here’s how we’ll begin:
We’ll throw them in Boston harbor,
But please, before we toss them all in.
Let’s take them to a barber.
One of Johnny Horton’s upbeat, jingoistic songs, “Johnny Freedom”, begins
*When our country was a baby and the Redcoats had their way
Is was he who had a party tossin’ tea in Boston Bay
It was he who braved the winter in the days of Valley Forge
Fightin’ side by side together with a fella name of George
Johnny Freedom, Johnny Freedom
You can meet him on each page of history
He’s the spirit of America
Our country’s pride and joy*
Horton’s recordings of “The Battle of New Orleans” and “Sink the Bismarck!” (the Blues Brothers cover version was cut from the movie) are more deeply embedded in popular culture.
Blind Lemon Jefferson was blind and his first name was Lemon. He was one of the most popular blues singers of the 1920’s and has been called the “Father of the Texas Blues”.
Blind Lemon Jefferson is generally considered to be one of the pioneers of the blues. Others include Son House, Leadbelly, Charlie Patton and Robert Johnson.
Blind Lemon Jefferson’s protege T-Bone Walker was a heavy on Goree Carter, whose “Rock Awhile” (1949) featured an over-driven electric guitar style and has been cited as a strong contender for the “first rock and roll record” title.
Blind Lemon Jefferson’s name has been spoofed several times in media, including:
- On the TV comedy Sanford and Son, Fred Sanford’s favorite blues artist was “Blind Mellow Jelly”
- By the comedians Cheech and Chong, who referred to “Blind Melon Chitlin” on several albums
- In the video game Fallout: New Vegas, in which there was an AI jukebox named “Blind Diode Jefferson”
Gorée Island in Dakar, Senegal had a role in the slave trade whose volume is a matter of historical dispute, but is the site of the House of Slaves and its Door of No Return through which they left Africa.
ETA, Elendils’ Heir style: Blind Lemon Jefferson was descended from enslaved Africans.
President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama visited Goree Island in June 2013. The controversy over just how significant a site it is, historically, continues.
Greenland is the largest island in the world, with an area of 839,999 square miles.
Australia has an area of almost 3 million square miles. But, because Australia is defined as a continent, it is not considered an island.
According to Britannica, an island is a mass of land that is both “entirely surrounded by water” and also “smaller than a continent.”
Okay, then.
Australia is the only country that is larger than a continent. It includes the continent of Australia, and the islands of Tasmania, Norfolk Island, Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and several largely uninhabited external territories: Ashmore and Cartier Islands, Coral Sea Islands, and Heard Island and McDonald Islands. Australia also claims a portion of Antarctica as the Australian Antarctic Territory, although this claim is not widely recognized.
The only major part of Antarctica not claimed as sovereign territory is Marie Byrd Land, which even by Antarctic standards is hard to get to. It is roughly the same size as Alaska.
Marie Byrd Land was named by polar explorer Richard Byrd for his wife, Marie Donaldson Ames. Byrd was a descendant of one of the First Families of Virginia. His ancestors include planter John Rolfe and his wife Pocahontas, William Byrd II of Westover Plantation, who established Richmond, and Robert “King” Carter, a colonial governor. He was the brother of Virginia Governor and U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd, a dominant figure in the Virginia Democratic Party from the 1920s until the 1960s.
Fifteen unpledged Democratic electors voted for U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia, a segregationist, in the 1960 Presidential election, although he did not run and did not request their votes. Democratic nominee Sen. John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts nevertheless won the Electoral College over Republican nominee Richard M. Nixon of California, Vice President at the time, by 303 to 219.
Alabama Governor George Wallace, running on a fiercely segregationist platform in the 1968 US presidential election, was the last third-party nominee to carry a state. His running mate was the creator of the USAF Strategic Air Command, Gen. Curtis LeMay.
Strategic Air Command was disbanded in 1992, and its various roles parcelled out to other parts of the Air Force. Strategic nuclear forces are now operated by the much worse-named Air Force Global Strike Command, based in Barksdale AFB in Louisiana.
New Orleans, Louisiana born jazz trumpeter, singer, and composer Kermit Ruffins
performed a rendition of The Bare Necessities for Disney’s 2016 remake of The Jungle Book, alongside actor Bill Murray.