Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey were a very successful comedy team of the 1930s, appearing in a series of short subjects. Woolsey died at the height of their fame in 1938, one reason why the duo faded into obscurity.
Alan Bean, the lunar module pilot of Apollo 12 and the fourth man to walk on the moon, was born in Wheeler, Texas.
The Texas Wheelers was a short-lived comedy on ABC about a father who abandoned his family, only to return and raise the children after their mother died. The show starred Jack Elam, Gary Busey, Mark Hamill and Lisa Eilbacher; and the theme song was written and performed by John Prine.
King John was forced by his fractious barons to sign Magna Carta at the meadow of Runnymede in 1215, not far from Windsor Castle. Magna Carta was an important check on royal power and is now recognized as an important early charter of civil liberty.
Magna International, a conglomerate, is the largest auto-parts manufacturer in Canada. It is chaired by Frank Stronach, father of Belinda Stronach, a Canadian MP who changed parties from the Conservatives, whose leadership she had once contested, to Liberal in 2005 in order to join the Cabinet, and not incidentally preventing the Tories from defeating PM Paul Martin’s government in a no-confidence vote.
Frank Sinatra, born in Hoboken, N.J., was honored at the Kennedy Center Honors in 1983 and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan in 1985 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1997.
Besides Sinatra, other famous people who have lived in Hoboken include painter Willem de Kooning, tennis player Michael Chang, actress Pia Zadora, and miserly “Witch of Wall Street” Hetty Green.
Pia Zadora, who despite her role as a young Martian girl who sings “Hooray for Santy Claus” in the movie Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, actually had a fairly successful singing career in Europe to go with her MST3K-worthy film career (1982’s *Butterfly *was notably laughable). Along with her wealthy, gold-dug husband, she bought Pickfair, the Hollywood mansion built for Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Mary Pickford. She earlier attended the same high school as Ray Romano and David Caruso, Our Lady Queen of Martyrs in Forest Hills, NY.
There is an apocryphal story in theatrical circles that Pia Zadora once appeared in a stage production of The Diary of Anne Frank which was so bad that, when the Nazi troops arrived, someone in the audience shouted, “They’re in the attic!”
Miep Gies was the Dutch employee who hid Anne Frank and her family in the 1940s and who gathered the pieces of Anne Frank’s diary and kept them for publication. She died this year a month shy of her 101st birthday at her home in Noord-Holland. A planet is named in her honor.
Pluto, the outermost planet in the solar system, was first discovered in 1930 by Clyde W. Tombaugh at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff Arizona. Astronomers had long predicted that there would be a ninth planet in the Solar System, which they called Planet X. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union declared that Pluto was actually one of 44 “dwarf planets,” a category which includes the asteroid Ceres and 2003 UB313, nicknamed “Xena,” as well as Pluto’s own moon, Charon.
An asteroid, actually: Meanings of minor-planet names: 99001–100000 - Wikipedia
Clyde was the name of the orangutan in the Clint Eastwood action comedies Every Which Way But Loose and Every Which Way You Can.
The Alvin Show, which was the first TV show featuring Alvin and the Chipmunks, had a secondary feature starring inventor Clyde Crashcup. It’s believed that Clyde’s last name was a variation on Lee Grosscup, who was backup quarterback for the New York Giants (and later a starter for the NY Titans) at the time the show was being developed. Grosscup’s full name was Clyde Lee Edward Grosscup.
Alvin “Creepy” Karpis (ne’ Karpowicz) became a member of the “Ma Barker Gang” after serving the final year of a prison sentence with one of her sons. He was not present at their famous gun battle with the FBI) but claimed in his autobiography that Ma Barker was a simple old woman who disapproved of her sons’ activities and never fired a gun- he stated that J. Edgar Hoover reinvented her as a willing participant in her sons’ crimes to justify her killing by his men. He also claimed that he taught much younger fellow inmate Charles Manson to play the guitar. Some of his wilder claims have been proven false and others proven true so it’s not really known how much credence to give him.
The MY Bob Barker is a ship which has been involved in campaigns against the Japanese whaling industry. Owned by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, it was originally a Norwegian whale chaser before being deleted from Norway’s registry in 2004. After being sold to a Cook Islands concern, it was purchased by the conservation group thanks largely to a $5,000,000 donation from Barker, who advocated spaying and neutering pets during his run as host of The Price is Right and continues as a crusader for animal rights.
De Wolfe Hopper was a vaudeville superstar, best known today because he popularized the poem “Casey at the Bat.” But he starred in 30 Broadway musicals and was a major star. For his fifth wife, he married Elda Furry, who took the stage name of Hedda Hopper. While she was not a big success on stage or film, but she got a job as a gossip columnist in 1938. “Hedda Hopper’s Hollywood” was a sensation and she was arguably the most powerful gossip columnist ever (with competition from Louella Parsons). Hopper was not only famous, but she also was vindictive and vicious, perfectly willing to ruin careers to advance her own (or to threaten to). She was known for her outlandish hats and appeared both on TV and movies as herself.
What DeWolf thought of this is unknown. He died in 1935.
Ed Sullivan was a New York-based gossip/entertainment columnist. He had his share of feuds, notably with rival columnists Walter Winchell and Dorothy Kilgallen. Once, when New York World-Telegram critic Harriet Van Horne wrote a negative review of his TV show, he sent her a letter consisting of: “Dear Miss Van Horne: You bitch. Sincerely, Ed Sullivan.”
Nicole Sullivan of MADtv, Scrubs, and The King of Queens fame is the daughter of Ed Sullivan. However, her dad was not the “really big shoo” guy, but a New York state Assemblyman who represented Manhattan’s Upper West Side in Albany from 1977-2002.
Ed Sullivan is the subject of Hymn for a Sunday Evening, a song from BYE BYE BIRDIE, an homage to “my favorite human” by Harry Macafee and his family. Paul Lynde played Harry Macafee in the Broadway and the original film versions; George “NORM!” Wendt played the role in a TV movie remake.
President Harry S. Truman spoke to a gathering of veterans at Arlington National Cemetery, against the advice of the Secret Service, just hours after a failed assassination attempt against him by Puerto Rican nationalists at Blair House.