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Category Archives: On This Day
“Groundhog Day was one of the greatest scripts ever written. It didn’t even get nominated for an Academy Award.” — Bill Murray
Yup. (It’s Murray’s birthday today.) I have often said that it’s interesting to consider what films made today might be considered classics to future generations. Something like Casablanca was not a “prestige picture”, it was not filmed with a ponderous … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Movies, On This Day, Television
Tagged Bill Murray, Elvis Presley, Sofia Coppola
8 Comments
“People get surprised by my choices. But that comes from me looking for something new.” — Maggie Cheung
People who love Maggie Cheung (and why wouldn’t you love Maggie Cheung?) really REALLY love her. She inspires a fervid love and fascination in her devoted worldwide fanbase, fanbase that has maintained its power for over three decades now. After … Continue reading
“I rather like the idea of death.” — poet Stevie Smith
Born on this day in 1902, in Hull, Yorkshire England, Stevie Smith was christened Florence Margaret, but was called “Stevie” by her friends. (She was a very petite woman: “Stevie” was the name of a famous jockey of the time.) … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged England, Michael Schmidt, Norton Anthology of Poetry, poetry, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
3 Comments
“I didn’t think then, and I still don’t, that I was actually sick.” — Frances Farmer
“She’ll come back as fire To burn all the liars And leave a blanket of ash on the ground.” — Nirvana, “Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle” It’s her birthday today. When Nirvana’s album In Utero came out … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Movies, On This Day, Theatre
Tagged Clifford Odets, Frances Farmer, Group Theatre
7 Comments
“I think I’m a character actress in a leading lady’s body, but the industry doesn’t really see me that way.” — Sanaa Lathan
It’s her birthday today. Sanaa Lathan is a wonderful actress: fluid,funny, unconventional in some of her responses, and with deep wells of emotion that you can feel- in a visceral way, coming off the screen. You don’t catch her working. … Continue reading
“I’ve been very lucky, considering what I look like and what I do.” — James Gandolfini
It’s his birthday today. 51 years old. It seems incomprehensible. Like a lot of people, he first came on my radar through the extraordinary scene in the motel room with Patricia Arquette in True Romance (“you gotta lotta heart, kid.”) … Continue reading
“I never said, ‘I want to be alone.’ I only said, ‘I want to be left alone.’ There is all the difference.” — Greta Garbo
It’s her birthday today. She is a difficult subject, not just because she was a private woman, but because her onscreen persona was so fluid, mercurial, hard to grasp. Her gestures could be operatic and swanlike (watch Grand Hotel), but … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Movies, On This Day
Tagged drama, Greta Garbo, H.D., historical drama, silent films, Sweden
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It’s the birthday of Irish poet Mícheál Ó hAirtnéide (Michael Hartnett)
“I’ll never forget reading his first short poems in the early sixties; they had a kind of hypnotic power, as if a new Orpheus had emerged from Newcastle West. He was Limerick’s Lorca.” — Seamus Heaney on Mícheál Ó hAirtnéide … Continue reading
“I was a pretty good imitator of Roy Acuff, but then I found out they already had a Roy Acuff, so I started singin’ like myself.” — Hank Williams
It’s his birthday today. He came to Nashville and he just set this whole world on fire. He was the first one to go to Las Vegas as a country singer, he was the first one in a major hotel … Continue reading
Posted in Music, On This Day
Tagged Eric Church, Johnny Cash, Wanda Jackson, Waylon Jennings
5 Comments
Happy Birthday, William Carlos Williams: “My whole life / has hung too long upon a partial victory.”
“No ideas but in things.” – from “Paterson”, by William Carlos Williams The first poems I read of William Carlos Williams, in high school English class, were the red wheelbarrow one and the one about the plums. I imagine that’s … Continue reading
