This year I've been visited by a completely different Italian-American Benevolent Organization, who've asked (more like threaten - they are a large group of business men of Italian ancestry from Bensonhurst after all) me to quit joking about Frank Sinatra's alleged mafia connections. And once again, we will not be resorting to that cheap gimmick to slander the Chairman of the Board, greatest singer of the 20th century.
It's Francis Albert Sinatra's birthday today. (Alright, was that what you wanted? And may I suggest that you let Mr. Teeny come home now, you really don't want to be around him when he gets surly.)
Today's holiday special: He wishes you the merriest.
December 12, 1954 -
BBC Television broadcasted the landmark adaptation of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighy-Four on this date. It is the most expensive drama produced to date.
When first screened by the BBC there were numerous public complaints and these led to questions being asked in the House of Commons. Although, following remarks by the Duke of Edinburgh that he and the Queen had "thoroughly enjoyed" the broadcast, the live repeat, four days later, attracted the largest television audience since the Coronation.
December 12, 1972 -
Irwin Allen's ocean disaster movie, The Poseidon Adventure, premiered in NYC on this date.
Shelley Winters gained 35 pounds for the part of Belle Rosen. Afterward she complained that she was never able to get back to her original weight no matter how hard she tried.
December 12, 1973 -
Columbia Picture released the Hal Ashby film The Last Detail, starring Jack Nicholson, Randy Quaid, Carol Kane and Michael Moriarty, on this date.
The script was completed in 1970, but contained too much profanity to be shot as written. Columbia Pictures waited for two years trying to get writer Robert Towne to tone down the language. Instead, by 1972, the standards for foul language relaxed so much that all the profanity was left in.
December 12, 1980 -
Well, whip it good!
Whip It earned Devo a gold record on this date. It is the first distinction of its kind for any song about masturbation to earn a gold record.
Today in History:
December 12, 1531-
It's the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
So now you know.
December 12, 1917 -
With a rent payment of $90 borrowed from a friend, Father Edward Flanagan founded Boys Town outside Omaha, NE in an old Victorian mansion on this date.
Flanagan's archbishop allowed Flanagan to focus on the boy's home and assigned nuns to help him.
December 12, 1937 -
Japanese aircraft shell and sink US gunboat Panay on the Yangtze River in China. Japan apologized, disciplining those involved and paying $2.2M reparations.
You think we might have seen something coming up.
December 12, 1968 -
If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner.
After a long and well enjoyed life, Tallulah Bankhead died in St. Luke's Hospital in New York City of double pneumonia, complicated by emphysema and malnutrition, on this date.
Her last coherent words reportedly were "Codeine... bourbon." (I must remember that, except substitute gin for bourbon.)
Before you go - only play this with the lights on
Now you know why the Chipmunks were so popular.
And so it goes.
There are 4 days until the start of Hanukkah.
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