May 18, 1896 -
Bram Stoker’s novel, retitled just before its release on this date, as Dracula, tells the story of the Count’s attempt to relocate from Transylvania to England, and his subsequent battle with a group of men and women led by Professor Abraham Van Helsing.
Over 200 films have featured Dracula in a major role, a number second only to Sherlock Holmes. Arguably the classic portrayal remains the one by Bela Lugosi in 1931.
May 18, 1955 -
The classic film noir that introduced Mike Hammer to cinema, Kiss Me Deadly, opened in Los Angeles on this date.
Although Victor Saville is credited as Executive Producer and Director Robert Aldrich is credited only as Producer, in reality, Aldrich had it written into his contract that he had complete control over the picture, and it would be made the way he wanted it, specifically stipulating that his decisions could not be overruled by any studio representative.
May 18, 1968 -
Archie Bell & the Drells' single, Tighten Up hit No. #1 on the Billboard charts, on this date. It is one of the earliest funk hits in music history.
Archie Bell & The Drells were a soul group signed to Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff's record label. Gamble and Huff were prolific songwriters, but this song was written by Bell and the group's guitarist, Billy Butler.
May 18, 1975 -
Tammy Wynette's single Stand By Your Man, hits No. 1 on the Billboard Charts, on this date.
Tammy Wynette wrote this with Billy Sherrill, a producer, songwriter and record executive who signed Wynette to Epic Records after other labels rejected her.
May 18, 1976 -
Warren Zevon releases his self-titled album, produced by Jackson Browne, on this date.
Warren Zevon's eponymous second album came out six years after his first. In the years between, he took musical odd jobs like writing jingles, but he also performed and caught the attention of Jackson Browne, who helped him land a record deal. There are a lot of big names on the album; Stevie Nicks, Bonnie Raitt, Lindsey Buckingham, Don Henley and Glenn Frey all participated.
May 18, 1978 -
The biopix about the life of Buddy Holly, The Buddy Holly Story, starring Gary Busey premiered in Lubbock Texas on this date.
Buddy Holly's widow, Maria Elena Holly, controlled his estate as executor and administrator. She, producer Fred Bauer, director Steve Rash, and executive producer Edward H. Cohen agreed that no big-name star could play Buddy because the film's emphasis would shift toward the star. The actor had to be able to perform professionally in the numerous music sequences. Unlike most music-oriented films, all music would be staged, performed, and recorded on the film's soundtrack.
May 18, 1985 -
Simple Minds song Don't You Forget About Me went to No.1 on the Billboard charts on this date.
Keith Forsey and Steve Schiff wrote this song specifically for The Breakfast Club. Forsey, who also co-wrote Shakedown for Beverly Hills Cop II and the title song to Flashdance... What a Feeling, was in charge of the music on The Breakfast Club. Schiff had been a guitarist in Nina Hagen's band and co-wrote one of her biggest songs, New York / N.Y.
May 18, 1990 -
For a reason few people really understand, CBS TV aired the TV film, Return to Green Acres, on this date.
It was reported that Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor were extremely close friends during the run of the show and the chemistry between them often showed in scenes where they were in close proximity, as one is often always touching the other. Their friendship was said to be very similar to how they played as husband and wife, and when Gabor died in 1995, Albert was extremely devastated and deeply heartbroken. After he died, he was buried only a few yards away from Gabor's resting place in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.
May 18, 1991 -
R.E.M. go to #1 in America with their seventh album, Out of Time, which features the tracks Losing My Religion and Shiny Happy People.
The positive critical reviews of the album quickly translated to sales, with Out Of Time rapidly outstripping expectations. Selling around 4.5 million copies in the US alone, the album topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic and just kept right on selling. A fixture on the US Billboard 200 for a whopping 109 weeks, it also enjoyed multi-platinum success in countries such as Australia, Germany and the Netherlands, and eventually went on to shift upwards of 18 million copies worldwide.
May 18, 1998 -
The final episode (or so we thought) of Murphy Brown, Never Can Say Goodbye, aired on CBS-TV on this date. (The re-boot of the series ran for about a year.)
One of the running series jokes was Murphy Brown's inability to get a good secretary or one that could work with her. During the show's 10-year run, Murphy had a total of 93 secretaries. (During my run as an executive at a multinational entertainment corporation that I am legally barred from mentioning it, I had a total of 17 secretaries, including one who didn't like to file. After we could find certain documents, she was let go. My staff then created a contest of hunting down where she stashed various files. Best location - in the ceiling.)
May 18, 2001 -
DreamWorks released the animated comedy Shrek, featuring the voices of Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, and Cameron Diaz, in the US on this date.
The principal actors never met each other. They all read their parts separately, with a reader feeding them the lines. John Lithgow later admitted that, while he enjoyed playing Lord Farquaad, he was a little disappointed that he never actually worked directly with Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, or Eddie Murphy.
Another ACME Safety Film
Today in History:
On May 18, 1843, Joseph Smith made a specific prophecy -
Frank Capra was born on May 18, 1897, and Jimmy Stewart was born on May 20, 1908. Without them we would not have had such American classics as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Mr. Smith Goes Back to Washington, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington Again, Mr. Smith: His Big Hands and His Even Bigger Feet, The Koch Brothers present Mr. Smith and the Tea Party, Mr. Smith is Really Very Serious about Term Limits and Mr. Smith Drops Dead in A Senate Cloakroom (astride a male intern.)
The duo also gave us It's a Wonderful Life with its own magnificent sequels: It's a Really Wonderful Life, It Just Doesn't Get Any Better Than Life and Life Is Just So Damn Good I Don't Know Whether to Take a Dump or Go Blind.
May 18, 1926 -
Aimee Semple McPherson, possibly the most famous woman in America at the time, went for a swim in the Pacific Ocean at Venice Beach and disappeared. McPherson was a hugely popular evangelist; she had a radio following of over a million, so when she disappeared, police pulled out all stops to try to find her.
She reappeared a month later, claiming to have been kidnapped, but it quickly became apparent that she had stepped out with a married engineer from her radio station, Kenneth Ormiston. The scandal rocked her ministry, and she faded out of the public eye, until she apparently 'accidentally overdosed' on Seconals in 1944.
May 18, 1927 -
Sid Grauman’s Chinese Theatre opens on Hollywood Boulevard, on this date. Hollywood’s biggest celebrities will set their signatures and handprints int he blocks of the theater’s forecourt for decades to come.
Thousands of people lined Hollywood Boulevard and a riot broke out as fans tried to catch a glimpse of the movie stars and other celebrities as they arrived for the opening. The film being premiered that night was Cecil B. DeMille’s The King of Kings, which was preceded by Glories of the Scriptures, a live prologue devised by master showman Sid Grauman.
May 18, 1936 -
Tokyo gangster Kichizo Ishida was accidentally strangled by his mistress during a session of rough sex. Ishida had been a "gasper," someone who enjoys the sexual effects of asphyxiation. The woman, Sada Abe, indulged him by wrapping her pink kimono belt around his neck. After her lover's death, Abe cuts off Ishida's penis and scrotum with a meat cleaver and carries them around until she was finally arrested, three days later.
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40 years later, a taboo breaking film, In the Realm of the Senses, was released, retelling the events of this sordid tale. (Kids, make sure your mother knows you're watching this.)
Makes a great first date movie.
May 18, 1953 -
Jackie Cochran, long-time aviation fan and a close friend of pilot Chuck Yeager, became the first woman to break the sound barrier on this date.
She was also the first woman to fly a bomber plane across the Atlantic, and the first pilot in general to make a blind landing, one which relies only on instruments. Years later, on June 3, 1964, Cochran piloted an F-104G Starfighter at twice the speed of sound, establishing a woman's world speed record of 1,429 miles per hour.
May 18, 1955 -
Working in front of the camera keeps me alive. I couldn't care less about actors' trailers and food on sets and stuff like that - I just want to act.
The superstar Asian actor, Chow Yun-Fat, was born on this date.
May 18, 1969 -
NASA launched the fourth crewed mission of the Apollo, Apollo 10 spacecraft on this date.
The mission was a complete test run of the Apollo 11 mission without an actual lunar landing. The mission was also the second manned mission to orbit the Moon and the first to travel to the Moon bearing the complete Apollo configuration.
May 18, 1974 -
India became the sixth nation to explode an atomic bomb when they conducted their first nuclear test (project Smiling Buddha) in Pokhran, India on this date.
Though the yield of the device detonated at Pokhran is debated, it is believed that the actual yield was around 8-12 Kilotons of TNT. The highlight of the test was that India had managed to avoid detection by the United States and other intelligence agencies.
May 18, 1980 -
The body of Ian Curtis, lead singer of dirge band Joy Division, was discovered hanging in the kitchen by his wife on this date. Curtis killed himself on the eve of Joy Division's U.S. tour.
His surviving band mates go on to form New Order.
May 18, 1980 -
After a 5.1 magnitude earthquake in Washington state, 57 people were killed in an avalanche of volcanic mud in the eruption of Mount St. Helens.
The volcano spews out 200 million cubic yards of of pumice, ash, and debris which covers 24 square miles of the valley below.
May 18, 2011 -
Don Gorske from Wisconsin, ate his record-breaking 25,000th Big Mac on this date. The retired prison guard had been keeping track of his consumption of the McDonald's burger for thirty-nine years and keeps close track of his overall consumption. (Not to put too fine a point on this fact, he still ate almost 3 Big Macs ever day last year.)
Despite doctors not recommending this diet, Gorske maintained a healthy weight and low cholesterol, (Mr Goeske ate his 30,000th burger in 2018.) At this point, when Mr Goeske meets his maker, he will just need to be rolled next to an open flame - no burial necessary, he will go poof in the blink on an eye.
May 18, 2017 -
American musician, singer and songwriter Chris Cornell (Christopher John Boyle) died suddenly in Detroit after performing at a show with Soundgarden, on this date.
Cornell was known for his role as one of the architects of the 1990s grunge movement, and for his near four octave vocal range as well as his powerful vocal belting technique. He released four solo studio albums as well as working with Audioslave and Temple of the Dog.
And so it goes.
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