Today is No Dirty Dishes Day again. Some feel this day was established to have a day free of dirty dishes.
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, 1985 -
Simple Minds song Don't You Forget About Me went to No.1 on the Billboard charts on this date.
Written by Keith Forsey (who won an Oscar for Flashdance... What a Feeling) and Steve Schiff (guitarist and songwriter from the Nina Hagen band), the track was featured in the 1985 American teen drama film The Breakfast Club.
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 was cancelled last 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 never filed anything. She just kept shoving papers in random empty desks. It took us three weeks of hunting to find about 80% of the paperwork)
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.
Word of the Day
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.
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.
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, 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 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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