but that has nothing to do with the fact that today we celebrate National Pumpkin Day and Howl at the Moon Day today.
So don't make us wait - howl at the moon, preferably while eating pumpkin pie.
October 26, 1959 -
A gentle and yet still relevant Cold War comedy, The Mouse that Roared, opened in the US on this date.
While filming, Peter Sellers was acting on stage in the comedy Brouhaha, which also dealt with a mythical kingdom whose ruler develops an outlandish plot to secure U.S. aid. Five days a week, he had to be at the studio at 6:30 a.m. for makeup and wardrobe, then get himself to the theatre by 7 p.m. During location shooting, a driver picked him up at the theatre after the performance and he slept in the car on the way to the film shoot.
October 26, 1962 -
The Crawford - Davis horror camp classic, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? opened in NYC on this date.
Early on, Bette Davis made the decision to create her own makeup for Jane. "What I had in mind no professional makeup man would have dared to put on me," said Davis. "One told me he was afraid that if he did what I wanted, he might never work again. Jane looked like many women one sees on Hollywood Boulevard. In fact author Henry Farrell patterned the character of Jane after these women. One would presume by the way they looked that they once were actresses, and were now unemployed. I felt Jane never washed her face, just added another layer of makeup each day." Davis' garish makeup made her look something akin to a grotesque version of an aging Mary Pickford gone to seed, and she loved it. She took pride when Farrell visited the set one day and exclaimed, "My God, you look just exactly as I pictured Baby Jane." The outrageousness of Davis' appearance caused some concern for Aldrich and the producers, who feared it might be too over-the-top. However, as time went on, they came to see that Davis' instincts for the character were right.
October 26, 1967 -
An excellent (though almost forgotten) thriller from the 60s, Wait Until Dark, premiered on this date.
In an interview, Alan Arkin talked about the Oscar nominations he received for his early major film roles (The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming and The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter). When asked if he was surprised that he was overlooked for Wait Until Dark, his second movie, he replied: "You don't get nominated for being mean to Audrey Hepburn!"
October 26, 1970 -
Elton John released his first hit single Your Song, on this date.
This was one of the first songs John wrote with Bernie Taupin. They met after a record company gave John some of Taupin's lyrics to work with. Eventually, they both moved into John's parents' house, where they started working together.
October 26, 1972 -
Ringo Starr and singer Lulu appear in non-speaking cameos on the Monty Python's Flying Circus episode Mr And Mrs Brian Norris' Ford Popular on this date.
The tramp (Michael Palin) enters and sits between them and begins his introduction, in David Frost style: “Hello, good evening, welcome … It’s …” a cue for the closing titles of the program to run. While Lulu gets up and storms off stage in a huff, Ringo (still not uttering a single word) becomes involved in a fight with the tramp.
October 26, 1982 -
TV's longest dream sequence, St. Elsewhere, premiered on NBC-TV on this date.
The writers of this show shared a building and a copy machine at MTM with the writers from Hill Street Blues. Whenever they needed inspiration, they would look at a script from Hill Street Blues and that always pushed them to do better.
October 26, 1984 -
James Cameron's sci-fi classic, The Terminator starring the occasionally nude Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton premiered in the US on this date.
One afternoon during a break in filming, Arnold Schwarzenegger went into a restaurant in downtown L.A. to get some lunch and realized all too late that he was still in Terminator makeup - with a missing eye, exposed jawbone and burned flesh.
October 26, 2000 -
The short-lived sitcom Cursed (aka The Weber Show), starring Steven Weber, debuts on NBC on this date.
Originally, the show was focused on Steven Weber's character being the most cursed man on earth. When that didn't work, NBC decided to revamp the show into a more general sitcom and renamed it The Weber Show.
October 26, 2001 -
Richard Kelly's cult classic film, Donnie Darko, starring Jake Gyllenhaal went into limited release in US theaters on this date.
Writer and director Richard Kelly came up with the idea for the future blobs while watching football. John Madden used to use a "telestrator", where he'd diagram a paused video to show where the players were about to go moments before letting the tape roll. Kelly watched this while high, and started to think about what would happen, hypothetically, if "someone upstairs" was doing that to humans. Fittingly enough, Donnie first notices the future blobs while watching football.
Another posting from the ACME Employment Agency
Today in History:
October 26, 1440 -
Gilles de Rais, French marshal and (alleged) depraved killer of 140 children, was strangled then thrown onto slow fire on this date.
A brilliant young French knight, he was believed to either have cracked over the torture and death of his true love, Jeanne d'Arc, the Maid of Orleans or some theorists consider Gilles the victim of a plot to acquire his lands.
On this date, in 1825, New York City becomes a World Port with the opening of the Erie Canal; a river waterway between Hudson River and Lake Erie opened.
It cut through 363 miles of wilderness and measured 40 feet wide and 4 feet deep. It had 18 aqueducts and 83 locks and rose 568 feet from the Hudson River to Lake Erie.
Toll receipts paid back the $7.5 million construction cost within ten years. (This will all be on the test.)
October 26, 1881 -
Wyatt Earp, his two brothers and Doc Holliday showed up at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, to disarm the Clanton and McLaury boys, who were in violation of a ban on carrying guns in the city limits.
This became the famous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Billy Clanton and Tom and Frank McLowery were killed; Earp's brothers were wounded. “OK” probably referred to two families, Ormsby & Kimberly, who owned the nearby corral.
October 26, 1944 -
Freemason and Vice President Harry S Truman publicly denies (yet again) ever having been a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
I can't even imagine the feeding frenzy that would have go on today.
October 26, 1965 -
Queen Elizabeth decorated The Beatles with the Order of the British Empire, at Buckingham Palace, on this date.
The Beatles, ever polite, allowed Her Majesty to add chintz curtains and tufted sofas in their living rooms. (According to an account by John Lennon the group smoked dope in one of the palace bathrooms to calm their nerves.)
October 26, 1970 -
Doonesbury, the comic strip by Gary Trudeau, premiered in 28 newspapers across the U.S. on this date.
Who knew? (Who reads newspapers anymore?)
October 26, 1979 -
Kim Jae Kyu, director of South Korea's central intelligence agency, "accidentally" shot President Park Chung Hee to death, also killing Park's bodyguard. Park had been president (dictator, effectively) since 1961. Kim was executed the following May for his attempted coup d'etat. (I hate when someone in my cabinet tries to assassinate me.)
In 2005 at the New York Film Festival, the film, The President's Last Bang, recounted the events.
October 26, 1984 -
19-year-old John McCollum shot and killed himself while listening to Ozzy Osbourne records on this date. One year later, McCollum's parents file suit against Ozzy and CBS Records, alleging that the song Suicide Solution from the album Blizzard of Ozz contributed to their son's death.
Except that the song's subject was quite plainly alcohol addiction. The trial court dismissed the McCollum's complaint. (Please, only watch the video once, with adult supervision. And for heaven's sake, don't try to play it backwards!)
October 26, 1991 -
A sudden wind uprooted a 485-pound umbrella, part of an outdoor 'art project' installed by Christo, in the Tejon Pass north of Los Angeles and struck Lori Keevil-Matthews, 33 years old, of Camarillo, California, crushing her to death against a boulder.
That must really suck being killed by an old Hollies song.
And so it goes
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