Those Illuminati are generous, aren't they?
(And hey, pay attention to the traffic lights.)
July 13, 1939 —
When Frank Sinatra was just starting out as a singer, he carried his own P.A. system to the dives in which he typically performed. He got his big break when bandleader Harry James' wife heard him sing as a waiter and recommended him to her husband.
Sinatra made his first commercial recording on this date — Melancholy Mood and From The Bottom Of My Heart with Harry James and his Orchestra for the Brunswick label. No more than 8,000 copies of the record were sold.
July 13, 1949 -
Paramount Picture's releases second film adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic, The Great Gatsby, starring Alan Ladd, Betty Field, Macdonald Carey, Ruth Hussey, Barry Sullivan, Shelley Winters, and Howard Da Silva, premiered in the US on this date.
The original director was John Farrow. However, he was replaced with Elliott Nugent as he and the producer Richard Maibaum could not agree on the casting of Daisy Buchanan: Farrow wanted to cast Gene Tierney whereas Maibaum's choice for the role was Betty Field. Farrow's daughter Mia Farrow played Daisy in The Great Gatsby 25 years later.
July 13, 1959 -
Dedicated to the One I Love, by The Shirelles, was released on this date.
This was originally recorded by The 5 Royales in 1958. The Shirelles' version first peaked at #83 in 1959, but when it was re-released in 1961 it went to #3. Normally, Shirley Owens Alston was the Shirelles' lead singer. However, on this song, Doris Coley Kenner sang lead.
July 13, 1960 -
20th Century Fox released the sci-fi adventure film The Lost World (based on the novel by Arthur Conan Doyle), directed by Irwin Allen and starring Michael Rennie, Jill St. John, Claude Rains and Fernando Lamas (who looked marvelous), to U.S. theaters on this date.
Director Irwin Allen wanted to use stop-motion dinosaurs for this film, but due to budget reasons he had to use lizards - mainly monitor lizards - as dinosaurs. Plastic horns and spikes were attached to them to make them look more like dinosaurs. The technique will later be dubbed Slurpasaur by fans.
July 13, 1974 -
George McRae's single Rock Your Baby became the first disco song to hit #1 on this date.
The song was written by Harry Wayne Casey and Richard Finch of KC & The Sunshine Band, and it formed the basis for their wildly successful writing and performing partnership which yielded five more US #1 hits and pioneered the disco sound.
July 13, 1985 -
38 years ago, I had only recently patented the long birthday weekend....
(We weren't cool enough to get MTV in The Bronx at the time, so we had to settle for the local TV broadcast of Live Aid.)
(Find time to watch this short segment of a documentary about behind the scenes events of theive Aid production.)
(still the greatest televised rock and roll performance of all time.)
We brought the 'big TV' out into my father-in-law's backyard and joined the other nearly 2 billion people who tuned into Live Aid on this date.
July 13, 1990 -
Jerry Zucker's romantic thriller Ghost, starring Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, and Tony Goldwyn, premiered in the US on this date.
The role of Oda Mae Brown was not written with Whoopi Goldberg in mind, but Patrick Swayze, an admirer of hers, convinced the producers that she would be right for the part.
Another ACME Safety Film
Today in History
July 13, 1793 (Décade III, Quintidi de Messidor de l'Année 213 de la Révolution) -
French revolutionary writer Jean Paul Marat was stabbed to death in his bathtub by Charlotte Corday, on this date, as she gives him a list of names to be guillotined. The assassination inspired the famous painting by Jacques Louis David; Corday was executed four days after slaying Marat.
After the heavy blade fell, an executioner's assistant named Francois le Gros (Fat Frank) picked up the severed head by the hair and brimming with Revolutionary fervor slapped Corday's cheek. Several eyewitnesses saw her face flush red with anger, not just one cheek but both cheeks. Some though they perceived disgust curl her lips.
July 13, 1846 -
Horace Greeley advises his readers to 'Go west young man' on this date.
I'm not sure but I don't think this is what Mr. Greeley had in mind.
July 13, 1923 -
The Hollywood Sign was officially dedicated in the hills above Hollywood, Los Angeles on this date. It originally reads "Hollywoodland" but the four last letters are dropped after renovation in 1949. Unfortunately it became a perennial favorite suicide location.
Over the years, the sign had fallen into disrepair. A public campaign to restore the landmark Hollywood Sign was spearheaded in 1978, in a large part by pornographer Hugh Hefner and shock rocker Alice Cooper.
July 13, 1946 -
Smoke 'em if you got 'em.
It's Richard Anthony Marin's birthday today.
July 13, 1955 -
Ruth Ellis was last English woman executed by hanging on this date.
Ten days before she had shot her lover, race car driver David Blakely, Ellis suffered a miscarriage after Blakely, the baby's father, punched her in the stomach. She was having a bad day.
July 13, 1977 -
Starting at about 9 PM on this date, four lightning struck high-voltage transmission lines within the course of about half-an-hour, knocking out electricity and plunging millions of residents of New York City into a 25 hour black-out .
The 1977 blackout, unlike the 1965 and 2003 blackouts, resulted in city-wide looting and other disorder, including arson. About 4,500 people were arrested during the riots, which resulted in damage estimated at $300 million.
July 13, 1985 -
President Ronald Reagan has a polyp removed from his colon on this date.
The polyp, named Larry, lived comfortable at the Reagan ranch, keeping Nancy company until the end. Recent declassified notes reveal that 'Larry' had actually been running the country during Reagan early undisclosed onset of Alzheimer's. George H.W. Bush got his first taste of the Presidency for a day and got hooked.
July 13, 1994 -
Jeff Gillooly (and his fabulous 70s porn 'stache,) Tonya Harding's ex-husband, was sentenced to two years in prison for his role in the attack on Nancy Kerrigan.
He served six months.
On July 13, 1994, Germany's Constitutional Court ended the ban on German troops fighting outside the country.
And so it goes.
Happy Birthday Debbie Finn, where ever you are
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