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January 30, 2007 tues.
January 30th, 2007

Birthdays: Historian Barbara Tuchman, Gene Hackman, Phil Collins, Walt “Moose” Dropo, Olaf Palme, Vanessa Redgrave, Dick Martin, Louis S. Rukeyser, Dorothy Malone, John Ireland, Christian Bale, VP Dick Cheney

1931- Hollywood Premiere of Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights. Later at a dance at the Biltmore Hotel writer Herman Mankewicz (Citizen Kane, Duck Soup) got into a drunken fistfight with producer David O. Selznick (Gone With the Wind, Rebecca). You’ll never eat turtle-soup in this town again!

1933- HI-YO SILVER!! The Lone Ranger debuts on Radio. The Masked man was invented by the WXYZ station owner George Trendle and writer Fran Striker with absolutely no experience of cowboys or Indians. They just wanted a hero like Zorro with a strict moral code. He was later voiced by actor William Conrad who did the Rocky & Bullwinkle narration and the tv series Cannon.

1934- Artist Salvador Dali married Gala.

1946- The first US dimes with Franklin Roosevelt on the head were issued.

1956- Elvis Presley recorded Blue Suede Shoes.

1960- STRAVINSKY SPEAKS OUT. For years after the making of Fantasia, critics had pondered Igor Stravinsky's cryptic reaction to Disney's portrayal of his "Rite of Spring".
Disney p.r. said he was "speechless with admiration!" In a Saturday Review article of this date Stravinsky said Stokowski's editing of his music was 'execrable' and the visuals "an unresisting imbecility". His opinion still didn't stop him from selling the studio film rights to several other of his pieces including "The Firebird' in 1942. He needed the cash.

1961-H-B's the Yogi Bear Show.

1964-Writers John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion married. Dunne's uncle was the Jesuit priest whose 1947 analysis of corruption and the Hollywood union jurisdiction battles won him a one-way ticket to a mission in Death Valley.

1969- The rock band the Beatles last public appearance as a group. They tried to do a free concert in the London streets but were banned by police for fear of congestion and noise complaints. So they withdrew to a rooftop above their recording studio and played anyway. John Lennon ended the concert by saying: ‘Thank you very much on behalf of the band and myself and I hope we passed the audition.”


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