The Death of Thomas Ince

It is telling that the best-produced things ever made in Hollywood are its scandals; then again, scandals cannot be slashed by the censor's blue pencil, trashed by meddlesome studio executives, or even have their storylines obfuscated by the work of many hands (from writers to directors to actors) without making them better. Unlike films.

The 'death/murder' of Thomas Ince is not just one of the more delicious examples of Hollywood scandal, but it was also one of the first, and the more myth accrues to it the better it gets. No writer - and certainly no director or actor - could (or would dare to) make up such a thing...

Our story opens in 1924, aboard a yacht, called the Oneida; the yacht is owned by a fabulously wealthy newspaper publisher of some renown named William Randolph Hearst. It's sailing the California coast on this particular weekend is in honour of the 42nd birthday of Thomas Ince, a well-known director of silent films; also onboard are Hearst's lover Marion Davies, actor Charlie Chaplin, newspaper columnist Louella Parsons, author Elinor Glyn and film actresses Aileen Pringle, Jacqueline Logan, Seena Owen, Margaret Livingston and Julanne Johnston. All is going splendidly until...

Hearst sees Ince canoodling with Davies. Shots ring out, Ince slumps to the floor, and Hearst's publicity machine goes into instant overdrive in order to smother the scandal at its source. Chaplin's silence can be bought; there's already more dirt on him than a coffin lid. Parsons received a lifetime contract with Hearst News ensuring she can scribble her drivel for an obscene paycheque for the rest of her life, becoming the most powerful woman in Hollywood in the process. Marion Davies only needs another cocktail, another line of blow, and another wheel barrow full of jewellery to shut her up.

Still, though, the rumours began to spread, and no one seems to know why; it's not like actresses gossip or anything... No, as a plot element that would be too far-fetched.

15 years later, when Orson Welles was planning his masterpiece Citizen Kane, he began asking around about Hearst, and claims that's when Herman J. Mankiewicz told him the story. Thirty years after that and the story resurfaced in Kenneth Anger's hilariously slanderous Hollywood Babylon, and thirty years later again the events of that fateful weekend served as the basis for both a 1996 book entitled Murder at San Simeon by Hearst's granddaughter - a scandal-maker in her own right named Patty Hearst - and finally a movie by Peter Bogdanovich (Welles' favourite ass-kisser) called The Cat's Meow (2001).

True or not, the story is so much more entertaining than the fact that Ince went into the weekend with severe indigestion, and may have just had a heart attack and died; that is just the sort of banal drivel one has come to expect from Hollywood - only with more explosions, maybe a car chase and, oh yes, plenty of CGI!
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Pop History Moment: Abraham Lincoln Delivered The Gettysburg Address

US President Abraham Lincoln's stirring words (delivered on this day in 1863) serve to remind us of the high-minded ideals upon which the nation he led was founded, ideals which he - along with thousands of his countrymen - fought and died for; yet the Gettysburg Address also echoes with a kind of hollowness, given how much work remains undone... Delivered upon the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, they are brief but moving:

Four score and seven years ago*, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation: conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war. . . testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated. . . can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war.

We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that this nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate. . . we cannot consecrate. . . we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us. . . that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion. . . that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. . . that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. . . and that government of the people. . . by the people. . . for the people. . . shall not perish from this earth.

*On this day in 2007, when I first posted this piece, I'd intended its original title - Seven Score And Four Years Ago - to be a humourous spin on the opening line of the Gettysburg Address, 'Four score and seven years ago...' Then I counted. Sure enough, this day in 2007 was seven score and four years to the day that President Abraham Lincoln first made his most famous oration. Spooky...
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"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" by Mark Twain

[Mark Twain's story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County was first published in 1865 - in an issue of the New York Saturday Press bearing today's date - as Jim Smiley and his Jumping Frog; it had been written at the behest of Twain's friend Artemus Ward, and would establish Twain as the era's foremost humourist.]

In compliance with the request of a friend of mine, who wrote me from the East, I called on good-natured, garrulous old Simon Wheeler, and inquired after my friend's friend, Leonidas W. Smiley, as requested to do, and I hereunto append the result. I have a lurking suspicion that Leonidas W. Smiley is a myth; that my friend never knew such a personage; and that he only conjectured that, if I asked old Wheeler about him, it would remind him of his infamous Jim Smiley, and he would go to work and bore me nearly to death with some infernal reminiscence of him as long and tedious as it should be useless to me. If that was the design, it certainly succeeded.

I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room stove of the old, dilapidated tavern in the ancient mining camp of Angel's, and I noticed that he was fat and bald-headed, and had an expression of winning gentleness and simplicity upon his tranquil countenance. He roused up and gave me good-day. I told him a friend of mine had commissioned me to make some inquiries about a cherished companion of his boyhood named Leonidas W. Smiley—Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, a young minister of the Gospel, who he had heard was at one time a resident of Angel's Camp. I added that, if Mr. Wheeler could tell me any thing about this Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, I would feel under many obligations to him.

Simon Wheeler backed me into a corner and blockaded me there with his chair, and then sat me down and reeled off the monotonous narrative which follows this paragraph. He never smiled, he never frowned, he never changed his voice from the gentle-flowing key to which he tuned the initial sentence, he never betrayed the slightest suspicion of enthusiasm; but all through the interminable narrative there ran a vein of impressive earnestness and sincerity, which showed me plainly that, so far from his imagining that there was any thing ridiculous or funny about his story, he regarded it as a really important matter, and admired its two heroes as men of transcendent genius in finesse. To me, the spectacle of a man drifting serenely along through such a queer yarn without ever smiling, was exquisitely absurd. As I said before, I asked him to tell me what he knew of Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, and he replied as follows. I let him go on in his own way, and never interrupted him once:

[CONTINUE READING]

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"Steamboat Willie" starring Mickey Mouse

On this day in 1928 the Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks cartoon Steamboat Willie was released; the film itself is a parody of the Buster Keaton film Steamboat Bill Jr.. Notable as the first cartoon to sync pictures and sound, it was also the first of Disney's offerings to feature Mickey Mouse - here pitted against longtime Disney villain Peg-Leg Pete... Opening at New York City's 79th Street Theatre, it played ahead of the independent film Gang War, which is all but forgotten today, except as a footnote in the story of Steamboat Willie.

Since 1998 Steamboat Willie has been on the National Film Registry, putting it under the protection of the Library of Congress.
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The Death of Gia Carangi

With all due respect to Suzy Parker, Lauren Hutton, and even Janice Dickinson, the world's first supermodel was a wild child from Philadelphia with a European look and a dangerous side that would prove as prophetic as it was sexy...

Born in January 1960, Gia Carangi's childhood was marred by her parents' constant squabbling, which drove her to seek solace on the mean streets - and by the early Seventies few streets were meaner than those of North Philly; at the age of 17 she took off for Manhattan, and having worked for such noted fashion photographers as Francesco Scavullo, Arthur Elgort, Richard Avedon, and Chris von Wangenheim in short order she soon found herself the most sought-after fashion model in the world.

Regular readers of the Pop Culture Institute will be all too aware of the corrosive effects of fame on the young, effects which derailed not just the career but eventually as well the life of Gia Carangi...

A regular at famed nightspots Studio 54 and the Mudd Club, Carangi soon tried cocaine and eventually heroin, which would prove her downfall; the double shock of two deaths, one year apart - first of Gia's mentor Wilhelmina Cooper in March 1980 then that of Chris von Wangenheim in March 1981 - hastened Carangi's headlong slide when she chose to take solace in her addiction. Posing for her last Cosmopolitan cover in the winter of 1982, she was caught with drugs on a shoot in Africa in 1983 and her career was over.

The last five years of her life were spent in and out of various rehab and detox environments, punctuated by short-lived relationships with both women and men; Gia Carangi died on this day in 1986, one of the first prominent female figures to die of AIDS. The entire sad story - in which most of her highs were themselves lows - is told in Stephen Fried's book Thing of Beauty; the book was loosely adapted for television, and made into the 1998 TV-movie Gia, starring a then-obscure Angelina Jolie, who won a Golden Globe for her work.
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Pop History Moment: "Calvin and Hobbes" Debuts

On this day in 1985 Universal Press Syndicate debuted the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watterson. In the same way Calvin baited his tiger trap with tuna and caught himself Hobbes, so did Watterson bait his strip with razor-sharp insight into the human psyche and catch himself a cult following; during its decade-long run each and every tantrum, flight of fancy, and philosophical discourse left the strip's regular readers enraptured. I know I for one hoped it would go on forever...

More than a decade after Watterson called it quits (on the last day of 1995) the entire strip was published in a hard cover collectors' edition, which has yet to find its way into the collection of the Pop Culture Institute*...

*This is a hint, for any of you potential benefactors out there... After all, 'Tis the Season and all that.
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"Reefer Man" by Cab Calloway

In a way it's no shock to learn that famed bandleader Cab Calloway (who died on this day in 1994) was born on Christmas Day, in 1907; not only was he prodigiously gifted, but he was incredibly generous with those gifts all his life. During the darkest years of the Great Depression, Calloway's high-energy song-and-dance-filled recordings and radio broadcasts, film and nightclub appearances livened up many a dark night, and even when he occasionally indulged in a bit of tear-mongering - such as with St. James Infirmary Blues - audiences could be guaranteed that it would be far more entertaining than mere self-pity.

Whether teamed up with Betty Boop - who sashayed her way through his classic Minnie the Moocher in a way he could only dream of - with his band or on his own, seen here taking the time out to campaign on behalf of relaxed marijuana laws with the song Reefer Man.
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Happy Birthday Margaret Atwood

She traced the outlines of her life well enough in Cat's Eye (1988) so that even the most casual observer could recognize her from the shape she'd made there; still, never be fooled by any writer who uses their own facts to fill out their fiction. Often, rather than verisimilitude, it's a very personal form of subterfuge they have in mind...

Born on this day in 1939, Atwood's childhood was peripatetic; she never attended a full year of school until the 8th Grade, when her father gave up his job as a field biologist for a professorship at the University of Toronto (if Cat's Eye is to be believed, anyway). An early reader - both voracious in scope and catholic in taste - Atwood began writing at the age of 16 (what we call around here 'a late bloomer'); she soon made up for her patchy education and laggard start by obtaining her university degree and self-publishing her first book of poems, Double Persephone, both in 1961.

By 1964 she'd won her first Governor-General's Award, for The Circle Game, and just like that she was off; her first novel, 1969's The Edible Woman is notable not just for its distinctly Canadian setting, but for its humour, a quality for which she has not been overpraised but which is nevertheless there, in amongst the eloquence of her phrasing and vivid characterization.

Ever since the outset of the 1970s, then, she has been a prolific writer of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, essays, and investigations into the Canadian identity; simply by outliving her idols she stands as the undisputed Queen of Canadian Literature. Approaching seventy, Atwood shows no signs of relenting, for which I am grateful (despite the groaning of my bookshelves). There are very few writers whose works I snap up the instant they're published, but she is at the top of that short list, a sensation with which the much-lauded author is well familiar I am sure.

In 2008, Atwood hit the zeitgeist jackpot by publishing Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth just as the world's rich decided to make it that little bit harder for the other 95% of us... It's a slim volume - derived from her Massey Lectures - but fairly bulges with the wit, insight, and commonsense we who revere her have come to expect.
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POPnews - November 18th

[By 1450, when this image was made, the Renaissance St. Peter's Basilica which had grown up around the tomb of Saint Peter had itself grown too old-fashioned for the silk- and velvet-dressed, perfumed and bejewelled he-men who lived and worked there; originally intending to preserve the old building, Pope Julius II eventually tore one architectural masterpiece down with an unshakable faith that someday an even greater one would arise...]
326 CE - The Old St. Peter's Basilica was consecrated, during the papal reign of St. Sylvester I.

1302 - When Pope Boniface VIII issued the Papal bull Unam sanctam - 'The One Holy' - it wasn't the first bull issued by a Pope (and Lord knows it wouldn't be the last) but it was one of the strongest statements to date about Papal infallibility, and is probably responsible for that holier-than-Thou attitude of theirs the rest of us must contend with to this day.

1307 - According to legend, William Tell shot an apple off his son's head.

1477 - When William Caxton produced Dictes, or Sayengis of the Philosophres (written by the King's brother-in-law Earl Rivers, whose sister Elizabeth married Edward IV), it would be the first book printed on a printing press in England.

1626 - The extensively remodeled St. Peter's Basilica was re-consecrated by Pope Urban VIII.

1803 - At Battle of Vertières, the last major battle of the Haitian Revolution, Jean-Jacques Dessalines defeated French troops under Vicomte de Rochambeau - leading to the establishment of the first black republic in the Western Hemisphere, the Republic of Haiti, where the day is still celebrated.

1863 - Denmark's King Christian IX signed that country's November Constitution, which (in part) declared Schleswig to be part of Denmark; this was seen by the German Confederation as a violation of the London Protocol and would eventually lead to the German-Danish War of 1864.

1865 - Mark Twain's story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County was first published, in the New York Saturday Press.

1905 - Denmark's Prince Carl became King Haakon VII of Norway following the 1905 dissolution of the union between the two countries.

1916 - The First Battle of the Somme ended when British Expeditionary Force commander Douglas Haig called off the battle - which had started on July 1st.

1928 - The animated short Steamboat Willie, the first fully-synchronized sound cartoon, was released; directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, it featured the second appearances of cartoon stars Mickey and Minnie Mouse. This date is also considered by the Disney Corporation to be Mickey's birthday.

1929 - The Grand Banks earthquake - a submarine seismic event recorded at 7.2 on the Richter scale and centred on the Grand Banks in the Atlantic Ocean off the south coast of Newfoundland - broke 12 underwater transatlantic telegraph cables and triggered a tsunami that destroyed many south coast communities in the Burin Peninsula area.

1947 - A fire at Ballantyne's Department Store fire in Christchurch killed 41, making it the worst such catastrophe in New Zealand history.

1978 - At the Jonestown incident in Guyana, Jim Jones led his Peoples Temple cult in a mass murder-suicide that claimed 918 lives in all, 909 of them at Jonestown itself, including over 270 children; the event had been precipitated by the fact-finding mission of Congressman Leo Ryan (D.-Calif.) and his subsequent murder (along with four journalists) at the hands of Jonestown thugs, also on this day.

1985 - Bill Watterson's legendary comic strip Calvin and Hobbes debuted.

1987 - During a fire in London, 31 people died at the city's busiest Tube station, King's Cross St Pancras.

1991 - Following the 87-day siege of Vukovar, that Croatian city capitulated to the besieging Yugoslav People's Army and allied Serb paramilitary forces.

2000 - Welsh beauty Catherine Zeta-Jones married Hollywood royalty Michael Douglas at New York City's famed Plaza Hotel.

2003 - The UK's Local Government Act 2003 received Royal Assent, repealing the Thatcher government's controversial anti-gay amendment Section 28 in England and Wales; Scotland had already repealed it in June 2000 with the passage of its Ethical Standards in Public Life etc. (Scotland) Act 2000. First passed in May 1988 and championed by, among many others, Michael Howard, Section 28 remains one of the most loathsome pieces of legislation ever produced by the Mother of All Parliaments.
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Bonus Video: "Sundown" by Gordon Lightfoot

In 2007, when I first blogged about the life and career of Gordon Lightfoot, there was nary a clip to be found on YouTube that showed him to any advantage... What a difference a year or two makes, eh!

Now the Net seems to be overflowing with goodies such as this one: a live performance of Sundown from 1974, the year of its release. The title track from Lightfoot's 10th album went Number One in the US, and remains a staple of the so-called AM Gold radio format, famed for its sunny Seventies sound.
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Gordon Lightfoot: Canadian Troubadour

Born on this day in 1938 in Orillia, Ontario, he began his musical career singing in the church choir; he was also in his high school's barbershop quartet. An accomplished athlete as well as a musician, Gordon Lightfoot set out to see the world when he moved to California in 1958, and did he ever; stints in Europe and the UK, Australia, and New York City spread evidence of his talent wherever he went...

Though a radio and concert favourite in Canada throughout the 1960s, it wasn't until 1970 that he broke through into the ranks of superstar; the song that did it was If You Could Read My Mind, and it made the already popular folkie one of that decade's signature performers.

He followed it with a string of successful albums, each studded with hit songs: Summer Side of Life (1971), Don Quixote (1972), Old Dan's Records (1972), Sundown (1974), Cold on the Shoulder (1975), Gord's Gold (1975) - a compilation containing nine rerecorded versions of his most popular songs - Summertime Dream (1976), and Endless Wire (1978). Songs such as Sundown and The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, ensured his status as Canada's troubadour, as much as his quiet, self-effacing manner.

Proof of the love Canadians feel for their native son came in January 2002, when Lightfoot fell ill, and was admitted to hospital with a bleeding abdomen; during his three months there (two of them in a coma) good wishes continued to pour in from around the country. It was even the top story on the news several times. Fortunately for all of us - not to mention him - he recovered, and in 2005 his Better Late Than Never Tour sold out venues across the country.
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Pop History Moment: The Death of Catherine the Great

Many myths surround the life and death of Catherine II of Russia - whom we know best as Catherine the Great; born of misogyny and the willingness of the public to believe any old falsehood no matter how logic-defying it might be, simply because it's about a powerful person, these half-truths, falsehoods, and outright damn lies form most of the core of the public knowledge about the enlightened despot who brought the Renaissance to Russia.

Born in May 1729, the daughter of a Prussian general and Prince, her birth name was Sophie; it changed after her engagement to the Tsar of Russia's heir, the future Peter III, when she converted to the Russian church.

Her new husband was among the weakest Tsars ever, unable to even consummate their marriage for a dozen years; in lieu of a functioning husband, in the style of her day and class she took a series of lovers including Sergei Saltykov, Charles Hanbury Williams, and Stanislaw Poniatowski.

Becoming Tsarina in January 1762, she didn't have to wait long for her husband to make the necessary misstep; in July of that year the Leib Guard revolted, deposed her husband, and proclaimed her Empress in her own right. 3 days later her husband was dead, and in short order the only other credible claimants to the throne (Ivan VI and Princess Tarakanova) had perished as well. Whether or not she had any foreknowledge of any of these killings is a matter for speculation. What is known, though, is that over the next 34 years of political turmoil, scientific and philosophical progress, and a general flowering of the arts, Catherine the Great earned her honorific, even though in later years she tended towards intolerance, especially toward serfs.

She died on this day in 1796, following a stroke she'd had in the bath, and not as a result of being crushed beneath a horse with which she was having sex, which was a French myth oft-repeated about any number of powerful women who'd both preceded and followed her.

Catherine the Great was renowned in her lifetime for her support of the arts, and the arts, in return, have been very good to her; she's been portrayed on the silver screen by such legendary beauties as Elisabeth Bergner, Marlene Dietrich, Julia Ormond, and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
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"Looking Good, Feeling Gorgeous" by RuPaul

One final RuPaul video, to complete today's hat trick, and one as colourful and stylish as our birthday baby at that! It's a fanvid, done to a remix of the song, so the lip-synch doesn't always match, but I liked it anyway; besides, what's more drag than a lazy lip-synch?

Looking Good, Feeling Gorgeous was released in 2004, and was the second single from the album Red Hot; the video costars male model Rusty Joiner as a surgeon who's more cut* than any of his patients.

*You know... Fit, buff, single-digit BMI, humpy-like...
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Walking The Plank: Calico Jack

John Rackham was an English pirate, and the first equal opportunity employer in his field, as he was known to employ two female pirates - Anne Bonny and Mary Read - in his crew.

Despite being known for wearing a highly unique and somewhat suspicious wardrobe made of calico - thus the moniker - he was known to have had an affair with Anne Bonny, at one point even eloping with her; unless, of course, she was a top. After all, it was she who discovered Mary Read on board (disguised as a man) and their own romance must have made for quite a cuddly - not to mention innovative - little threesome all those sultry nights they spent together adrift in the Caribbean, drunk on rum.

When the crew was captured in October 1720, most of the men were too drunk to fight; it was Read and Bonny who valiantly fought to keep Captain Barnet's crew at bay, to no avail. Bonny's last words to her lover after he'd been imprisoned were: 'I am sorry to see you here Jack, but if you had fought like a man, you need not be hanged like a dog.' Oh, snap!

While Calico Jack and most of his crew were executed in Jamaica on this day in 1720, Bonny and Read pleaded their bellies and were reprieved; Read died in prison the following year, possibly in childbirth, and history does not record whatever became of Anne Bonny...
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In Memoriam: Queen Astrid of the Belgians

Born on this day in 1905, the granddaughter of Sweden's King Oscar II and Denmark's King Frederick VIII, it was clear that little Astrid would live her life at the crossroads of European royalty; the older she got, the more likely it seemed in fact, for when she was just 13 days shy of 21 she married the future Leopold III of the Belgians.

Her three children would also grow up to be sovereigns: Joséphine-Charlotte became Grand Duchess of Luxembourg, and two subsequent sons became, in their turn, Baudouin I and Albert II of the Belgians. There's no telling what her fourth child would have become, though, because in August 1935, near Küssnacht am Rigi in Switzerland, her husband lost control of the car he was driving; it plunged into a ravine, killing the pregnant Astrid.

She was subsequently interred at the Church of Our Lady near the Royal Castle of Laeken, official home of the Belgian Royal Family, in Laeken, a suburb of Brussels. With all due respect to the present Queen, Paola, her mother-in-law remains, to this day, the most beloved of Belgian queens.
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"Don't Go Breaking My Heart" by Elton John and RuPaul

RuPaul's birthday fab-tacular continues with this little ditty of Elton John's reworked for a much taller girl; from 1993, it's Don't Go Breaking My Heart, taken from Sir Elton's album Duets.

Say what you will about RuPaul, she's no Kiki Dee...
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Happy Birthday Lorne Michaels

The creator of Saturday Night Live may be a lot of things (many of them not so nice, some of them downright Evil) but around here he's something of a cross between a genius and a god. And I'm not just saying that to kiss up. (Okay, I am, but only a little. Although... There is a lot more where that came from. And not just a little a lot, either, but a lot a lot.)

Born on this day in 1944 in Toronto (which is apparently a town in Ontario, or something, whatever) he moved to Los Angeles in 1968 to write for such variety shows as Laugh-In and The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show; in 1975 New York City beckoned, and in time it would be very kind to him, giving him what has more or less become his life's work.

Saturday Night Live debuted in October 1975 and, despite a few rocky years in the early 1980s - when he wasn't around and the show lost its way - it's been a cross between a factory and a university, discovering comedic talent, nurturing it, then foisting it upon the world to flourish (or fail) on its own merits.

As if that wasn't enough, he also produced The Kids in the Hall, simply the finest sketch comedy show ever made in Canada...
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In Memoriam: Rock Hudson

It's a long way from Winnetka, Illinois, to Hollywood - in fact, it's almost as great a distance as it is from Roy Scherer to Rock Hudson (only one of whom was born on this day in 1925); while many have taken journeys as long or longer than the former, few have travelled as far, done so much, and come to the greatness that the latter did...

From B-movie stud and (frankly) awful actor, Hudson rode the ludicrous name given to him by his agent, Henry Willson, to an enduring career and popularity that he never should have had as a bad actor with a stupid name. Clearly, though, something about him clicked with the public, and kept clicking for more than 30 years.

What it comes down to is his basic decency: he was never a diva on set, soft-spoken onscreen and off, casually masculine in a way that comforted rather than frightened; he worked hard at his acting, and it's possible in his earlier movies to actually see him improving from film to film. Of course, he took a lot of crap from studio bosses to keep his big secret, but even the voracious celebrity press of the 1950s stayed away from Hudson because behind closed doors Hudson was both private and well-behaved.

Early death doesn't always equate to longevity in the public's memory, unless the death is sensational, which his was. Yet even then, when Hudson died of AIDS in October 1985 it was with the same qualities he'd held dear in his life: dignity, gentleness, and good nature.
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"Supermodel (You Better Work)" by RuPaul

In the long, long, oh-so long, interminably long (did I mention it was long?) seven years I 'lived' in Kelowna between 1990 and 1998, RuPaul was a rare bright spot; that this period almost perfectly coincides with the angstiness of grunge seems only apropo... In the midst of all the high-profile comings-out of the 90s, though, here was someone who was never less than far out.

So what better occasion than RuPaul's birthday to share this considerable bright spot with all of you? From 1993's album Supermodel of the World, here is the title track, Supermodel (You Better Work).
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What's The Occasion? International Students Day

International Students' Day was originally intended to commemorate the anniversary of the storming of the Charles University in Prague by Nazi forces after demonstrations there against the killing of Jan Opletal (shown, at left); nine students in all (plus Professor Josef Matoušek) were ordered executed by the Reichsprotektor Konstantin von Neurath on this day in 1939, and afterwards more than 1200 were sent to concentration camps.

Ever since that awful day, November 17th has been set aside as a tribute to student activism around the world.

By an odd coincidence, the Athens Polytechnic uprising also came to a head on the same day, only in 1973; as such, this day is a school holiday in Greece, known as the Day of the Greek Students.

In 1989, 50 years to the day after their earlier tragedy, Czech students were again protesting, this time against a tyranny from the Left - events which would later lead to the fall of the Communist government of that country. Today is also a holiday in the Czech Republic, known as Struggle for Freedom and Democracy Day.

Naturally, my perspective on International Students Day skews in a more inclusive way; to me this day represents the ongoing process of learning that ought to occur every day of our lives, honouring those people who've chosen to become students for life. Time and again studies have shown that such intellectual pursuits as reading and doing crossword puzzles increase mental acuity in older people, and so help to ward off such conditions as dementia and Alzheimer's disease. And let's face it: the world needs as many high-functioning brains as it can get right now.

The Pop Culture Institute would like to take this opportunity to reiterate its dedication to the cause of enlightenment through entertainment and education - the Three E's - whether in a formal setting, a self-directed curriculum, or simply by reading this blog... In the words of Jefferson Airplane, 'feed your head'!
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POPnews - November 17th

[As many as 15,000 students took part in a demonstration in Prague against the Communist rule of Gustáv Husák on this day in 1989; the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9th gave pro-democracy movements throughout the Eastern Bloc much needed momentum, and eventually enabled all of them to throw their former oppressors out, which they did in a largely peaceful way.]
284 CE - Diocletian was proclaimed Roman Emperor by his soldiers.

1183 - At the Battle of Mizushima the Minamoto clan led by Yada Yoshiyasu suffered a loss at the hands of the Taira clan under Taira no Tomomori and Taira no Noritsune as part of the ongoing Genpei War.

1558 - The Elizabethan Era began when England's Queen Mary I (better known as Bloody Mary) died and was succeeded by her half-sister Elizabeth I (popularly called Good Queen Bess); the day would be celebrated throughout the country for much of the next 200 years.

1603 - Sir Walter Raleigh went on trial for treason for his role in the Main Plot; a favourite of Elizabeth I, early in the reign of her successor he incurred the wrath of James VI and I of Scotland and England, resulting in Raleigh's fall from royal favour... Still, his popularity remained high, and because of it he wouldn't be rushed to the chopping block but rather spend nearly fifteen years in and out of captivity at the Tower of London before eventually being executed in October 1618.

1777 - The Articles of Confederation were submitted by the Second Continental Congress to the individual states for ratification.

1796 - At the Battle of Arcole Napoleon's French army defeated the Austrian forces of József Alvinczi during the third failed attempt by the Austrians to lift the Siege of Mantua.

1800 - The opening of the second session of the 6th United States Congress marked the first time that august body met in Washington DC; technically a lame duck session at the end of the Administration of the second US President, John Adams (shown, at right), the congressmen and senators elected to serve there nevertheless managed to preside over the appointment of John Marshall as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, decide the rancourous Election of 1800 (which saw Adam's Vice-President Thomas Jefferson elected President and Aaron Burr Vice-President), as well as placing the new capital under the jurisdiction of Congress.

1811 - José Miguel Carrera - general in the Chilean War of Independence during the Patria Vieja and one of the founders of modern Chile - was sworn in as President of the executive Junta of that country.

1820 - Captain Nathaniel Palmer became the first American to see Antarctica; the continent's Palmer Peninsula would later be named after him.

1839 - Giuseppe Verdi's first opera, Oberto, conte di San Bonifacio opened at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan.

1855 - David Livingstone became the first European to see Mosi-oa-Tunya (the Smoke that Thunders) in what is now present-day Zambia-Zimbabwe, renaming them Victoria Falls in honour of Queen Victoria.

1869 - Egypt's Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, was inaugurated in an elaborate ceremony. This marvel of engineering was overseen by Ferdinand de Lesseps, although it was almost certainly not the first such canal in the area; the Wadi Tumilat may have joined the navigable upper reaches of the Nile with the Red Sea as long ago as 1800 BCE.

1878 - The first assassination attempt was made against Italy's King Umberto I when His Majesty was attacked by an anarchist named Giovanni Passannante during a parade; although the King was injured only slightly, Prime Minister Benedetto Cairoli was gravely injured and the event was said to have left Queen Margherita emotionally fraught for years.

1905 - The Eulsa Treaty was signed between the Empire of Japan and the Korean Empire.

1919 - England's King George V proclaimed Armistice Day (later Remembrance Day); the idea was first suggested by Australian journalist and soldier Edward George Honey in a letter to London's Evening News, which had been written under the pseudonym Warren Foster.

1922 - Mehmed VI, former sultan of the Ottoman Empire, went into exile in Italy.

1950 - Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, was enthroned as Tibet's head of state at the age of fifteen; he has lived in exile since March 1959, at which time he fled to India following the illegal occupation of his country by China.

1973 - At a speech in Orlando, Florida, President Richard Nixon told 400 Associated Press managing editors 'I am not a crook'; moments later, eight hundred eyes rolled...

1989 - Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution began when a student demonstration in Prague was quelled by riot police; this sparked a more general uprising aimed at overthrowing the communist government, which it succeeded in doing on December 29th.
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On The Buses - "Stan's Worst Day"

ITV's long-running (at least, in British terms) sitcom On the Buses - shown here in memory of its star Reg Varney, who died on this day in 2008 at the age of 92 - was initially pitched to the BBC by its writers, Ronald Wolfe and Ronald Chesney. The Beeb passed, giving ITV's London Weekend Television the chance to snatch up the property, from which 74 episodes were made in all. While the show was a critical flop, it was hugely popular with viewers - and not just in the UK either, but in Canada, Australia, and in the US.



Varney played bus driver Stan Butler, saddled with an obnoxious family and a job at a bus depot in the fictional London borough of Luxton made even more frustrating by an overbearing boss. Stan's mum was played in its first series by Cicely Courtneidge (and later, as here, by Doris Hare), his sister Olive by Anna Karen, and his brother-in-law Arthur by noted character actor Michael Robbins; at work, 'our Stan' traded quips with best friend and bus conductor Jack Harper (Bob Grant) and barbs with Inspector Cyril 'Blakey' Blake (Stephen Lewis).



This particular episode first aired on March 12th, 1972, as part of the show's sixth series; currently, the whole kit and kaboodle - all seven series! - are all available in a lavish DVD box set.


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Remembering... Reg Varney

Reg Varney - the popular star of the long-running British sitcom On the Buses and notable for being the first person in Britain to use an ATM, in June 1967 - died on this day in 2008; he was 92. Although best known for On the Buses Varney first became a household name for his part in another, earlier sitcom called The Rag Trade; both series were written by the writing team of Ronald Chesney and Ronald Wolfe.

After he'd done with TV, by the mid-70s, Varney toured the world with a cabaret act, and later a stage version of On the Buses, until ill-health forced him into retirement in the 1990s.
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"Let's Make Love And Listen To Death From Above" by CSS

Today's birthday wishes are for Carolina Parra, the guitarist and drummer for Brazil's foremost party band, CSS - which is short for Cansei der Ser Sexy (or 'got tired of being sexy'); as much as my cheeky sense of humour compels me to say 'girl, I know what you mean' I really don't.

The band, which formed in 2003, takes its name from Beyoncé, who was quoted in an interview as having said just that... Which just goes to show you that a mere mortal such as myself could never begin to fathom what errybody's favourite caramel love goddess has to go through.
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The Death of Edie Sedgwick

From the time they met in January 1965 until their friendship fell apart the following year, Edie Sedgwick was an integral part of Andy Warhol's inner circle; a model (born into a prominent family) whose career was nevertheless largely confined to editorial work, Sedgwick's introduction to Warhol by her friend Chuck Wein resulted in her film career, her enduring cult fame, and likely her early death. She quickly became a fixture at The Factory, that year appearing in (among many others) Vinyl, Poor Little Rich Girl, and most famously Chelsea Girls.

After her falling out with Warhol, Sedgwick moved into the notorious Chelsea Hotel; while living there she became entangled with Bob Dylan, who wrote Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat about her. Already a notorious drug addict, by 1969 she was being hospitalized for her condition (which, in the days before rehab, meant the psych ward - or, in the parlance of the times, 'the snake pit'); while incarcerated at one such facility she met Michael Post. As her health deteriorated, she moved back to California to be nearer to her family; it was there in July 1971 she married him.

Edie Sedgwick's happiness was to be short-lived; she died under mysterious circumstances just four months later.

The night before she died Sedgwick had taken only the pain killers she'd been prescribed and hadn't been drinking; before she went to bed her breathing had been laboured, but her husband didn't think anything of it, since she'd been a heavy smoker for years. She never woke up, dying at 9:20 AM on this day in 1971. She was 28.

Edie Sedgwick's final movie, Ciao! Manhattan, was released the year after her death; she has since been immortalized in song (Little Miss S by Edie Brickell & New Bohemians off their 1988 album Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars) and most famously portrayed onscreen by Sienna Miller, in the 2006 film Factory Girl. The biography of record is Edie: An American Biography by Jean Stein and George Plimpton, a book which is sadly out of print but one which Sienna Miller said was indispensible in helping her to inhabit the character she played.
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"Downtown" by Petula Clark

In choosing a video to air on this occasion it came down to this and one other video... This one, though a) had gay-boy dancers*, b) was in colour, and c) featured a beautiful yellow dress worn by our birthday girl herself, Petula Clark. So it wins.

And so do you, because you get to enjoy a bit of vintage Top of the Pops from 1964, its very first year on the air...

*An essential element in posted music videos, as in life!
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What's The Occasion? The King's Feast in Belgium!

The King's Feast has been celebrated in Belgium every year on this date since 1866, when King Leopold II first decreed it. It falls on this date because it's the name day of St. Leopold; it's also the name day of Saint Albert the Great... Both saints are of great importance to the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

Events of this nature were once very common in Catholic monarchies, of which there are now only a few left. The King's Feast differs little from similar events such as the UK's Trooping the Colour in that it is also recognized as the King's Official Birthday; one large difference is that in Belgium the King and the Queen do not attend the King's Feast, as they should not be seen to celebrate themselves.

While most businesses in the country do not close on this date, government departments do.

The event typically consists of a morning church service at SS Michael & Gudula's Cathedral in Brussels, at which a Te Deum is sung; in the afternoon members of the Royal Family appear in the Belgian Senate alongside members of the government and various dignitaries for a ceremony, at the end of which is sung the Brabançonne.

In addition to honouring the King, the day honours the liberation of Belgium from Dutch rule beginning with the Opera Riot in August 1830, when the nation and its monarchy were established. The current King of the Belgians is Albert II (shown).
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"How We Go Out" by Leslie Hall

It was Mr. Gagne who first tipped me off with regards to birthday gal Leslie Hall... Thanks for that! To show my appreciation - both to him, and for her - here's a second video.
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"Poetry" by Marianne Moore

With my profoundest apologies for the butchery of its enjambement...

I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all
this fiddle.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one
discovers in
it after all, a place for the genuine.
Hands that can grasp, eyes
that can dilate, hair that can rise
if it must, these things are important not because a

high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because
they are
useful. When they become so derivative as to become
unintelligible,
the same thing may be said for all of us, that we
do not admire what
we cannot understand: the bat
holding on upside down or in quest of something to

eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless wolf
under
a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse that
feels a
flea, the base-
ball fan, the statistician--
nor is it valid
to discriminate against 'business documents and

school-books'; all these phenomena are important. One must
make a distinction
however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the
result is not poetry,
nor till the poets among us can be
'literalists of
the imagination'--above
insolence and triviality and can present

for inspection, 'imaginary gardens with real toads in them', shall
we have
it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,
the raw material of poetry in
all its rawness and
that which is on the other hand
genuine, you are interested in poetry.

See it in its original form here...
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Remembering... Marianne Moore

Marianne Moore read, wrote, taught, published, and promoted poetry all her life; one enchanting line has her describing the work of a poet as creating 'imaginary gardens with real toads in them'...

Born on this day in 1887 in the Presbyterian manse of her grandfather in St. Louis, and graduated from Bryn Mawr in 1905, she began teaching at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School shortly thereafter, remaining for a decade. After 1915 she began to write poetry professionally, an easier task then than now, as there were then more markets for it.

Travelling extensively throughout Europe before the outbreak of World War I she made the acquaintance of many of the era's literary lights. Her first book, entitled simply Poems, was published without her knowledge in 1921 by H. D., who was one of those she'd met during her travels. From 1925 to 1929 Moore edited the poetry journal The Dial.

In 1933 Marianne Moore won the Helen Haire Levinson Prize from Poetry, a still-prominent journal; from that point the accolades continued to come. 1951 was the richest year of her life in this regard, as she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Bollingen Prize for that year's Collected Poems.

Never married, she cut an intriguing figure perpetually outfitted in a flowing black cape and tricorn hat. Unusual for a poet, she loved athletics and athletes, going so far as to provide the liner notes for an album recorded by Muhammad Ali (himself a gifted poet) called I Am the Greatest!; in 1968 she was invited to throw out the first pitch at a Yankees game.

It was shortly following this event that Marianne Moore suffered the first of a series of strokes; after her death in 1972 the Rosenbach Museum & Library in Philadelphia preserved the room in which she worked for future generations. She is buried in Gettysburg's Evergreen Cemetery.
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"Gem Sweater" by Leslie Hall

I want to look away, but I can't*...

Anyway, birthday wishes go out today to Internet phenom Leslie Hall, lead singer of Leslie and the Ly's as well as being the coolest person by far in (or, indeed, even from) Ames, Iowa.

*That's a total lie: where my Bedazzler at, yo?
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In Memoriam: Franklin Pierce Adams

Franklin Pierce Adams - by the middle of the 20th Century known to his friends as well as most of the English-speaking world as FPA - was a newspaper columnist, producing an influential column entitled The Conning Tower. He was also a noted wit; as a member of the Algonquin Round Table and as a panelist on the radio show Information Please he could entertain and enlighten with the best of them.

He was also one of the first proponents of trivia which, by breaking human knowledge into snippets, has provided some of us with a far superior method of learning. 'I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way,' he once said, which is as good a motto as any for me and this product of my fevered mind.
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"Mr. Roboto" by Styx

Birthday wishes go out today to James Young, the guitarist and singer-songwriter who first achieved fame as part of the rock band Styx; he has since gone on to a solo career, and produced three albums to that end. Currently, Young is again performing and recording with Styx as its only original member, along with longtime member Tommy Shaw and occasional input from original bassist Chuck Panozzo.

Mr. Roboto originally appeared on the band's 1983 concept album Kilroy Was Here, a rock opera set in a dystopian future where a right-wing government has outlawed music; just two years later, Tipper Gore and her brigade of blue-stockings attempted to do exactly that when they formed the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) with the stated aim of rating music as a prelude to its censorship and eventual outlaw*.

*There exists the slightest possibility I'm maybe being a tiny bit unreasonable about this...
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Remembering... Claude Monet

The father of French impressionist painting studied the methods of English landscape painters John Constable and J. M. W. Turner while exiled in England in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War; it was there he created many iconic English landscapes before returning to France via Holland the following year, painting as he went...

Born on this day in 1840, Claude Monet favoured the en plein air method, which provided the impetus for many an artist to escape the confines of the studio and seek out glade and vale rather than exclusively garret or atelier in which to commit their daubings to the ages. In contrast to other painters of his era, though - Henri Rousseau, for instance - Monet favoured the controlled nature of gardens over the chaos of actual nature. He found much to paint along the banks of both the Seine and the Thames that was natural yet tamed.

Married to Camille Doncieux shortly before moving to England, her death in September 1879 deeply affected him for the rest of his life. Plagued by poverty, he continued to work profusely so as to ward off the scourge of debt; in 1886 he attempted suicide by throwing himself in the Seine, related almost entirely to the dire state of his finances. In 1892 he was married again, this time to Alice Hoschedé.

By the end of the 1910s Monet began to develop cataracts on his eyes, and underwent two surgeries to correct the condition in 1923; while saving his vision, the operations seem to have affected his relationship to colour, and he repainted many works in a bluer hue than they had been previously.

When he died in December 1926, Claude Monet was the grand old man of French art; bequeathing his house and beloved garden in Giverny - where he painted, among others, the work at the top of this post - to the Institut de France, today they are preserved much as he left them and maintained by the Fondation Claude Monet in his memory.
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"What The Country Needs" by Martha Tilton

Ever since November 2008, embattled US President Barack Obama has been inundated with countless suggestions of how to fix the damaged (but far from broken) country he was elected to lead; this then is the humble offering of the Pop Culture Institute, as delivered by wholesome songbird Martha Tilton, who was born on this day in 1915.

True, it was recorded in 1941, when the war which would be the most destructive in history was threatening to engulf the whole world - still, I think the message is as true today as ever. Even if it isn't, who couldn't benefit from an occasional happy lyric delivered by a honeyed voice?

This particular clip is from a series of short films called Soundies, which were one of the earlier precursors to the music video; beginning in 1940 they were either released in theatres or could be viewed for the price of a nickel or a dime in a device called a Panoram at amusement arcades, carnivals, and such. The Soundies eventually lost their novelty when television came along, and the last one was produced in 1947; in the meantime, though, the cream of American music and comedy all contributed their talents, making the Soundies a priceless archive of the era.

The Liltin' Miss Tilton died in December 2006, but thanks to Soundies, YouTube, and fans such as yours truly she may be gone but she will never be forgotten...
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Happy Birthday Your Royal Highness

Already founder and President of one the world's largest charities - The Prince's Trust - His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales has begun to shoulder some of the responsibilities of monarchy, such as investitures and overseas trips on behalf of British and Commonwealth interests, in his mother's name - such as at the 65th anniversary of the D-Day Landings in June 2009.

His main job, though, over the past ten years has been that of father to his two sons; a secondary job (some might call it the primary one) has been the resuscitation of his own image from the dire state it was in following the death in August 1997 of his ex-wife Diana, Princess of Wales. Their acrimonious divorce, with its tit-for-tat adulteries and his-and hers tell-all book/documentary combos left the acrid taste in everyone's mouth that generally accompanies the very worst kind of gossip.

Even an unrestrained monarchist such as myself has seen the utter necessity of this exercise, as The Prince of Wales has never really connected with the public, which is the most vital element in the maintenance of a constitutional monarchy.

Born on this day in 1948 to universal acclaim, his birth was the second bright spot post-war Britain had following the cessation of hostilities following World War II, the first being his parents' marriage one week shy of a year earlier. Yet the child Charles was homely and shy, bullied at school and unwilling to defend himself except with petulance; he grew into a somewhat bitter adult, alone amongst his siblings in criticizing his parents for what he claims is the cold, distant upbringing they provided him.

Once the most eligible bachelor in the world, thanks to his love for sport he eventually grew into his looks, and by the time of his first marriage in July 1981 it seemed like the public might come to like him after all; by the birth of Prince Harry in September 1984, though, the fairytale was in trouble, his earlier affair with Camilla Parker Bowles was rekindled, and inasmuch as hindsight tells us it was prescience on his part, he embarked on an off-putting campaign (nay, a crusade) on behalf of both the natural and built environments, championing organic farming and criticizing modern architecture in equal measure.

In April 2005, with the support of Queen and Parliament (if not all of the Country), Camilla made an honest man of him, just the latest in a series of extreme measures seemingly designed to save the monarchy from the Heir to the Throne. Keeping in mind that William is waiting in line, right behind him. Let's not ever forget that, people. Diana's son won't ever get to be King if Charles doesn't go through it first; is that what you want? I didn't think so.

(Can I have my OBE now?)
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In Memoriam: Jawaharlal Nehru

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was an influential figure in the Indian independence movement, serving as that country's first Prime Minister beginning in August 1947; his daughter Indira and grandson Rajiv would later follow him into that office. Yet his influence continues unabated throughout India in many other ways, even though he died more than forty years ago...

Born on this day in 1889 - the son of a Brahmin barrister named Motilal Nehru - young Jawaharlal was mentored by Mahatma Gandhi, who was determined to break down India's caste system; it was a determination soon shared by teacher and pupil alike.

Educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge, when he was 27 Nehru's marriage was arranged to Kamala Kaul, who was just 16; conflicts arose between the thoroughly Westernized Nehru and his deeply Hindu bride, yet the marriage managed to produce its only child, the fabled Indira, within 18 months.

In fact, it may have been his wife's influence (as much as his mentor's) that soon had Nehru going native, which dismayed his still-Anglicized family. His zeal for social justice meant Nehru attracted the support of many women, as well as ethnic and religious minorities. In 1920, he was elected President of the All India Trade Unions Congress; he was later also one of the youngest-ever leaders in the history of the Congress Party.

At the same time as Nehru was championing independence, his father was lobbying on behalf of dominion status for India, going so far as to author a report to that end; none of which stopped his son from famously hoisting the Indian flag over the Union Jack on the last day of 1929. Four weeks later Nehru and his party would be calling for Purna Swaraj, or complete independence from the British Empire. His defiance would see him incarcerated between August 1942 and June 1945.

Independence for India would finally be obtained in August 1947, when Nehru would deliver his stirring inaugural address, A Tryst With Destiny.

In power Nehru's first years were marked by the sectarian violence that accompanied Partition; even though he'd supported the move, it had been a reluctant support, and soon history would prove that his reluctance had been well-founded. The young nation was also rocked by the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in January 1948. At the same time as Nehru's government was struggling to maintain the peace, it was also attempting to impose some semblance of planning on the infant democracy; probably his greatest concern throughout this time, though, was with increasing educational opportunities for all of India's children.

Nehru died of a combination stroke and heart attack in May 1964; his legacy is one of egalitarianism, tempered by the failures of central planning which caused widespread famine in Bihar in the final years of his life. Only a massive infusion of humanitarian aid from the United States prevented Nehru's devotion to Communist ideology from causing a genocide by malnutrition on a scale that would have put those committed by his heroes Mao and Stalin to shame.

Nonetheless, his birthday is still celebrated as Children's Day in India.
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Pop History Moment: Princess Anne Married Mark Phillips

On this day in 1973 500 million people tuned in to watch the Queen's only daughter HRH The Princess Anne marry Lieutenant Mark Phillips, who was then serving with the 1st Queen's Dragoon Guards; it was the first Royal Wedding in over a dozen years, the last having been that of Princess Anne's aunt Princess Margaret to Antony Armstrong-Jones in 1960.

Anne and Mark were married in Westminster Abbey; they'd been engaged since May, and met through their shared love for all things equestrian.

Following an 18-day honeymoon upon the royal yacht HMY Britannia, the couple settled at Gatcombe Park. They had two children together: Peter Phillips, born in November 1977, and Zara Phillips, born in May 1981. Separating in August 1989 - due in large part to the fact that Phillips had fathered another woman's baby - the couple divorced in April 1992; Her Royal Highness was remarried in December of that year to Timothy Laurence, a commander in the Royal Navy, to whom she is married still.
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The Death of Nell Gwynne

Beloved by Charles II of England and admired by contemporary diarist Samuel Pepys - who called her 'pretty, witty Nell' - Nell Gwynne was the pre-eminent comedienne of the Restoration stage, and the first actress whose fame has outlived her lifetime, since women weren't permitted on the stage previously; the era also saw the first woman playwright, Aphra Behn.

Born most likely at the beginning of February 1650 (nobody seems to know where, and not even the date is certain, only likely) her first appearance at what would come to be known as Theatre Royal, Drury Lane was at the age of 14, selling oranges and other treats to the patrons - including, quite possibly, herself. Her first recorded treading of the boards was in 1665, in a play by John Dryden, under the tutelage of her first prominent love, the actor Charles Hart.

Later that year and early in the next, as the Great Plague ravaged London, Gwynne travelled with the court as a member of the King's Company, which entitled her to the great honour of wearing His Majesty's livery; fire in London in September 1666 probably prevented her return there, and she seems to have lived in Oxford during this time.

In 1667 George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham was eager to wean the King off of his current favourite mistress, Buckingham's cousin Barbara Palmer (who had anyway peeved the Queen, Catherine of Braganza) and so introduced him to both Gwynne and Moll Davis, who quickly became rivals for the King's affection. By hook or by crook, Gwynne seems to have prevailed by 1668, reportedly with the intervention of Aphra Behn and some powerful laxatives - a scene right out of Restoration comedy.

Gwynne made a brief, daring return to her stage career, but in May 1670 gave birth to the King's son Charles, and by 1671 she was once again retired from the stage at the ripe old age of 21. Which was all to the better, as she now had to fend off another challenge for the King's attention - this time from one of the Queen's maids, Louise de Kérouaille.

It was during this time that she was accosted in her carriage while driving through Oxford; mistaken for the King's Catholic mistress, de Kérouaille, she blithely leaned out the window and uttered her most famous line: 'Good people, you are mistaken; I am the Protestant whore.' Thereafter they left her alone, since (then, as now) the English have a great respect for anyone with a sense of humour about themselves. Another great quip has survived the predations of history; she broke up a fight in which her coachman was defending her honour by saying 'I am a whore. Find something else to fight about.' Once again, it worked.

On Christmas Day 1671 Gwynne gave birth to a second son by the King, James Beauclerk, who died mysteriously at school in Paris in 1680, aged 9. The King himself died in 1685, and two years later in March of 1687 she suffered a stroke, which left her paralyzed. A second stroke in May confined her to bed, and she made out her will in July.

Nell Gwynne died on this day in 1687, aged 37; she was buried in St Martin-in-the-Fields, in Trafalgar Square, following a funeral at which the Archbishop of Canterbury delivered the sermon. Not bad for a girl with shady origins who used her dodgy profession to sleep her way to the top...
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"I Miss You" by Blink-182

Thankfully birthday boy Travis Barker - formerly of Blink-182 and currently with +44, or is it the other way around? - survived his recent bout with plane crash; this song gets me bad enough as it is, without its having to take on the added poignance of yet another ambitious and talented musician dead because of a small plane.

Barker is also noted for his marriage to former Miss USA* Shanna Moakler and the inevitable reality show, Meet the Barkers, that accompanied it; pundits will remember that the blonde stunner grappled with stunned blonde Paris Hilton at the LA night-spot Hyde Lounge in October 2006 while her tattooed inamorata looked on.

Anyway, I Miss You originally appeared on Blink-182's self-titled fifth (and, sadly, last**) album, from 2003; the song's video was directed by Jonas Åkerlund.

* And former Pacific Blue cast member, as well as Oscar de la Hoya's baby mama - or, if you prefer, bambino mamacita.
**Since this post was first made on this day in 2008 the band has reformed and returned to both the concert stage and the recording studio; although a new single, Up All Night, was announced a proposed new studio album from the band has yet to appear.
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POPnews - November 14th

[While Colombian money has frequently featured portraits of mythical or allegorical women, Policarpa Salavarrieta is the only historical woman to be so honoured; currently, her image appears on the 10,000 peso note.]
1889 - Journalist Nellie Bly began a successful attempt to travel around the world in 80 days, inspired by the Jules Verne novel of that name... She actually completed the trip in under seventy-three days and her account of the trip, Around the World in Seventy-Two Days, became almost as big a best seller as Verne's.

1910 - Aviator Eugene Ely became the first to launch an airplane from a ship when he took off from a makeshift deck on the USS Birmingham at Hampton Roads, Virginia, in a Curtiss Model D designed by Glenn Curtiss himself.

1922 - The British Broadcasting Company (BBC) began radio service.

1940 - The city of Coventry was heavily bombed by the Luftwaffe, almost completely destroying Coventry Cathedral in the process.

1941 - The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal sank off Gibraltar - a day after sustaining heavy damage from the German submarine U-81, which was under the command of Friedrich Guggenberger.

1948 - The first child - a son and heir to the throne, named Charles Philip Arthur George - was born to Britain's Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh.

1952 - The first regular UK singles chart was published by the New Musical Express.

1957 - The Apalachin Meeting outside Binghamton in Upstate New York was raided by law enforcement, resulting in the arrest of many high level Mafiosi, including the meeting's host Joseph 'Joe the Barber' Barbara.

1965 - The Battle of the Ia Drang - the first major engagement between regular American and North Vietnamese forces during the Vietnam War - began.

1967 - The Congress of Colombia, in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the death of Policarpa Salavarrieta, led that nation in celebrating this day as the first 'Day of the Colombian Woman'.

1969 - NASA launched Apollo 12, the second manned mission to the surface of the Moon.

1970 - Southern Airways Flight 932 crashed in the mountains near Huntington, West Virginia, killing 75 - including members of the Marshall University football team.

1971 - Shenouda III was enthroned as Pope of Alexandria and the Patriarch of All Africa on the Holy Apostolic See of Saint Mark the Evangelist, making him the spiritual leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church around the world.

1972 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 1,003.16 - above 1,000 for the first time.

1973 - The Queen's only daughter Princess Anne married Captain Mark Phillips at Westminster Abbey.

1975 - Spain relinquished its claim to Western Sahara.

1984 - Zamboanga City mayor Cesar Climaco - a prominent critic of the government of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos - was assassinated in his home city.

1991 - Cambodia's Prince Norodom Sihanouk returned to Phnom Penh after thirteen years in exile.

2003 - Sedna* was discovered, although the discovery would not be announced until the following March... Already considered a trans-Neptunian object by scientists, whether or not it is an asteroid or dwarf planet is still being debated, and will obviously depend on whether or not it is in hydrostatic equilibrium, as is currently suspected. It is, nevertheless, the most distant observed natural body in our solar system.

*Named after the Inuit goddess of the sea...
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POPnews - November 13th

[Despite the initial controversy surrounding the Vietnam Veterans Memorial it has proven so popular since its opening that it has been expanded; now, in addition to its iconic wall, the site includes the Three Soldiers statue and the Vietnam Women's Memorial, all of which are intended to help assuage the deep wounds caused to the American psyche by that unpopular war.]
1002 - As recounted in the writings of John of Wallingford, England's King Ethelred the Unready ordered the killing of all Danes in England, which is known today as the St. Brice's Day massacre; among those killed was Gunhilde, sister of Denmark's King Sweyn I, who invaded England the following year in reprisal.

1775 - Patriot revolutionary forces under Colonel Ethan Allen attacked Montreal, which was defended by British General Guy Carleton; Allen and his troops were disorganized and soundly defeated... However, US Brigadier General Richard Montgomery's force later entered Montreal unopposed after Carleton had withdrawn to Quebec City.

1851 - The Denny Party arrived at Alki Point aboard the schooner Exact; they later claimed to be the first settlers in what would become Seattle, Washington, despite the presence of Duwamish Indians and David Swinson 'Doc' Maynard, who were already living there.

1887 - Protesters demanding the release of imprisoned MP William O'Brien clashed with London's Metropolitan Police near Trafalgar Square on what came to be called Bloody Sunday.

1901 - The Caister Lifeboat Disaster claimed the lives of nine life-savers with the RNLI life-boat Beauchamp off of England's Norfolk coast.

1927 - The Holland Tunnel opened to traffic as the first vehicular tunnel linking New York City to New Jersey beneath the Hudson River.

1941 - The Royal Navy's aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal was torpedoed by the Kriegsmarine's U-81, resulting in the death of Able Seaman Edward Mitchell; the rest of the crew was evacuated to the nearby HMS Legion before the eventual sinking of the Ark Royal the following day...

1950 - The President of Venezuela, General Carlos Delgado Chalbaud, was assassinated in Caracas.

1956 - The US Supreme Court declared Alabama and Montgomery laws requiring segregated buses illegal; although this should have ended the Montgomery Bus Boycott then and there, the buses wouldn't be fully integrated until December.

1965 - The SS Yarmouth Castle caught fire and sank 60 miles off Nassau with the loss of 90 lives.

1971 - NASA's Mariner 9 became the first spacecraft to orbit another planet successfully when it entered its planned trajectory around Mars.

1982 - The Vietnam Veterans Memorial - located in Washington DC's Constitution Gardens - was dedicated after a march to its site by thousands of Vietnam War veterans; the design, by Maya Lin, was controversial at first, but it is now one of the most-visited of that city's monuments.

1985 - The volcano Nevado del Ruiz erupted and melted a glacier, causing a lahar (or volcanic mudslide) that buried the Colombian town of Armero, killing approximately 23,000 people.

1988 - Mulugeta Seraw - an Ethiopian-born law student living in Portland, Oregon - was beaten to death by members of the neo-Nazi group East Side White Pride.

1990 - David Gray shot and killed 13 people over two days in the New Zealand resort town of Aramoana, in what became known as the Aramoana Massacre; it remains that country's deadliest shooting spree.

1994 - Voters in Sweden decided to join the European Union in a referendum.

2000 - Philippine House Speaker Manuel B. Villar, Jr. passed articles of impeachment against President Joseph Estrada on charges of corruption and plunder, charges which would ultimately fail to unseat him.

2002 - The oil tanker Prestige sank off the Galician coast, spilling 20 million gallons and soiling more than 1,000 beaches in northern Spain and southern France.

2007 - An explosion hit the south wing of the House of Representatives of the Philippines in Quezon City, killing four people, including Congressman Wahab Akbar, and wounding six; to blame was the militant Islamist group Abu Sayyaf.
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