Hello you internet-roaming media sponges you. I just wanted to share with you a few of the things that I – in my exhaustive and exhausting research into the world of cinema – have discovered occurred throughout cinema history on this very day, the 2nd of October. I have entered damp, dark library basements, searched through towering stacks of dusty, antiquated volumes and travelled far and wide to speak with scholars, shaman and charlatans alike in order to bring you this information (I also – suffering a little from the heat – fell asleep in my pants and then went on the IMDB…)
So, first of all, today marks – or should I say “Marx”? – the birthday of the one and only Groucho Marx (1890 – 1977), the star of Duck Soup, A Night At The Opera and countless others, one of the funniest men ever and one of the few men to wear such a moustache and not play for Liverpool. Go Google “Groucho Marx Quotes” and yuck it up. Today also finds Lorraine Bracco (b.1954) blowing out the candles. The star of Someone To Watch Over Me, Goodfellas and, in more recent years, The Sopranos (playing Tony’s psychiatrist Dr Jennifer Melfi) also shares her birthday with Sting, the ex-Police bassist and “singer” who some film fans may remember from Dune, David Lynch’s only real foray into the world of sucking with which Sting himself is so intimately acquainted.
Rock Hudson died on this day in 1985. The Pillow Talk star ascended to Hollywood Heaven on golden wings on the very same day that George Savalas, Kojak’s brother, also passed away. Savalas’ passing almost went unnoticed, so consumed were the public with their grief for Hudson and by the latest craze sweeping the nation – the AIDS joke. Also celebrating their deathday today is cowboy legend Gene Autrey who died in 1998 and Madeleine Carroll, Hitchcock’s so-called “first blonde” and star of 1935’s The 39 Steps. Finally, today also marks the passing of the wonderfully name Daisy Lee Mothershed, star of 9 films between 1935 and 1944 and forgotten by most but not by us.
Last up… Not only is today apparently the date in which Ash and his buddies visit the cabin in the woods in both Evil Dead and the Evil Dead II, it is also on this date in 1988 that a young man by the name of Donnie Darko was first visited by Frank – a giant rabbit – and informed that the world would come to an end in 29 day, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds…
And me? Well, this was the day that I had croissants for breakfast, cursed the heat, fell asleep, wrote an amazingly researched blog-piece about this day in history and then roasted a partridge by sellotaping it to a window. Not bad, all in all…
