If they were alive today.....

...it would be the birthday of the following notables:

Harold Lloyd would be 118.  My god, this man was talented!  And his timeless style and form of comedy seem absolutely contemporary today.  He's remembered today as a daredevil comic, clinging to the sides of Los Angeles high-rises.  Just watching his artistry is jaw-dropping enough on its own; but taking into consideration that in a stunt that went wrong, he'd blown off the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, it makes it all the more amazing.  But more than "artistry" and "technical acumen"...never mind that!  This guy was just hilarious!  And still is.  My favorite of his films is The Freshman, the prototypical Harold Lloyd film, in which he plays the tenacious, good-to-a-fault college boy (adorably named "Speedy" Lamb) who saves the day, scoring the winning touchdown in "The Big Game".  Throughout the film, he does this little dance step whenever he meets someone for the first time...I've slowed down the film and tried to recreate it, but gave up.  It's all his--and I ain't no Speedy Lamb!  This is one of the films I often recommend to anyone looking to acquire an interest in silent films, as it's still absolutely fun and quite accessible, and invariably, new viewers walk away from it as devoted Harold Lloyd fans, without fail.  Here's the entire film!  If you want to see his little dance, advance ahead to 00:19:01--or if you have 76 minutes, watch the whole thing!  I swear, it'll make an instant fan out of you!



Bruce Cabot would be 107.  The square-jawed, handsome Hollywood leading man of the early 1930's is best known today as the hero who took on King Kong in the original 1933 classic film.



Edie Sedgwick would be 68.  She'd be no more than a footnote to the annals of the wild and wasted New York of the 1960's, had it not been for a fascinating biography of her, Edie, by Jean Stein and George Plimpton.  The Andy Warhol "actress" and model, who forsook her New England blueblooded heritage to become the drug-addled emblem of that era, was in fact no more than a petulant, infantile, rather nasty, all-around mess.  A "hot mess," in today's terms.  But the book's well worth the read. (available on Amazon for about $2.50--link below).






Jayne Mansfield would be 78 (yesterday...sorry Jayne...missed you yesterday!).  The ultimate Hollywood, "sex-goddess-or-die" starlet, Jayne Mansfield was really something!  I love this series of photos, taken at a Hollywood event in 1957.  The classy Sophia Loren, who was just exploding on the international film scene was shamelessly upstaged by Mansfield who was known to do anything to get attention.  Just observing the expressions of these two ladies is a wonderful study in subtext.  Poor Jaynie grew more and more desperate for that attention as the years wore on, ending her years appearing in cheapo sexploitation films.  Her tragic end came on a rain-slicked Louisiana highway in 1967, when the car she was riding in, asleep, slammed into a flatbed trailer-truck.  Contrary to the well-spread myth, she was not decapitated, but was indeed killed immediately.  Her children, who were asleep in the backseat, all survived (including popular television actress, Mariska Hargitay (Law and Order), then just three years old).




And Time Magazine's "Man of the Year" of 1938 would be 122.  That would be Adolph Hitler.  Here are some things you may not know about him:

• He was born with only one testicle.
• Toward the end of his life, he was beset with symptoms of the early onset of Parkinson's Disease.
• Reportedly, his two favorite movies were King Kong and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
• His great-great-grandmother was Jewish.
• In 1940, there were 20 listings in the New York City telephone book of persons with the last name of "Hitler".  Today, there are none. In fact, there are only 5 people with that name listed in the entire United States.  Presumably, prudence dictates that in some circumstances, you simply HAVE to change your name (can you even imagine going through life with that name?)