ON THIS DAY
FROM THE ARCHIVE
FEBRUARY 9, 2004 HE IS the most successful 007 of all, but Pierce Brosnan is being pensioned off as James Bond. Producers have decided that, at the age of 50, he is not attracting enough young fans and will be recruiting a successor. Names in the frame include Jude Law, Christian Bale, Orlando Bloom, Colin Farrell and Hugh Jackman. FEBRUARY 9, 2008 SUNDERLAND boss Roy Keane says he would be interested in managing Ireland one day, but only after a clear-out at the FAI. Keane has launched a scathing attack on the Ireland manager’s selection process, claiming the 100-plus-day wait for Stephen Staunton’s successor has not surprised him. ‘That’s the FAI,’ he moaned. ‘Typical FAI.’ However, Keane has not ruled out wanting to lead his country as a coach eventually. He said: ‘Yes I’d be interested in the Ireland job, certainly international management one day, though maybe not with Ireland. It would have to be in a few years’ time – and they’d all have to go, the whole of the FAI, every single blazer and committee man. But can you imagine me working for the FAI?’
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
MIA FARROW, 79. The US actress and campaigner, right, starred in Rosemary’s Baby and Hannah And Her Sisters. She married Frank Sinatra when she was 21 and he was 50. She went on to marry composerconductor André Previn and have a 12-year relationship with Woody Allen, until he started dating her 21-year-old adopted daughter. JOE PESCI, 81. The US actor starred in Raging Bull and won an Oscar for Goodfellas. While playing a villain in two Home Alone films, he kept his distance from child star Macaulay Culkin ‘to maintain the integrity of the adversarial relationship’. Officially, he retired in 1999, but has appeared in four films since.
BORN ON THIS DAY
MRS PATRICK CAMPBELL (1865-1940). The stage actress from London, born Beatrice Tanner, created the role of Eliza Doolittle in her friend George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. The two exchanged flirtatious letters for 40 years. She travelled everywhere with her Pekingese, Pinky Panky Poo. She described her marriage as: ‘The deep, deep peace of the double-bed after the hurly-burly of the chaise-longue.’ CLIVE SWIFT (1936-2019). The Liverpool-born actor made his name as henpecked Richard Bucket in BBC sitcom Keeping Up Appearances. An original member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, he was married to novelist Margaret Drabble for 15 years and their children included Joe Swift, a presenter of the BBC’s Gardeners’ World.
ON FEBRUARY 9…
IN 1981, rock ’n’ roll pioneer Bill Haley, right, dies aged 55.
IN 1986, Halley’s Comet, ‘history’s most famous comet’, makes an appearance. It will not return until 2061.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION Drollic (c 1743)
A) Young and thoughtless. B) Pertaining to a puppet show. C) Of a girl: forward, romping.
Answer below.
PHRASE EXPLAINED
Vestal virgin: referring to a nun dedicated to the service of the Roman goddess Vesta and whose duty was to keep the fire of the temple burning, both day and night; she was required to be of spotless chastity.