On this Day... March 3
• In 1953, “Man of Steel” Josef Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, died age 73 in circumstance that will probably never be explained. Conflicting reports said he’d passed away both at a conference in the Kremlin and at his country dacha 50 miles from Moscow. When the authorities summoned “the best medical brains” to treat him, they must have had a slight problem, since nine of the Kremlin’s top medicos had been imprisoned some weeks before. Whatever really happened, his body lay in state and Moscow Radio announced that five million mourners filed past in 72 hours. A U.S. accountant worked out that if that were true, they’d have had to run past two abreast, three paces apart, at a record-breaking speed of 22 miles per hour!
• In 1908, “Mr. Urbanity,” Rex Harrison, was born in Liverpool, England. He took off for Hollywood as the King of Siam in 1946 production of “The King and I,” and later played Saladin, Caesar, and Henry VIII. But it was as Professor Higgins in “My Fair Lady” that he really struck it big – first on the stage and then in the movie – after Cary Grant had said, “If you don’t put Rex Harrison in it, I won’t go and see it.” Mr. Harrison had a succession of wives, including Lilli Palmer and Rachel Roberts, and his admirers have included Noel Coward. Said Mr. Coward to Rex, “If, next to me, you were not the finest light comedy actor in the world, you’d be good for only one thing – selling cars!