ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
APRIL 5, 1939 BRITIsH ministers must be able to say if ‘bullying, bloodthirsty dictators’ threaten to bomb the population. But so it can stand firm against such attacks, the country must be provided with air raid shelters, socialist Herbert Morrison told the Commons, apprehensive that something of the sort might be tried. APRIL 5, 1954 MIss Zsa Zsa Gabor, whose marriage to the British actor George sanders was dissolved last week, will fly to Paris tomorrow ‘to be with mother’. Will she remarry? she said: ‘Never, probably.’ [Her resolve didn’t last long — Gabor went on to marry a further six times, nine in total.]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
JANE AsHER, 71. The actress was talentspotted by a film producer on the street aged five. she went on to appear in numerous films, including Alfie with Michael Caine. A former girlfriend of Paul McCartney, the Beatles’ song I Want To Hold Your Hand was written at her parents’ house. she is married to the cartoonist Gerald scarfe. HAYLEY ATWELL, 35. The English actress (pictured) was nicknamed ‘Hulk Hayley’ at school because she played rugby and would ‘ wrestle with the boys’. Emma Thompson threatened to resign from the 2008 film Brideshead Revisited because her young co- star was being pressured to lose weight, telling Atwell: ‘You’re not a model. You’re an actor.’
BORN ON THIS DAY
BETTE DAVIs (1908-1989). The first person to receive ten Oscar nominations (winning with Dangerous and Jezebel), she turned down the lead in another eventual Oscarwinner, The African Queen with Humphrey Bogart, after hearing it would be shot on location. she told her Warner Bros. boss: ‘If you can’t shoot the picture in a boat on the back lot, then I’m not interested.’ GREGORY PECK (19162003). The U. s. actor (pictured) won an Oscar for playing lawyer Atticus Finch in 1962’s To Kill A Mockingbird. He didn’t get rich, though. In later years, when he heard that contemporary actors earned $30 million per movie, he said wryly: ‘I was born too soon.’
ON APRIL 5 . . .
IN 1614, Pocahontas, a Native American chief’s daughter, married English colonist John Rolfe in Virginia. IN 1955, sir Winston Churchill resigned as Prime Minister aged 80 due to ill health.
WORD WIZARDRY
NEW WORD OF THE DAY Trumpkin: A pumpkin fashioned to look like Donald Trump. GUESS THE DEFINITION Viaticum (coined from Latin 1562) A) A conflict of ecclesiastics. B) Communion given to a dying person. C) A fight with an imaginary enemy. Answer below PHRASE EXPLAINED To nail one’s colours to the mast: Meaning they cannot be lowered in surrender.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
TheRe is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is sane. I know I am mad. Salvador Dali, Spanish Surrealist painter (1904-1989)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHY do fish live in salt water? Because pepper makes them sneeze. Guess The Definition answer: B