ON THIS DAY
June 21, 2017
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE JUNE 21, 1950
JUDY GARLAND, the screen star suspended by MGM last week, slashed her throat last night in a fit of despondency. The wound is slight and she is expected to be all right in a few days. A studio publicity man said: ‘Miss Garland became hysterical and rushed into her bathroom. She broke a glass and made a laceration on her throat.’
JUNE 21, 1967
SIR LAURENCE OLIVIER, who is having treatment for a cancer of the prostate gland, will not act again this season. Lady Olivier (actress Joan Plowright) called a Press conference to announce this though Sir Laurence had not yet been consulted.
‘If I present him with this fait accompli, he’ll have to listen, won’t he?’ she said.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
RAY DAVIES, 73. The Kinks frontman (pictured) was born in Muswell Hill, north London, with six older sisters. The singersongwriter of Waterloo Sunset and Lola was shot in the leg when he chased down a mugger in New Orleans in 2004. WALLY FAWKES, 93. The cartoonist, aka Trog, is best known for Flook, described by Margaret Thatcher as ‘the best commentary of the politics of the day’. His first ‘art’ job was painting factory roofs to conceal them from German bombers. He said: ‘I finished work on Friday, came back on Monday and it had been flattened. It is the harshest criticism of my work I have faced.’
BORN ON THIS DAY
JANE RUSSELL (19212011). Despite being one of Hollywood’s most famous sex symbols, the U.S. actress (pictured) was a devout Christian. Her breasts have been described as ‘more fetishised, lit, photographed, designed and dreamed about than any woman’s in the cinema’. BENAZIR BHUTTO (1953-2007). The first female prime minister of Pakistan was assassinated weeks before national elections. Bhutto introduced Theresa May to her husband-to-be Philip at an Oxford University disco in 1976.
ON JUNE 21 . . .
IN 1854, the first victoria Cross was awarded to Charles Davis Lucas, who during the Crimean War picked up a live shell from his ship’s deck and threw it into the sea.
IN 1937, Wimbledon tennis was televised for the first time via cameras on Centre Court.
WORD WIZARDRY
NEW WORD OF THE DAY
Goldfishing: Talking inaudibly while being interviewed (as when a politician’s lips move but only the reporter is heard).
GUESS THE DEFINITION
Slubberdegullion (coined 1616)
A) A gawky, adolescent boy B) A scarecrow made of old garments C) A dirty, wretched slob Answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED
Go the whole hog: To commit to do something. Possibly from a poem by William Cowper that suggests while sampling which part of a hog is inedible, the whole hog is eaten.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
HUMAN speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to. Gustave Flaubert, novelist (1821-1880)
JOKE OF THE DAY
PEOPLE in Dubai don’t like the Flintstones. But people in Abu Dhabi do! Guess The Definition answer: C