ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE MARCH 1, 1991
VANESSA REDGRAVE claimed yesterday that her home has been bugged. The actress said an electronic ‘sweep’ had revealed a listening device hidden in a plug socket in the study of the house in Clapham, South-West London, where Marxist Society meetings are held.
MARCH 1, 1996
THE Princess of Wales angrily attacked Buckingham Palace last night over its handling of the royal divorce. She said: ‘I have given them everything they wanted and they are still not satisfied. I did not want this divorce, but I have agreed to it. Now they are playing ping-pong with me.’
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
CATHERINE BACH, 70. The U.S. actress played Daisy Duke in hit 1980s TV series The Dukes Of Hazzard — and came up with her costume, including tiny denim shorts. She said it was a fluke that she got the role, after being fired by her agent: ‘I’m half Mexican and half German, and my agency said, “You’re way too exotic and just not TV material.” ’ RON HOWARD, 70. The U.S. former child star played Richie Cunningham in the 1970s sitcom Happy Days before becoming a director, winning an Oscar for A Beautiful Mind in 2002. He used to be bothered by people harking back to his childhood fame, but now says: ‘I’ve come to appreciate my unique place in pop culture.’
BORN ON THIS DAY
HARRY BELAFONTE (1927-2023). The New Yorkborn singer, actor and civil rights activist popularised calypso music and had hits with Mary’s Boy Child and
Day-O (The Banana Boat
Song). In 1957, he starred in Island In The Sun, in which there is a suggestion of a romance between a black man and a white woman (played by Joan Fontaine) — it sparked so much outrage in South Carolina that cinemas faced fines if they showed the film. GEORGI MARKOV (1929-1978). The Bulgarian dissident writer died four days after being stabbed in the thigh by the tip of an umbrella poisoned with ricin while waiting for a bus on Waterloo Bridge. Markov was convinced he had been targeted by the KGB, while secret police files identified his assassin as an agent code-named ‘Piccadilly’, Francesco Gullino, an Italian-born Bulgarian agent who was never charged.
ON MARCH 1…
IN 1946, the Bank of England, founded in 1694, was nationalised.
IN 1984, former child star Jackie Coogan died, aged 69.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Freemartin (coined 1681)
A) A traveller. B) A hermaphrodite or sterile female calf. C) A greedy sponger.
Answer below.
PHRASE EXPLAINED Whiter than white:
meaning pure and virtuous, from Shakespeare’s poem Venus And Adonis, which has the line ‘teaching the sheets a whiter hew than white’; it became popular from an ad campaign in the 1950s for a washing powder.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
I’ve been through more cold turkeys than there are freezers.
Keith Richards, Rolling Stone
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT happened to the shoplifter who got lost in the shirt section? He’s still at large.
Guess The Definition answer: B.