ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE FEBRUARY 18, 1957
FRANK SINATRA has been called before a State Senate Committee to say what he knows about a 1954 attempt to raid Marilyn Monroe’s apartment. He and four detectives employed by her then husband, ex-baseball star Joe DiMaggio, are said to have made the raid. Marilyn, now the wife of playwright Arthur Miller, obtained a divorce from £37,500-a-year DiMaggio in 1954.
FEBRUARY 18, 1967 AMERICA has its Kennedys, but Britain has the Redgraves. It’s a toss-up who gets more space in the U.S. Press. Lynn Redgrave is on Broadway in Peter Shaffer’s Black Comedy. Brother Corin is on posters for the film, A Man For All Seasons. Sister Vanessa’s picture advertises Blow-Up, while another cinema is showing Grand Prix, which stars their mother, Rachel Kempson. Today, a new film, The 25th Hour, starring Sir Michael Redgrave [their father], opened at the Radio City Music Hall.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
SINÉAD CUSACK, 69. The Irish actress (right) is the sister of Niamh and Sorcha Cusack, married to Jeremy Irons, and the mother of Max Irons — all actors. She’s been lauded for her stage work, but says she was ‘the most joyless Juliet to disgrace the stage’. She was thrown out of Dublin’s Abbey Theatre when her line: ‘Look at that couple in the punt’ came out ‘horribly wrong’.
MICHAEL BUERK, 71. The former BBC newsreader’s reports on Ethiopia’s starving millions in 1984 inspired Bob Geldof to set up Live Aid. The former Daily Mail reporter appeared in I’m A Celebrity...in 2014, and revealed that he once stood at the rail of the QE2 with Jimmy Savile. ‘My regret is not tipping him over,’ he said.
BORN ON THIS DAY
HELEN GURLEY BROWN (1922-2012). The US editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine for 32 years was described as one of the most influential women of the 20th century. Her 1962 book Sex And The Single Girl was a sensation. She said she should have received a credit from the creators of TV’s Sex And The City. Her husband, Hollywood producer David Brown, said: ‘She never let me go to work without a cooked breakfast.’
JACK PALANCE (19192006). Born Volodymyr Jack Palahniuk to Ukrainian parents, the 6ft 4in U.S. actor was a boxer and World War II bomber pilot before taking up acting. He won a best supporting actor Oscar (right) for the role of Curly in the 1991 film City Slickers. While accepting his award — aged 73 — he dropped to the floor to do one-armed press ups, before jumping up and carrying on talking as normal.
ON FEBRUARY 18 ...
IN 1929, the winners of the first Academy Awards (Oscars) were announced.
IN 1969, Lulu and Bee Gee Maurice Gibb married, only to separate four years later.
WORD WIZARDRY
NEW WORD OF THE DAY Vape: To smoke an e-cigarette.
GUESS THE DEFINITION Floccillation (coined 1842) A) Spreading of manure. B) Delirious patient’s picking at bed-sheets. C) Whipping of a numb limb with nettles.
PHRASE EXPLAINED Pigs might fly: Used to describe something that will never happen. An early version (1616) was ‘pigs fly with their tails forward’.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
IF ONLY God would give me some clear sign! like making a large deposit in my name in a Swiss bank.
Woody Allen, U.S. filmmaker
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHICH knight never won a battle? Sir Render.
Guess The Definition answer: B.