ON THIS DAY
September 9, 2020
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
SEPTEMBER 9, 1964 A MAN who has been out of work since June has been refused the dole because he has a Rolling Stones hairstyle. Mr Richard McNab, 21, said at his home in Oxford Avenue, Southampton, yesterday: ‘When the Labour Exchange told me to have it cut, I got it trimmed. But they said it was still too long and my dole would be suspended.’
SEPTEMBER 9, 1982 SuPERMAN Daley Thompson (right) took a leap into athletics history last night, when he won the decathlon gold medal at the European championships in Athens. He became the first man to hold the Olympic, Commonwealth and European titles and a world record simultaneously. Daley celebrated with a lap of honour, waving a huge union Jack above his head.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
HuGH GRANT, 60. The Oxford-educated actor from London was described by one film critic as ‘like a refugee from 1930s theatre — or an incipient sneeze looking for a vacant nose’. He made his film debut at 22, billed as Hughie Grant. He named his production company Simian Films because his girlfriend of 13 years, Elizabeth Hurley, thought he looked like a monkey.
ANGELA CARTWRIGHT, 68. The Cheshire-born u.S. actress (right) made her film debut at three, but found fame as Brigitta von Trapp in 1965’s The Sound Of Music, aged 11. She says when the on-screen siblings reunite: ‘It’s like we don’t skip a beat. We’re like a real family.’
BORN ON THIS DAY
FRANK LuCAS (1930-2019). The u.S. drug kingpin, portrayed by Denzel Washington in film American Gangster, claimed he embarked on a life of crime after seeing his cousin of 12 lynched by the Ku Klux Klan. In the Vietnam war he smuggled heroin into the u.S. in false bottoms of coffins fashioned like official military ones. A 70-year jail term was reduced to five after he became an informer — although he later offended again and was imprisoned for seven years. JANE GREER (1924-2001). The actress from Washington DC made her name as a film noir femme fatale opposite Robert Mitchum in 1947’s Out Of The Past. But after marrying her second husband, motherhood saw her withdraw from Hollywood: ‘I didn’t want the children to grow up, and when asked what their mother did, say; “Oh, Mom’s a gun moll in the movies”.’
ON SEPTEMBER 9…
IN 1965, the Hollywood Reporter ran an advert that read: ‘Madness folk & roll musicians, singers wanted for acting roles in new TV show. Parts for 4 insane boys.’ It lead to the formation of The Monkees.
IN 2015, the Queen became the longestserving British monarch, overtaking her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria’s reign of 23,226 days. But she said the title was ‘not one to which I have ever aspired’.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Nidus (c 1740)
A) A conjunction. B) A light carriage. C) A nest, especially one in which insects deposit their eggs. Answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED Greased lightning: coined in an 1833 English newspaper to describe someone who spoke very quickly, combining ‘lightning’, with a reference to lubricant that made things move faster.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
I read the obituaries every day just for the satisfaction of not seeing my name there.
Neil Simon, U.S. playwright (1927-2018)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHICH cheese should you use to coax a bear down from a tree? Camembert. Guess The Definition answer: C.