Also in July 1980…
2nd: Following its world premiere on Broadway the previous year, Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street opens in the West End. Featuring Denis Quilley in the title role and Sheila Hancock as Mrs Lovett, the production runs at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane for 157 performances.
16th: At the Republican National Convention in Detroit, Ronald Reagan reveals that George HW Bush is to be his running mate in the forthcoming US presidential elections. Reagan originally approached Gerald Ford for the position, but the former president turned the offer down, later revealing that he might have accepted had he been allowed more time to consider and negotiate it. 23rd: Helen Hagnes Mintiks, a violinist in the orchestra for a Berlin Ballet touring performance at the New York Met, goes missing during an interval, leaving her violin still on her chair. She is found dead the next morning, having been bound and blindfolded and thrown down a ventilation shaft from the sixth floor. Craig Crimmins, a 21-year-old stagehand, later confesses to her murder. 24th: Peter Sellers dies aged 54 at the Middlesex Hospital, having suffered a heart attack in his suite at the Dorchester Hotel two days previously. The actor and comedian had been due to meet his former Goon Show colleagues Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe for a reunion that evening – ‘Anything to avoid paying for dinner’, reflects Secombe ruefully in paying tribute to his friend.
26th: At the Summer Olympics in Moscow, Steve Ovett wins the gold medal in the men’s 800m. In taking the title, Ovett beats his British rival Sebastian Coe, the world record holder. Though bitterly disappointed with the silver medal, Coe enjoys revenge a week later when he takes gold in the 1,500m, in which Ovett finishes third.