ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE MARCH 25, 1953
THE Daily Mail deeply regrets to announce the death of Queen Mary at her home, Marlborough House, at 10.20 last night. She was 85. The Duke of Windsor reached his mother’s bedside only nine minutes after she died. Queen Mary’s last wish was that the Coronation of her granddaughter Elizabeth should go ahead on June 2.
MARCH 25, 1958
THE din of newsmen and photographers drowned orders given to new recruits today when Elvis Presley joined the Army for two years. A sergeant had to bark his instructions as he sent the men, stripped to shorts and shoes, for a medical examination. Presley was passed A1, and so the 23-yearold who made a million-dollar career singing rock ’n’ roll is now a £7-a-week private.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
SIR Elton John, 72. The singer- songwriter from Pinner (right), who started at the Royal Academy of Music aged 11, was among the 25 highest-paid musicians of last year, earning £ 35 million, according to Forbes. He calls pal Rod Stewart ‘Phyllis’, in a longrunning showbiz gag, while Stewart calls him ‘Sharon’. Elton has quipped: ‘It’s very important to have two tiaras when you’re on the road. You never know when you’ll be invited to something really formal.’ GLORIA STEINEM, 85. The pioneering feminist, who went undercover in 1963 to write an exposé of the working conditions in Hugh Hefner’s New York Playboy Club, says that even in her 80s ‘hostile people still call me a former Playboy Bunny’.
BORN ON THIS DAY
SIR DAVID LEAN ( 1908- 1991). The Croydon-born film director, who made Lawrence Of Arabia, Brief Encounter and The Bridge On The River Kwai, didn’t see his first film until he was 17 — his Quaker parents thought movies were sinful. ARETHA FRANKLIN (19422018). The Queen of Soul (right) was given the top spot in Rolling Stone’s list of The Greatest Singers Of All Time. After seeing contemporaries ripped off by concert promoters, she insisted on being paid in $100 bills before any show. The cash was put in her handbag, which sat on the piano on stage. Twicemarried Aretha, who sang feminist anthem Respect, once said: ‘The man who gets me is getting one hell of a woman.’
ON MARCH 25 . . .
IN 1992, Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev returned after ten months on the Mir Space Station to a world in which his country, the Soviet Union, no longer existed. IN 2005, U.S. actress Jennifer Aniston filed for divorce from actor Brad Pitt, citing irreconcilable differences.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Manel (2016) A) Guidebook B) Middle-aged man C) An exclusively male panel. Answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED
Sugar daddy — A rich older man who lavishes gifts on a young woman in return for her company or sexual favours. It was first used in a 1923 tale called Fat Anna’s Future in the Syracuse Herald newspaper. Sugar was American slang for money.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
COMPUTERS are useless — they can only give you answers. Pablo Picasso, Spanish artist (1881-1973)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHY do ducks make good detectives? they always quack the case. Guess the Definition answer: C.