ON THIS DAY

FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE MARCH 26, 1943

AUSTeRITY orders for German women’s clothing were issued last night by an official spokesman. ‘Changes of fashion cannot be permitted in total war,’ he declared. ‘Many women have found extreme pleasure in circumventing the regulations. They make their skirts shorter. This must stop!’

MARCH 26, 1968

LIBeRACe flashed his famous smile on the eamonn Andrews Show and said he was sorry the [trademark] candelabra was missing, it was being held by Customs. But that was a tiny fib. One of his PR men explained: ‘I told him to say that. You see, the TV company weren’t prepared to pay the insurance. It’s a solid gold candelabra, quite priceless.’

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

KeIRA KNIGHTLeY, 34. The London- born star (right) of Pirates Of The Caribbean and Bend It Like Beckham was named the most desirable single woman in the UK in 2004 by Tatler, and was the youngest actress on a 2009 list of Hollywood’s most bankable stars. She married Klaxons rocker James Righton in 2013 and has said lack of sleep caused by daughter edie, three, has made her a better actress, adding: ‘Sleep deprivation makes your emotions very close to the surface.’ BOB WOODWARD, 76. The American journalist helped bring down President Richard Nixon with his reporting of the Watergate scandal. He was played by Robert Redford in All The President’s Men, and Woodward’s book on which the 1976 film was based has been hailed as ‘perhaps the most influential piece of journalism in history’. A former director of the CIA said he wished he had recruited Woodward.

BORN ON THIS DAY

TeNNeSSee WILLIAMS (1911-1983). The double Pulitzer Prize- winning U. S. playwright wrote The Glass Menagerie and Cat On A Hot Tin Roof. He died after choking on the plastic cap of a medicine bottle. Williams said of Marlon Brando’s reading of the script of A Streetcar Named Desire (the actor would originate the role of Stanley Kowalski): ‘ It was the most magnificent reading I ever heard.’ LeONARD NIMOY (19312015). The American actor, who became synonymous with the role of Mr Spock in Star Trek, did not resent being typecast for life. He had feared Spock’s pointed ears would be seen as ‘a bad joke’, but Nimoy himself contributed Spock’s Vulkan V-shaped hand greeting (above).

ON MARCH 26…

IN 1964, Funny Girl, the musical that brought Barbra Streisand to worldwide fame, opened on Broadway. IN 1973, english playwright and composer Sir Noel Coward died, aged 73.

WORD WIZARDRY

GUESS THE DEFINITION: Eximious (1547) A) Thrifty. B) excellent. C) Small. Answer below

PHRASE EXPLAINED

Slanging match: exchange of abuse or a vituperative argument; ‘slang’ means to insult or abuse so by the end of the 19th century the phrase came to mean a verbal bout of fisticuffs.