ON THIS DAY
April 25, 2019
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE APRIL 25, 1950
Bring back the cane, experts said at a conference to discuss the crimewave among children. One speaker after another at Middlesex Guildhall took the line: ‘Let us get back some Victorian sternness.’
APRIL 25, 1964
JEAN SHRIMPTON, one of Britain’s top models, has ended her engagement to fashion photographer David Bailey. She broke the news to him when he flew to new York, where she is working for Vogue magazine. ‘We weren’t really engaged,’ she said. ‘Friends tried to rush us to the altar.’
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
AL Pacino, 79. The U.S. Oscar winner was voted the greatest movie star of all time in a Channel 4 poll. However, he did not get off to a good start in cinema — he was fired as an usher when his boss saw him admiring himself in a mirrored wall. He is best known for The Godfather films (pictured), despite producers not wanting him at the outset. When The Godfather: part III (1990) came around pacino demanded $7 million. This enraged director Francis Ford Coppola, who threatened to write a new script that opened with the funeral of pacino’s character Michael Corleone. pacino settled for $5 million. FIONA BRUCE, 55. The Antiques Roadshow host, the first female news At Ten newsreader and Question Time’s first woman presenter, was the second-highest paid female BBC employee in 2017 (on £ 300,000- plus). In the Seventies and Eighties Bruce appeared in romantic photo-stories in teen magazine Jackie, and years later fractured her shin on a trampoline at her daughter’s birthday party.
BORN ON THIS DAY
EDWARD R. MURROW (1908-1965). The American TV newsman and war correspondent was called ‘a god of American journalism’ for his live rooftop reports of the London Blitz. It was then he developed his sign-off: ‘Good night, and good luck’ — originally used as a farewell by Londoners who never knew whether they would still be alive in the morning. ELLA FITZGERALD (19171996). The singer’s early life was marked by poverty. Fitzgerald (pictured) said she owed Marilyn Monroe ‘a real debt’ as she called the owner of a big Hollywood nightclub to tell him if he booked Fitzgerald, she would take a front table every night. Monroe kept her word.
ON APRIL 25...
IN 1974, a military coup in portugal ended the longest dictatorship in Europe. It was named the Carnation Revolution, as soldiers were showered with the flowers.
IN 1977, Elvis presley made the last new music recordings of his life in Michigan, including his version of Unchained Melody.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Buffling (2013) A) Speaking at length and off the point. B) pushing and shoving. C) Running with one’s shoelaces undone. answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED
Polish off — meaning to finish off food so thoroughly the plate appears polished. Its 19th century sense was to destroy or kill.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible. David Ogilvy, British-born advertising executive (1911-1999)
JOKE OF THE DAY
IS THERE a word that contains all five vowels? unquestionably. Guess The Definition answer: a.