ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE MAY 28, 1959
JOSEPHINE BAKER is back. Most of Paris held its breath tonight and uttered a silent prayer for her success. The dusky bombshell, 52, who reigned over the French music-hall for 33 years was opening in a super-lavish new revue… three years after she announced her ‘irrevocable retirement’. The reason for the change: to raise money to keep her ten adopted children in the style to which she has accustomed them.
MAY 28, 1962
AUSTRALIA wants more pretty girls from Britain to emigrate and live ‘down under’. The Australian Minister for Immigration, Mr Alexander Downer, said: ‘I’m afraid I have got the reputation of being an international women chaser. But we are not getting nearly as large a number as we’d like.’
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
CAREY MULLIGAN, 34. Born in London, the star of An Education and The Great Gatsby was childhood pen pals with her husband Marcus Mumford, singer of Mumford & Sons, after they met at a Christian holiday camp. Doctor Who producers were so impressed with Carey’s appearance in a single episode that they offered her a full-time role as the Time Lord’s companion. She said no. ANNE REID, 84. The actress from Newcastle played Ken Barlow’s wife Valerie in Coronation Street — more than 18 million viewers watched her funeral in 1971. She said she used to specialise in ‘skirt and jumper roles’ and she feared her sex scenes with Daniel Craig in 2003 film The Mother, when she was in her late Sixties, would ‘look like Tom Cruise and Thora Hird’.
BORN ON THIS DAY
MAEVE BINCHY (1939-2012). The Irish novelist, who sold 40 million books in 37 languages, was voted third in a 2000 World Book Day poll of favourite authors — ahead of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. She said Irish people made such good writers because: ‘We don’t like pauses and silences, we prefer talk and information and conversations that go on and on. That means we’re halfway there.’ IAN FLEMING ( 19081964). As a naval intelligence officer during World War II, the creator of 007 and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was the mastermind of operation ruthless — to capture a German Enigma code machine — but it proved a non-starter. After seeing Sean Connery’s first outing as James Bond in Dr No in 1962, Fleming reportedly called it: ‘Dreadful, simply dreadful.’
ON MAY 28…
IN 1936, Alan Turing submitted his paper on Computable Numbers, setting out the basic principles for modern computers. IN 1984, Eric Morecambe died, aged 58.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Eugeroics (2004) A) Good relations; B) Well-being. C) Drugs that cut the need for sleep. Answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED
Out of sorts: Meaning slightly unwell; it comes from the Latin sortes — drawn lots which came to mean one’s fate or fortune. Being ‘out of sorts’ implied all wasn’t well or that fortune wasn’t smiling on you.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it. Christopher Morley, U.S writer (1890-1957)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHO are the coolest at the hospital? The ultra-sound guys. Guess the Definition answer: C.