ON THIS DAY

November 30, 2021

FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE

NOVEMBER 30, 1939 DAVID NIVEN, the first British film star to return from the U.S. to fight, arrived in London last night determined to join the Royal Air Force. The former Highland Light Infantry second lieutenant would have been home sooner, but Sam Goldwyn sued him to keep him in Hollywood. (Niven became a lieutenant-colonel in the Commandos.) NOVEMBER 30, 1973 MAGICIAN Ali Bongo went on Tv last night in a failed bid to prove that the metal-bending powers of Israeli Uri Geller are ‘just tricks’. Metallurgist Dr Alistair Brown, who appeared with Mr Bongo, said: ‘I didn’t find this as impressive as Uri. I believe Mr Bongo was using a physical bending process.’

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

LORRAINE KELLY, 62. The Glasgow-born breakfast Tv star was told by GMTv ‘not to come back’ after having her daughter Rosie in 1994. ‘My husband and I had just moved south, we had a massive mortgage and he was a freelance cameraman — it was a difficult time,’ she said. Her approach to life is: ‘you get a lot more with sugar than vinegar, so be nice.’ She keeps a stash of Bounty bars behind the cushions of her sofa on set ‘in case I’m feeling hungry’. BEN STILLER, 56, the American star of Meet The Parents and Zoolander (right). His work is so influential that The 40year-old virgin director Judd Apatow said: ‘Ben is ground zero for everything in modern comedy.’ In 2012, he was named one of Hollywood’s most overpaid actors by Forbes magazine, bringing in just $6.50 for each $1 he was paid. That same year, Natalie Portman was the box office darling, with movies, such as Black Swan, making $42.70 for every $1 she was paid.

BORN ON THIS DAY

MARK TWAIN (1835-1910). The American author of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, whose real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens, settled on his alias after trying Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass and Sergeant Fathom. Twain had three patents — for a board game, a self-pasting scrapbook and ‘an adjustable and detachable elastic strap for vests, pantaloons or other garments’. He loved cats and once had 19 of them.

SHIRLEY CHISHOLM (19242005). In 1968, she became the first black woman elected to the U.S. Congress, and four years later, the first majorparty black candidate to make a bid for the presidency. She assured voters: ‘Thirty-six men have been President of the United States and I am better than all but six or seven of them.’

ON NOVEMBER 30 . . .

IN 1966, Barbados became an independent state, after 361 years of British rule. IN 2017, the world’s longest-lasting rainbow was recorded in Taiwan, at 8 hours 58 mins.

WORD WIZARDRY

GUESS THE DEFINITION: Chine (coined b 900) A) Monk who strolled from one monastery to another. B) An old, toothless sheep. C) Ravine formed in rock by the action of running water. Answer below

PHRASE EXPLAINED Rough diamond:

Someone whose kindness is concealed by a rough manner. Comes from diamonds before they are polished.

QUOTE FOR TODAY

A LEGEND is an old man with a cane known for what he used to do. I’m still doing it. Miles Davis, U.S. jazz musician (1926-1991)

JOKE OF THE DAY

I HAD an argument with a 90-degree angle... It kept insisting it was right. guess The definition answer: C

Compiled by ETAN SMALLMAN and ADAM JACOT DE BOINOD