March 8, 2023 ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE MARCH 8, 1978
LIONEL BLAIR, 49, has stopped dancing after 25 years. ‘I don’t want to be known as just a happy hoofer,’ he said. The man who dominated the English dance scene has given it up to become an actor. He is currently appearing with Jimmy Edwards on tour in Doctor In The House. MARCH 8, 1984
THE story of Ruth Ellis, the last woman to hang in Britain, is to be told in a £1.25 million film with a virtually unknown actress in the title role. Newcomer Miranda Richardson, 24, is to play the platinumblonde murderess in Dance With A Stranger. The film co-stars Rupert Everett as Ellis’s murdered lover, David Blakely.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
CHERYL BAKER, 69. The singer, born Rita Crudgington in London, was a member of Bucks Fizz, winning Eurovision with Making Your Mind Up in 1981. When Nichola Martin, who put the band together, rang to say she wanted Baker, her mother answered: ‘She’s on the lav, love.’ Baker (pictured) said her greatest extravagance was buying a £15,000 Fairline Phantom motor boat in 1983. MICKY DOLENz, 78. The U.S. musician made his name as a vocalist and drummer with The Monkees. Dolenz wrote the song Randy Scouse Git after hearing Alf Garnett say it in Till Death Us Do Part and thinking ‘it sounded hilarious’. He recalled that after studio bosses demanded an alternate title: ‘I said, that’s it: Alternate Title.’ It reached number two in the UK. He now has a furniture business, Dolenz and Daughters Fine Furniture.
BORN ON THIS DAY
CYD CHARISSE (1922-2008). The U.S. star of Singin’ In The Rain danced with Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire (who said she was ‘beautiful dynamite’ on screen). Born Tula Ellice Finklea, she started ballet at six to build up muscle after contracting polio. Charisse’s voice was dubbed when roles required singing and one obituary said her ‘on- screen magic evaporated whenever she opened her mouth’. SIR ANTHONY CARO (1924-2013). The British sculptor (pictured) made his name with steel painted in bright colours.
His motto was: ‘Sculpture can be anything.’ Caro helped design the Millennium Bridge — the first to be built across the Thames for more than a century.
ON MARCH 8 . . .
IN 1957, the Suez Canal was reopened to traffic following the Suez Crisis.
IN 2016, record producer and ‘Fifth Beatle’ Sir George Martin died, aged 90.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Quoin (c1530s)
A) External angle of a wall or building.
B) To burn.
C) A ring thrown in a game, with the aim of landing it over an upright peg.
Answer below.
PHRASE EXPLAINED Heave in sight:
To come into view; from nautical term ‘heave’ meaning to rise up, as in the swell of a wave, it relates to the way objects appear over the horizon at sea.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
Never explain — your friends do not need it, and your enemies will not believe you anyway.
Elbert Hubbard, U.S. writer (1856-1915)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT do you get if you cross a cement mixer with a chicken? A bricklayer. Guess The Definition answer: A.