ON THIS DAY
August 24, 2020
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
AUGUST 24, 1926
RUDOLPH VALENTINO, the film actor, died today, eight days after surgery for appendicitis and gastric ulcers. His was one of the most meteoric ascents to fame through the cinema. Thirteen years ago, Valentino arrived in New York from Italy with little money, but high hopes of becoming a scientific farmer.
AUGUST 24, 2010
TIGER WOODS (right) was yesterday divorced from Swedish former model and nanny Elin Nordegren, who is said to have received $100million in the settlement. Nine months ago the U.S. golfer crashed his car outside their home, sparking revelations about a string of mistresses. Woods spent five months away from the game being treated for sex addiction, which cost him millions in lost endorsements.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
ALEXANDER McCALL SMITH, 72. Born in Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, the Edinburgh-based author wrote The No. 1 Ladies’ detective Agency series, which has sold more than 20 million copies. The former professor of medical law says he is so fussy about his cuppa that he packs loose-leaf tea and a teapot when travelling ‘especially in America, where tea making has never recovered from the trauma of the Boston Tea Party’.
MARLEE MATLIN, 55. The U.S. actress (right) lost her hearing aged 18 months. Fonz star Henry Winkler spotted her talent as a young actress (and she later held her wedding in his garden). She won a best actress Oscar for her role in Children Of A Lesser God, aged 21, making her the first deaf person — and the youngest — to win the award.
BORN ON THIS DAY
CORMAC MURPHY-O’CONNOR (19322017). The Berkshire-born cardinal was Archbishop of Westminster, the most senior Catholic in England and Wales. In 2002, he became the first cardinal since 1509 to take part in an English royal funeral service, that of the Queen Mother. Murphy-O’Connor admitted in his memoirs that his failure to report to police a priest, later convicted of child abuse, ‘was shameful’.
JEAN RHYS (1890-1979). She was born Ella Gwendolen Rees Williams on the Caribbean island of dominica to a Welsh father and Creole mother. Her best-known work is Wide Sargasso Sea — a prequel to Jane Eyre. Near the end of her life, Rhys lived with jazz musician George Melly and his wife, and said she wouldn’t move into a nursing home unless it had a bar and a generous barman.
ON AUGUST 24
IN 2008, the Beijing Olympics closed, having attracted the largest global TV audience ever — 4.7 billion viewers, or 70 per cent of the world’s population.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Foison (coined early 14th century)
A) To make money by any means possible. B) Abundance, plenty. C) A relative through marriage. Answer below.
PHRASE EXPLAINED
Bag and baggage — meaning completely, with nothing left behind; it was first used by William Gladstone in calling for the expulsion of Turkish forces from Bulgaria.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
I do not believe that friends are necessarily the people you like best, they are merely the people who got there first.
Sir Peter Ustinov, English actor (1921-2004)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT kind of mobile does a pirate have?
An AyyyyePhone.
Guess The Definition answer: B.