ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE APRIL 29, 1946
THE battledress of yesterday will reappear next autumn as fabric in peacetime civilian fashions. Service uniforms are being sold to Yorkshire woollen mills for reweaving and will be sold in shops as stylish tweed.
APRIL 29, 1992
ARTIST Francis Bacon died yesterday, aged 82, of a heart attack in a Madrid hospital. Bacon’s work, which usually depicted sex and death, was judged shocking and obscene by some — to Margaret Thatcher he was ‘that man who paints those dreadful pictures’. But critic robert Hughes said that in Britain Bacon was ‘possibly the most popular [artist] since J.M.W. Turner’.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
ANITA DOBSON, 73. The London-born actress starred as Queen Vic landlady Angie Watts in TV’s EastEnders and recorded the hit Anyone Can Fall In Love, sung to its theme tune. Dobson’s husband, Queen guitarist Brian May, wrote the song Scandal in response to tabloid headlines about their relationship. Her friend, the band’s frontman Freddie Mercury, introduced them.
JERRY SEINFELD, 68. The comedian and actor from New York co-created 1990s sitcom Seinfeld, and still earns a fortune from it — Netflix paid $500million to air the series for five years. Seinfeld, who says he hopes to do stand-up ‘into my 80s, and beyond’, says his gift comes from his father who collected jokes during his war service.
BORN ON THIS DAY
TAMMI TERRELL (1945-1970). The U.S. singer-songwriter was discovered by Motown records boss Berry Gordy who paired her with Marvin Gaye. The duo’s hits included Ain’t No Mountain High Enough and You’re All I Need To Get By. In 1967, Terrell collapsed into Gaye’s arms as they performed on stage, and it was found she had a brain tumour. She died two-and-a-half years later, aged just 24.
HEINZ WOLFF (19282017). The Berlin-born, British scientist, bioengineering professor at Brunel University, found TV fame on The Great Egg race. His first experiment, aged four was, ‘putting sugar into a test tube, crystallising it and making toffee’. A sign he put up at the opening of his lab told guests to ‘bear right’ and when they did they stumbled on a giant teddy.
ON APRIL 29…
IN 1945, the U.S. Army liberated Dachau, the Nazi’s first concentration camp. IN 1980, English filmmaker Sir Alfred Hitchcock died, aged 80.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Caul (c14th century) A) A close-fitting woman’s indoor cap or hair net; B) To thump; C) Cloth used to cover the face of a corpse. (answer below) PHRASE EXPLAINED To have them rolling in the aisles: Meaning to make an audience laugh hard; it comes from the P.G. Wodehouse novel Quick Service: ‘I made the speech of a lifetime. I had them tearing up the seats and rolling in the aisles.’
QUOTE FOR TODAY
Mark my words, when a society has to resort to the lavatory for its humour, the writing is on the wall
Alan Bennett, English playwright
JOKE OF THE DAY
SOMEONE tore the fifth month out of my calendar… I’m completely dismayed. Guess The Definition answer: a.
Compiled by ETAN SMALLMAN and ADAM JACOT DE BOINOD