Birthdays: Pope Julius II, Martin Van Buren* ,Walt Disney , Fritz Lang, Eugene Debs, George Armstrong Custer, Little Richard Penniman, Strom Thurmond, Otto Preminger, Lin Piao, Calvin Trillin, Joan Didion, Jim Plunkett, Jose Carrerras, Margaret Cho is 39

* Martin Van Buren , President 1837-41, was a master political tactician and backroom dealer- he was born in Kinderhook New York. Whenever there was a delicate political or diplomatic tangle that needed fixing, you never had to worry if “Old Kinderhook” was on the job- it was “OK” one theory of the origin of the phrase.

1837- Hector Berlioz chorale Requiem premiered.

1854- Aaron Allen of Boston patented the theater chair that folded up so you could exit.

1912- New York Hat directed by D.W. Griffith premiered. The first movie script written by Anita Loos, then 19. She became one of the finest Hollywood screenwriters ,who penned films like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

1933- Prohibition is repealed in the U.S. Interestingly enough the final state to ratify the repeal amendment was Utah. My grandmother recalled a parade of beer trucks going down Broadway being cheered like Lindbergh's return. She jumped on the running board of one to hoist a stein with young congressman Fiorello Laguardia and Al Smith.

1951- Shoeless Joe Jackson died. The most powerful baseball batter of his age, he taught Babe Ruth how to hit. But he was implicated in the Black Sox scandal of 1919 and permanently banned from baseball. He worked in a hardware store near his rural Georgia home.

1952- The Abbott and Costello Television Show premiered. Where’s Hilary, Mr Fields and Stinky? “ Niagara Falls! Slooowwlly I turn! Step by Step! Step by Step!”

1974- The BBC aired the last Monty Python show.
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IN honor of Walt Disney’s Birthday
From Walt Disney Imagineering Commissary
Walt's Own Chili Recipe


>
> 2 pounds ground beef (coarse)
> 2 whole onions (sliced)
> 2 whole garlic cloves (minced)
> 2 pounds pink beans (dry)
> 1/2 cups celery (chopped)
> 1 teas. chili powder
> 1 teas. paprika
> 1 teas. dry mustard
> 1 can solid pack tomatoes (large can)
> salt (to taste)
>
> Soak beans overnight in cold water. Drain. Add water to cover
> 2 inches over beans and simmer with onions until tender (about 4
> hours). Meanwhile, prepare sauce by browning meat and minced
> garlic in oil. Add remaining items and simmer 1 hour. When beans
> are tender, add sauce and simmer 1/2 hour. Serves 6-8.

Pushin books in NYC. Courtesy of MichaelSpornAnimation.com
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Birthdays: Chief Crazy Horse, Samuel Butler*, Thomas Carlyle, Lillian Russell, Vasilly Kandinsky, Buck Jones, Wally George, Deanna Durbin, Pappy Boyington, Horst Bucholtz, Jeff Bridges, Marisa Tomei is 42, Tyrah Banks is 33, Johnny Lyon- 1948 of the band Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes

*"Life is one long process of getting tired." Samuel Butler

1657-Painter Rembrandt van Rijn was evicted from his home. His kept out of debtor’s prison when his daughter and son-in-law auctioned most of his possessions to pay off his creditors.

1674- HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHICAGO! French missionary Jacques Marquette dedicated a mission house and trading post that will eventually become Fort Dearborn, then the Windy City.

1875- William Marcy “Boss Tweed” escaped Ludlow Street jail and fled to Cuba. He had been the corrupt boss of New York City politics throughout the 1860s and 70s. He was rearrested in Spain by a Spanish policeman who spoke no English. When asked by American diplomats the Spaniard said he saw a newspaper cartoon by Thomas Nast of Tweed in prison garb with his hands on two young boys, so he thought he was a kidnapper! Tweed was brought to justice by the one crime he probably never did.


1881- First issue of the Los Angeles Times.

1927- The Cotton Club opened as a speakeasy nightclub in Harlem. Owners were New York ganglords Owney “The Killer” Madden and George “Big Frenchy” DeMange. Duke Ellington’s orchestra highlighted the opening night. When other gangsters tried to open a rival The Plantation Club, Owney had his henchmen demolish the place. The Cotton Club was one of the great centers of the Harlem Renaissance, but African Americans were segregated from eating or drinking at the tables. Even W.C. Handy was turned away.

1931- James Whale’s macabre masterpiece film “Frankenstein” opened at the Mayfair theater in NY. English actor William Henry Pratt renamed Boris Karloff played the monster.

1932-Good Evening Mr & Mrs North and South America and All the Ships at Sea! Let’s Go To Press! Newspaper columnist Walter Winchell began his famous radio broadcasts on the NBC Blue Networks. Winchell became one of the most powerful voices in American society and politics for 23 years, a champion of Anti-Communism and supporter of Joe McCarthy. He once went after blacklisted animation artists in New York trying to start a commercial studio called Tempo. Nothing was proved but the bad press scared away their clients and they had to lay off dozens of artists. Mr Clean and Speedy Alka-Seltzer were saved from subversion.



1941- As Admiral Nagumo's carrier fleet approached Pearl Harbor, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox assured news reporters : "No matter what happens, the US Navy will not be caught napping !"

1941- film "Mr. Bug Goes to Town"-opened. Max Fleischer's last gamble to keep up with Disney and keep his studio alive. However the events of Pearl Harbor three days later not only sink the American Navy, but also Hoppity's box office and Paramount puts Max out of business.

1948- “Hey...Stella !! A Streetcar Named Desire opened on Broadway with Marlon Brando and Jessica Tandy.

1952- A killer smog sickens thousands in the London area. Around 8,000 people become ill. London bans the use of coal, peat and wood fires to heat homes. A deadly smog covered Los Angeles in 1956 and accelerated the demand for development of unleaded gasoline.

1955- French mime Marcel Marceau appeared on American TV for the first time.

1958- Cocoa Puffs cereal invented.

1961- Someone at the Museum of Modern Art in NY noticed that they had hung Henri Matisse’s painting Le Bateau upside down. It had been that way for two months and until now nobody had noticed.

1988- Actor Gary Busey almost died in a motorcycle accident on Olympic Blvd. In Los Angeles. He was not wearing a helmet and suffered massive head trauma. He later claimed to have an out-of-the-body experience at the scene.

A number of people have been asking me about the new Walt Disney bio, so I thought I'd rerun my review of Nov 1st.

I just got my copy of Neal Gabler's new biography of Walt Disney, WALT DISNEY: THE TRIUMPH OF THE AMERICAN IMAGINATION. I have enjoyed Gablers past works like EMPIRE OF THEIR OWN, HOW THE JEWS CREATED HOLLYWOOD. A few years ago I attended a lecture he gave on that topic at the Motion Picture Academy and I found him a most engaging speaker.

Of course, since my interests right now are associated with my own book DRAWING THE LINE, I immediately flipped to the chapter on the 1941 Strike. Those of you who already have my book recall I said the Disney Strike story was like Kurosawa's Rashomon, where different realities clash, depending upon who was telling the story. Gabler had the complete cooperation of the Disney Studio archives, which I had not. I was worried if that might slant his recitation of events towards the Walt version of things.

But my concerns were soon put to rest. I think his narrative was more even handed than I had first expected. He did stay more on how things were effecting Walt than his artists, but after all, his book is about Walt while mine is about the artists. He got some great anecdotes that showed Walt with warts and all. I like the one where Walt threatened to throw Art Babbitt out the front gate if he didn't stop the union organizing. He filled in a few missing pieces in the puzzle for me.

If I have any nits to pick, it is that Gabler is doing as best he can as an outsider writing from a distance. He does not have much experience with unions and the inner workings seem alien to him. He does not understand that the management- organized Disney Federation of Cartoonists was a company union from its inception, a very old anti-labor tactic. Unless I'm reading it wrong, he made it seem like Babbitt invented the Federation himself, out of fear of the gangster Willie Bioff's intervention. He also failed to mention that Walt and Lessing's threats to fire Art Babbitt and the strikers were violation of Federal Law.There was no mention of the nationwide boycott declared by the American Federation of Labor, the ancillary strikes by the Editors and Publicists and the Technicolor engineers.

Neil Gabler also commits the error many writers do when covering animation, of isolating our world for specific focus. We of ToonTown are not isolated in a bubble, immune from the outside. The Hollywood animation community was very aware of events all around them. After the studio wage cuts of 1937 and the Wagner Act of 1935, that ruled that all American workers have a right to form unions, all Hollywood was wild for organizing. Editors in 1935, Writers 1936, Directors 1939, Actors 1937, Backstage groups fought for jurisdiction with citywide strikes in 1933, 1937 and 1945. Animators in NY had already held strikes in 1935 and 1937. So, is it any surprise that Hollywood animators would want one too, in 1938?

The Walt Disney Strike was not just about a few disgruntled Mickey artists seduced by a chip-on-his-shoulder Babbitt and Herb Sorrell, the labor Mephistopheles. It was Walt and his management team against the rest of the animation business. Artists from Warner Bros, MGM, Walter Lantz, George Pal, and Columbia and their families, even their children, walked pickets up and down Buena Vista right alongside their Disney brothers and sisters. They were supported by actors, cooks, Lockheed mechanics, newspaper printers, screenwriters like Dorothy Parker, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles and more. All understood it was everyone's fight.

And Chicago gangster Willie Bioff did not come out of nowhere. Like Neil, I also don't have an exact date for the moment Bioff met Disney. Although he was considered a minor player, Walt Disney was invited to the regular meetings of the major Hollywood studio heads to discuss what was best for the industry. Movie-Moguls like Louis B. Mayer, Joseph Schenck and Barney Balaban had been dealing with Willie Bioff and doing business with him for years. He was their preferred "union-expert." It is possible that Walt, Roy and attorney Lessing may have made his acquaintance then.

Finally, I would take exception to bringing up the old commie charge, that the top union guys were all communists. I write in my book that in the heady atmosphere of the social conscious 1930's, if you were against Segregation, against Hitler, against Child Labor, and for worker safety laws, minimum wage and unemployment insurance, then sooner or later you would have attended a Communist Party USA meeting. Many American Jews at first applauded the Soviet regime that overthrew the hated Russian Czar, whose Cossacks persecuted their fathers and mothers and drove them to America. After Stalin signed the 1939 Non Aggression Pact with the Third Reich, many American progressives resigned from the party. But the label stuck, especially in the socially conservative McCarthy Era. Dave Hilberman never told me he was a communist party member. Often the topic was meant to distract from the central issues of the unhappy artists with their management.

All that said, I am enjoying Neil Gabler's book. It seems the perennial sport of film people is to throw rocks at each other's research. But my humble pinpricks don't in any way diminish my admiration for a great piece of scholarship. So far I especially like the retelling of the inside story of the pressure on the crew to finish Snow White.

Walt Disney, The Triumph of the American Imagination is a great read.

TS

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Birthdays: French King Charles VI the Well Loved 1380, Gilbert Stuart, Sven Nykvist, Joseph Conrad real name Josef Korzeniowski, Jean Luc Godard is 76, Nino Rota, Jim Backus the voice of Mr. Magoo, Maria Callas, Larry Parks, Charles Pillsbury, Darryl Hannah is 46, Katerina Witt, Brendan Fraser is 38, Julianne Moore is 46

Happy Ozzy Day! Ozzie Ozbourne is 58-
I never set out to be a businessman. I just wanted to have fun, f—k chicks and do drugs.-Ozzy Ozbourne

749AD- This is the Feast of Saint John Damascenus. He’s the saint who’s called the Father of Christian Art, because he theologically argued a way for artists to avoid the “Graven Images “ clause in the Ten Commandments. Soon to follow- Michaelangelo's Sistine Ceiling, The Pieta and those 3D Jesus pictures, who's eyes move as you do.

1925- GEORGE GERSHWIN PLAYS CARNEGIE HALL. Gershwin always wanted to be taken seriously as a composer and not just a Tin Pan Alley pop-song writer. While in Paris he met Maurice Ravel, but instead of giving him advice Ravel said: "You make HOW much from your songs? Maybe I should learn from you!" When he asked to be Arnold Schoenberg's pupil, Schoenburg told him :" Why do you want to be a bad Schoenburg when you're already such a good Gershwin?"

1931- Happy Birthday Alka Seltzer!

1934- Lee Blair, Disney artist and brother of Preston Blair, Disney artist, married Mary Browne Robinson, Disney artist. She became the most famous of them as Mary Blair.

1968- Elvis Presley opened in Las Vegas to rave reviews and packed houses. It marks the beginning of his comeback and his transition from thin, black leather-jacketed youth to fat, rhinestone jumpsuit, half tinted sunglasses, karate-swinging middle age.

1974-A 40 foot long inflated pig broke away from its’ teather at a Pink Floyd photo shoot and became a hazard to civil aviation. The AeroPork was lost to radar at 8,000 feet.

1997 – 56 year old Darlene Gillespie, an original member of the Mickey Mouse Club, was busted in LA for a securities fraud scheme.

Okay, you're all in luck. I'll stop gassing on about my Drawing the Line book tour for a minute. That's because I want to tell you about my other book. On December 30th, Paul Buhle's massive, three-volume, 9,000 page anthology
Jews in American Popular Culture is coming out.



This is the first attempt to trace the contributions of Jewish Americans in the fields of Theatre, Fiction, Cinema, Television, Poetry, The Visual Arts, the Performing Arts and much more. Woody Allen, Steven Spielberg, Ish Kabibble, Al Jolson, Lauren Bacall, Jack Benny, Harvey Pekar, R.Crumb, Harvey Kurtzman, Leonard Nimoy and many many more.

The anthology is the work of a dozen authors. I was invited to write Chapter 7. Jews in American Animation. So I get to talk about Max and Dave Fleischer, Izzy Klein, Joe Grant, Lorna Cook, Alex Kuperschmidt and Eric Goldberg. I also take on the issue of whether or not Walt Disney was Anti-Semitic.

Now, the book sells at $300 bux, so it's not exactly light reading. But if you have the discretionary income, it's a great investment for your mizpoche at home. It is now available for Pre-order. Check out the details at[link]http://www.amazon.com/American-Popular-Culture-Three-Volumes/
dp/0275987930/sr=1-2/qid=1165027401/ref=sr_1_2/104-8000442-1240757?
ie=UTF8&s=books[/link]
If the Link doesn't work do a search on the editor's name, Paul Buhle.

Three Hundred Bux to read more Sito bullsh*t? Screw that!"
with apologies to Harvey Pekar and R. Crumb

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Birthdays: George Seurat, Charles Ringling, Julie Harris, Gianni Verasce, Ray Walston- the original My Favorite Martian, Monica Seles, Cathy Lee Crosby, Lucy Liu, Britney Spears is 25

1697- Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London reopened. It was restored by Christopher Wren after being destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666.

1854-Napoleon III was Napoleon's nephew and since 1848 legally elected President of the Second French Republic. But he decided that he wanted to be an Emperor like his uncle so he seized dictatorial power and locked up all dissenters like Victor Hugo, Alex DeTocqueville and cartoonist Honore' Daumier. gotta watch them cartoonists...

1863- The dome of the U.S. Capitol completed as the Goddess of Freedom is hoisted up into place.

1877- Camille Saint Saens opera “Samson & Dalila” premiered in Weimar.

1901- Mr. King Gillette invented the safety razor.

1956- Fidel Castro with 88 followers trained in guerrilla style fighting landed on the beach in Cuba and melted into the mountains. This group would be the core of a revolution that by 1959 would topple the US backed regime of dictator Fulgensio Batista and upset the world balance of power. The ramshackle boat Fidel, Che and his buddies made the crossing over from Mexico in was called the Granma.

1994- LA jury found Heidi Fleiss ‘The Hollywood Madam” guilty of running a prostitution ring.

Welcome to Decembrius, month number 10 to the Romans who only had ten months in their original calendar. It’s the same Latin root as Decimate, Dime, Decimal and Dixie.

courtesy MichaelSporn Animation.com

My friend Michael Sporn wrote a nice account of my New York booksigning and took some great pictures. Check out http://www.michaelspornanimation.com
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Birthdays: Woody Allen is 71, Richard Pryor, Mary Martin, Cyril Ritchard, Dick Shawn, Bette Midler is 61, Lee Trevino, Charlene Tilton, Lou Rawls, Rex Stout the creator of Nero Wolfe Mysteries, Gilbert O’Sullivan,Colombian DrugLord Pablo Escobar, Treat Williams

1835- Hans Christian Andersen publihed his first book of Fairy Tales.

1879-Gilbert & Sullivan’s comic opera HMS Pinafore opened. Sullivan conducted the orchestra while Gilbert was a choruster. “So Stick to your desk and never go to sea, and you will be the leader of the Queen’s Navy..”

1887- The first Sherlock Holmes mystery by Arthur Conan-Doyle "A Study in Scarlet" first published in Beatty’s Christmas Gazette.

1938- Legendary filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein released in Moscow his film of Russian patriotism ALEXANDER NEVSKY, with soundtrack provided by Sergei Prokoviev.

1953- Ex- Esquire Magazine art director and frustrated cartoonist Hugh Hefner published the first issue of Playboy Magazine. It featured a nude centerfold of actress Marilyn Monroe. She joked to the press I had nothing on but the radio! Hefner assembled the layout of the magazine on his kitchen table and borrowed money from his mother-in-law to pay for the printing. The first Playboy had no number or date, because Hef was certain he couldn’t afford to make an issue number two.



1982- Dr. Barney Clark receives the first Artificial Heart. Part of the research development was credited to Paul Winchell, puppeteer and cartoon voice who created Jerry Mahoney, Knucklehead Smith, Dick Dastardly and a plastic heart valve. At first it was hoped these plastic valves could take the place of real hearts, but today they are mostly used for temporary relief until a human donor heart can be found and will now be replaced by the newer technologies.