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March 21, 2007 weds.
March 21st, 2007

Today I was in New York and went to a preview performance of the hotest new play on Broadway, Curtains by Kantor & Ebb.
It was like an old animation reunion because I went backstage afterwards and hung out with stars David Hyde Pierce and Ernie Sabella. Or you toon folks might recall them as Drix from Osmosis Jones an Pumbaa from Lion King. At my casting audtions today we also talked with David Ogden Stiers, or Cogsworth from Beauty and the Beast. The play had a wonderful energy and everyone had a lot of fun. I wish them Break a Leg and a long run. If you get to Noo Yawk, check it out soon!

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Birthdays: Plato, Johann Sebastian Bach, Benito Juarez, Modest Mussorgsky, Fats Waller, Josef Pulitzer, Florenz Zeigfield, Bronco Billy Anderson, Rev Ralph Abernathy, Armand Hammer, Harold Robbins, Matthew Broderick, Gary Oldman, James Coco, Timothy Dalton, Rosie O’Donnell is 46

717 A.D. Battle of Vinciacus- Charles Martel aka Charles the Hammer" defeats Ragenfridus and the Merovingian pretenders and assures the dominance of the Carolingian line on the throne of the Franks ,the French. Hammer don’t hurt’em! Charles grandson was Charlemagne. His great-grandson Pippin was made into a musical by Bob Fosse and Stephen Schwarz in the 1970's. A musical called "Ragenfridus!" just doesn't have the same ring.

1617-Lady Rebecca Rolfe, formerly known as Pocahontas, dies at Gravesend, England after being taken off the homeward bound ship, too ill to continue. She died of the pox at 21. Her children with John Rolfe became the beginnings of one of the largest families in Virginia, with many scions of the Old Dominion tracing their ancestry to Pocahontas.

1740- Composer Antonio Vivaldi - Il Pietro Rosso- the Red Priest conducted his last concert at the Ospedale Della Pietra in Venice. It was a home for orphaned girls so it was an all-girl orchestra. The 64 year old Vivaldi later went to Vienna to see if he could get any commissions from the Austrian Emperor, but caught an illness on the way and died.

1921- Chicago mobster Big Jim Colosimo was rubbed out by a new face in gangsterdom, a hitman for Johnny Torrio named Alfonso “Scarface” Capone. When Al Capone becomes famous he shows his appreciation to Torrio by having him rubbed out.

1935- Persia renamed Iran and Mesopotamia renamed Iraq.

1951- HOLLYWOOD COMMIES- House UnAmerican Acitivities Commitee (HUAC) under Judge J. Parnell Thomas moves from Washington and sets up in Hollywood to continue rooting out Communist subversion in the movies. They began in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, and later move to the federal building downtown. Their concerns weren’t total fantasy, actor Sterling Hayden confessed he was ordered by his communist operatives to try and influence the Screen Actor’s Guild. Still the point remains whether the authorities overreaction was justified and whether Congress could get more publicity looking for spies in Tinseltown than the Department of Games and Fisheries. Out of 15,000 people who made a living in the movies and television, only 295 were ever proven or confessed communists. It was an open secret that for $5,000 delivered to the right committee member your dossier would be moved to the bottom of the pile. The hearings stopped in 1956, the blacklist was broken in 1960 and Judge J. Parnell Thomas went to jail himself for embezzlement. Screenwriter Ring Lardner , already convicted of contempt of Congress in the Hollywood Ten trials was sitting in jail with his gangster cellmate listening to all the famous moviestars denounce each other on the radio. The hoodlum turned to Lardner and said:" Hey, if you are one of dem Reds lemme give ya some advice: Any organization wid dat many finks in it can't be any good !"

1952- DJ Alan Freed put on an event of new pop music in Cleveland Ohio. Called the MoonDog Coronation Ball, it was the very first Rock Concert.

1961- The Beatles first perform at the Cavern Club in Hamburg Germany.

1961- based on the success of the first Playboy Club in Chicago, Playboy Clubs with their Bunny waitresses opened in New York, Miami and LA.

1963- On orders from Attorney General Robert Kennedy, Alcatraz Prison was closed.

1963- Barbera Streisand married Elliot Gould.

1976- ASPEN MURDER- Jet setter Claudine Longet, a model who was formerly married to singer Andy Williams, shot and killed her lover Spider Sabich, a Olympic skiing champion. Even though their relationship was foundering she said it was an accident, that the Luger went off in his abdomen when he was showing her how to use it. In the bathroom. Uh Huh. Imagine being in the bathroom shaving and your girlfriend pops in “Honey, I’m having problems with the safety on my Luger..Here darling I’ll just –oops!” She spent 30 days in jail for negligent manslaughter, then married her defense attorney.

1988- the Screen Actor's Guild hits the bricks for the fourth time in twenty years, this time striking Hollywood for residuals for cable and videocassette income.

2014-Asteroid# 2003QQ47 will pass close by the Earth. If the half mile wide rock hits us it will have the effect of 23 Hiroshima bombs and cause drastic climactic convulsions. Right now the odds are 900,000 to one we get hit. Get your catchers mitts out!


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