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Last night I attended the ASIFA/Hollywood Archives benefit starring animator Andreas Deja at the Van Eaton Gallery. Andreas told many great anecdotes and we shared a few laughs together about days on Lion King and with the first story crew on Beauty and the Beast in England with Dick and Jill Purdum. He brought many wonderful examples of his drawing as well as examples of work he admired. These included work by Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas, Heinrich Kley and Sullivant. If you never saw Andreas do his overhead projector show with drawings you should check it out, it's really quite good.
courtesy of kualoa.com

Little anecdote- Around the time of Beauty and the Beast (1991) The Disney Studio began running want ads for animators in European newspapers. Suddenly they began to get responses from German Brewers! These people said they'd be happy to come to LA work on Animator.
There is a brand of German brewed beer called Animator, a cartoonist who draws animated cartoons is a Trikfilm zeichner. The Disney studio said thanks but no thanks. Michael Eisner may have had some unique plans for marketing, but brewing Snow White Lite or Thumper Heffeweisse was not one.

EM-eye-Cee..See ya real soon....Kay- Eee- Why...

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Birthdays: Captain George Vancouver, Eric Maria Remarque, John Dillinger, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Mike Todd, Billy Wilder, Joe Papp, Bill Blass, Oscar Fischinger, Pistol Pete Maravich, Klaus Maria Brandauer, Ed Bradley, Emmanuelle Seigner, Prunella Scales, Meryl Streep, Kris Kristofferson

1342 – According to JRR Tolkeins’ book the hobbit Bilbo Baggins returned with the one true Ring to his home at the Shire.

1876- Gen. Custer and the Seventh Cavalry ride out of Fort Lincoln. Custer was to scout for a larger army under General Terry and not to engage the Indians when he found them but wait. Custer turned down an offer of two companies of Colorado militia, artillery and Gatling guns for fear it would slow him down. Many men upon leaving the fort immediately emptied their canteens and refilled them with rotgut whiskey bought from peddlers outside the walls. Gen. Gibbon called out to Custer as he rode out: "Remember George, save some Indians for us!" Custer laughed: "No I won't!"

1894 - Harry Houdini marries Bessie Rahner. She remained devoted to him even after his death. Every Halloween for twenty years she held a séance to try and contact him.

1897- THE BRITISH EMPIRE- Queen Victoria celebrated her Diamond Jubilee. Now considered the zenith of the British Empire. In Victoria's reign the empire grew ten times its early size, encompassing one quarter of the globe and one third of the world's population. The little queen dressed in her habitual black with a little gray bonnet started the festivities by pushing an electric button that send a congratulatory message around the world simultaneously to Delhi, Capetown, Hong Kong, Ottawa and Sydney. Praises poured in from notaries like Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle and her grandson the German Kaiser.

1898- US Troops including Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders landed on the Cuban coast near the town of Daiquiri. This is when the mixed drink named Daiquiri was introduced to American drinkers as well as the Cuba-Libre, which we now call a Rum & Coke.

1938- In Yankee Stadium in the Bronx Joe Louis "the Brown Bomber" KO's German Max Schmelling in one round to regain the world heavyweight title. There was wild partying in the streets of Harlem The bout had the heavy ideological overtones of Nazis ideology claims to be a master race. Schmmeling ironically was anti-Nazi and had hid Jews from arrest. After the loss Hitler would have nothing to do with him and Schmelling joined the army.

1966 – The film "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" opened. Based on the play by Edward Albee and starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor it was the first to use four letter words. Just a year before comedian Lenny Bruce had gone to jail for saying the same words, although everyone including President Johnson swore in everyday parlance.

1969- Singer actress Judy Garland OD’s on sleeping pills. She was 46. Whether it was an accident or a suicide we will never know. A pillhead from early age, she had gotten hooked when MGM chief Louis B. Mayer ordered studio nurses to put her on amphetamines so she would have the energy to finish the Wizard of Oz. Fellow contract actress June Allyson explained- “You didn’t argue when the nurses brought them to you. They told us they were vitamins.” Garland was amazed by her great popularity among young gay men. She once joked: When I die, I have visions of fags singing Over the Rainbow, and the flag at Fire Island being flown at half-mast."

1990- "Checkpoint Charlie" in Berlin dismantled. John Le Carre' and other spy novel writers mourn. There is a replica and a Cold War Museum at the site today.


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