In 1939, Shirley Temple lost the part of Dorothy in MGM’s The Wizard of Oz. Although she was the foremost child star of the day, her singing was no match for the vocal talents of Judy Garland. In an attempt at consolation, her contracted studio, Twentieth Century Fox, gave Shirley the lead in The Blue …
As a visitor and patient of John Harvey Kellogg’s Battle Creek Sanitarium, C.W. Post was impressed and inspired to start his own cereal company. Concerned with his own health, Post invented a cereal alternative to coffee that he dubbed “Postum”. Postum was made from wheat bran, wheat, molasses, and maltodextrin from corn. It was never …
James Byrd, Jr. was murdered for no other reason than because he was black. On June 7, 1998, 49-year old James was walking home from a party. He couldn’t afford a car so he walked everywhere, but he didn’t mind walking. Shawn Berry, Lawrence Brewer and John King drove up to James in a pick-up truck …
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At quarter to six on the morning of March 22, 2011, Rebecca Coriam picked up the phone in a hallway of the Disney cruise ship “Wonder”, dialed an on-board number and, after speaking for a minute or two, began to cry. A fellow crew member, passing her on his way to who-knows-where, stopped to ask …
In the early 1930s, Frank Churchill filled the void of house composer just after Carl Stalling left The Disney Studios to join Warner Brothers (along with Disney animator Ub Iwerks). Frank was a veritable music machine, cranking out “feel good” musical scores to accompany the cheerful antics depicted in Disney’s animated cartoons. His music and collaborative …
Joyce Compton had an unusual Hollywood career (unusual, at least, as compared to the multitude of tragic Hollywood careers highlighted on this blog). Joyce starred in hundreds of uncredited roles in a career that spanned five decades. She was regularly cast as the quintessential “dumb blond”, playing the part in big-budget films and B-grade productions. …
E. Mason Hopper, a prolific director of the silent film era, saw young Edwina Booth in a stage production and was taken by her performance. He offered the actress a small role in an upcoming film starring Marie Prevost. Impressed with Edwina’s ability, MGM cast her in the studio’s new big-budget jungle adventure Trader Horn. The …
As a child, little Sue Hamilton had aspirations of becoming a farmer, but sometimes things change. And things changed for Sue. After high school, Sue began modeling. A photographer with whom she worked sent a sampling of her pictures to Playboy. The magazine was impressed and contacted Sue. She was elated — never believing that, at just …
In the month following the capture of the Chinese capital of Nanking by the Japanese during the second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, thousands of Chinese civilians and disarmed soldiers were murdered and up to 80,000 Chinese women were raped by soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army. As the years went on, many Japanese nationalists have …
