Archive for the ‘Golden Era’ Category

On this day in 1961, Grandma Moses died at the age of 101.

Moses began painting in her seventies after abandoning a career in embroidery because of arthritis. Louis J. Caldor, a collector, discovered her paintings in a Hoosick Falls, New York drugstore window in 1938. In 1939, an art dealer, Otto Kallir, exhibited some of her work in his Galerie Saint-Etienne in New York. This brought her to the attention of art collectors all over the world, and her paintings were highly sought after. She went on to exhibit her work throughout Europe and in Japan, where her work was particularly well received. She continued her prolific output of paintings, the demand for which never diminished during her lifetime. Grandma Moses painted mostly scenes of rural life. Some of her many paintings were used on the covers of Hallmark cards.

In 1938, seventy years ago, listeners panicked thinking the Earth was being invaded by Martians when Orson Welles performed his dramatization of “The War of the Worlds”.

The story is set in the early twentieth century, and begins with the unnamed narrator, a writer of speculative scientific articles, visiting an observatory in Ottershaw on the invitation of a “well-known astronomer” named Ogilvy. There he witnesses an explosion on the surface of the planet Mars, one of a series of such events that arouses much interest in the scientific community. An unspecified time later, a “meteor” is seen landing on Horsell Common, near London. The narrator’s home is close by, and he is among the first to discover the object is a space-going artificial cylinder launched from Mars. The cylinder opens, disgorging the Martians: bulky, tentacled creatures that begin setting up strange machinery in the cylinder’s impact crater. A human deputation moves towards the crater and is incinerated by an invisible ray of heat.

I bet many people were checking their life insurance rates and making sure their policies were up to date too.

On this date in 1946, Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin teamed up and became one of the most famous comedy teams ever.

Classic.

Ruby Stevens was born on this day in 1907. Who was Ruby Stevens you ask? Why, she was one of the best actresses Hollywood has ever seen.

Of course, you know her as Barbra Stanwyck. Of course, I grew up watching her on “The Big Valley” and other shows. One of my favorite things to do, whether I am at home on a Sunday afternoon or sitting in a hotel room on vacation on the Outer Banks, is finding old reruns of shows like “The Big Valley”. They sure take me back.

In 1989, Laurence Olivier passed away.

Laurence Olivier was an excellent actor. He always seemed to be a gentleman and he was always in shape and never needed fat burners. He was a true class act. Of all the rolls he played, I think my favorite was Nicodemus in “Jesus of Nazareth”.

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On this day in 1968, actress Dorothy Gish, the sister of Lillian Gish, died from pneumonia in Italy.

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