December 14, 1949: “Sands of Iwo Jima” Premieres

December 14, 1949: Sands of Iwo Jima premieres, cementing John Wayne as the toughest guy the U.S. Marine Corps never actually had.

It uses footage from an earlier documentary about the battle, which ran from February 19 to March 26, 1945, and re-enacts the famous flag-raising of February 23. The 3 men then believed to be the survivors among the 6 actual flag-raisers – Rene Gagnon, Ira Hayes and John Bradley – appear as extras. (Michael Strank, Harlon Block and Franklin Sousley never made it off the island alive. Harold Schultz, misidentified as Bradley, was, ironically, the last survivor, living just past the 50th Anniversary, in 1995.)

Wayne's starring role in this film, as Sergeant John M. Stryker, indelibly linked him with the U.S. military effort in World War II, and with the Marines in particular, even though he hadn't served in the war: He was classified 3-A, meaning he had a deferment as his family's sole means of support. In the Vietnam War era, Wayne despised draft dodgers, but while he didn't serve himself, it should be noted that he did not dodge: He simply wasn't drafted.

In spite of all the characters killed, including Stryker -- usually the hero, Wayne rarely died in his films -- Sands of Iwo Jima became the greatest propaganda the Marine Corps had ever had, at least until the 1970s, when they began filming recruitment commercials: "Maybe you can be one of us: The few, the proud, the Marines."

*

December 14, 1949 was a Thursday. Bill Buckner was born.

Baseball was out of season. Football's regular season was over, with only the college bowl games and the NFL Championship Game (which the Philadelphia Eagles won over the Los Angeles Rams) remaining. There were 5 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Minneapolis Lakers, 94-84 at the old Madison Square Garden. Carl Braun led the Knicks with 26 points. Braun's contribution to NBA lore is that, when practicing free throws, if one went through, hitting "nothing but net," he would imitate the sound it made, saying, "Swish!" Knicks broadcaster Marty Glickman picked it up, and popularized it. For a later generation, New York sportscaster Warner Wolf used it.

For the defending, and soon to be again, Champion Lakers, George Mikan scored 38 points, but no other player scored more than 8. The Lakers moved to Los Angeles in 1960.

* The Washington Capitols beat the St. Louis Bombers, 79-61 at the Uline Arena (later the Washington Coliseum). The Bombers folded at the end of this 1949-50 season, while the Caps lasted 1 more season.

* The Syracuse Nationals beat the Fort Wayne Pistons, 96-83 at the State Fair Coliseum in Syracuse, New York. The Pistons moved to Detroit in 1957, and the Nats became the Philadelphia 76ers in 1963.

* The Tri-Cities Blackhawks beat the Chicago Stags, 73-68 at the Wharton Field House in Moline, Illinois. The Stags folded at the end of the 1949-50 season.

Moline and Rock Island, Illinois, formerly the home of a charter NFL franchise, the Rock Island Independents, and Davenport, Iowa, right across the Mississippi River, had called themselves the "Tri-Cities" since World War I.

In the 1930s, East Moline, Illinois had grown to the point that the term "Quad Cities" began to be used, but it wasn't fully accepted. In 1948, Alcoa opened a plant in Bettendorf, Iowa, and the city grew to the point where the term "Quint Cities" began to be used. That didn't catch on, but Bettendorf could no longer be ignored, so Moline, Rock Island, Davenport and Bettendorf are the "Quad Cities."

In 1951, the Blackhawks moved, becoming the Milwaukee Hawks. They moved again, becoming the St. Louis Hawks in 1955, and the Atlanta Hawks in 1968. Today, the Quad Cities metropolitan area is home to about 475,000 people, much too small for a major league sports franchise.

The Quad Cities River Bandits are a Class A baseball team (3 steps below the major leagues) playing in Davenport, and the Quad City Thunder were a minor-league basketball team, playing at the Blackhawks' old venue, the Wharton Field House, which still stands.

* And the Philadelphia Warriors beat the Waterloo Hawks, 73-70 at the McElroy Auditorium in Waterloo, Iowa. The Hawks -- not to be confused with the Blackhawks-turned-Hawks -- folded in 1951, and remain the only major league sports team Iowa have ever had. The Warriors moved to San Francisco in 1962, taking on the name "Golden State Warriors" in 1971.

And the NHL's entire "Original Six" were in action:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Chicago Black Hawks, 5-3 at the Chicago Stadium.

* The Detroit Red Wings beat the Boston Bruins, 5-2 at the Boston Garden.

* And the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs played to a tie, 2-2 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

October 24, 1960: John Wayne's "Alamo" Lie

October 24, 1960: The film The Alamo premieres. John Wayne had wanted to make a film about the March 6, 1836 siege of the former Spanish mission in San Antonio for 15 years. He plays Davy Crockett, and, since Crockett died at the Alamo, this is one of the few films in which a character played by John Wayne dies. His son Patrick Wayne plays an officer who survives, because he's sent out to get reinforcements. His daughter Aissa Wayne also appears.

Richard Widmark plays Jim Bowie. Laurence Harvey plays William Travis. Doo-wop singer Frankie Avalon plays Smitty, a young soldier who is an aide to Crockett. Denver Pyle, later known as Uncle Jesse on The Dukes of Hazzard, plays Thimblerig the Gambler. Richard Boone, then playing Paladin on Have Gun -- Will Travel, plays Sam Houston, who gets revenge at San Jacinto on April 21, 1836.

Ruben Padilla plays Generalissimo Antonio Miguel Lopez de Santa Anna, defending Mexico from the Texans.

"Remember the Alamo!" the Texans said in 1836. Modern Texans still say it today. But they don't remember what really happened. What are the 2 things present-day Texans hate the most? Illegal immigrants and other criminals. The Texans at the Alamo were both of those things: What is now the City of San Antonio was then part of Mexico, and they were there without permission; and they were slaveholders, and slavery had been abolished in Mexico in 1829 -- officially. Clearly, in practice, the country had not been able to fully do so.

In other words, at the Alamo, the good guys won. But the Texans yelled, "Remember the Alamo!" at San Jacinto 46 days later, won that, and declared independence. Then, in 1844, when it looked like Mexico was going to take them back, they called their Uncle Sam for help. Cowards.

And then, to thank America for saving their asses, they seceded in 1861, because they decided that having slaves was more important than accepting that all men are created equal.

And then, nearly a century later, John Wayne made a movie about the Alamo, and, of course, any side that The Duke is on must be the heroic one, right? Wrong: The men "defending the Alamo" were no heroes. And John Wayne was no hero.

*

October 24, 1960 was a Monday. Actor BD Wong and golfer Ian Baker-Finch were born.

Baseball season was over. Football was in midweek: There would be no Monday Night Football for another 10 years. And there were no games scheduled in the NHL. There was 1 game in the NBA: The New York Knicks beat the Los Angeles Lakers, newly moved from Minneapolis, 111-101 at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena.

October 4, 1962: "The Longest Day" Premieres

Robert Mitchum on the film's original poster

October 4, 1962: The Longest Day premieres, based on Cornelius Ryan's 1959 book about the D-Day invasion. It has 3 directors: Andrew Marton shot scenes involving American troops, Ken Annakin shot scenes involving British and French troops, and Bernhard Wicki shot scenes involving German troops.

It was one of the first movies shown in the Allied nations that showed scenes from the war from the Nazis' perspective. It was also one of the first that showed the characters speaking their native languages: The French soldiers spoke French, and the German soldiers spoke German, with English subtitles on the screen.

What's more, several actual D-Day participants served as consultants, and even actors, for the film. These included American General James Gavin; British brigade commander Simon Fraser, Lord Lavat; Werner Pluskat, a German major who was the 1st officer to see the invasion fleet; and Lucie Rommel, widow of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.

Among the Americans: Henry Grace played General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Alexander Knox played General Walter Bedell Smith, Nicholas Stuart played General Omar Bradley, and Henry Fonda played General Theodore Roosevelt Jr. The Rough Rider's son was the assistant commander of the 4th Infantry Division, and was warned by his doctor that participating could kill him even if he sustained no battle wound. He didn't listen, and died a month later.

Other notable American actors in this "cast of thousands" film: John Wayne, Rod Steiger, Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan, Eddie Albert, Red Buttons, Gary Collins, Jeffrey Hunter, Richard Beymer, Sal Mineo, Roddy McDowall, George Segal, Robert Wagner, and singers Paul Anka, Tommy Sands and Fabian.

Among the British: Trevor Reid (as General, later Field Marshal, Bernard Montgomery), Peter Lawford (as Lord Lovat), Richard Burton, Sean Connery, Bernard Fox, Siân Phillips, and future game-show host Richard Dawson.

Connery was about to begin playing James Bond. Three of the German actors would go on to play Bond villains: Gert Fröbe, Auric Goldfinger in Goldfinger, Curd Jürgens, Karl Stromberg in The Spy Who Loved Me; and Walter Gotell, who played General Antoly Gogol, head of the KGB, in 5 straight films, starting with The Spy Who Loved Me.

*

October 4, 1962 was a Thursday. There was only 1 score on this historic day. Game 1 of the World Series was played at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, the 1st World Series game played in Northern California.

The New York Yankees beat the San Francisco Giants, 6-2. Whitey Ford was the winning pitcher for a record 10th time in Series play, but it would be for the last time, and his record streak of 33 2/3 scoreless World Series innings was stopped.

Also on this day, Issiac Holt III (no middle name, and that's how his first name is spelled, not "Isaac") is born in Birmingham, Alabama. A cornerback, he was with the Dallas Cowboys when they won Super Bowl XXVII. But in the following off-season, he told head coach Jimmy Johnson he shouldn't have so many "voluntary" workouts, and Johnson cut him. He never played in the NFL again.

April 22, 1962: "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" premieres

April 22, 1962: The Western film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance premieres, directed by John Ford. It stars Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne (their only appearance together), Vera Miles, and Lee Marvin as the eponymous desperado. Despite the title containing the most obvious spoiler since Death of a Salesman, it does not give the identity of the titular shooter away.

The song of the same title, sung by Gene Pitney, was composed after the fact by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, and was not a part of the film. Nevertheless, for the most part, the song tells the story:

When Liberty Valance rode to town.
the womenfolk would hide, they'd hide.
When Liberty Valance walked around
the men would step aside.

'Cause the point of a gun was the only law
that Liberty understood
When it came to shooting straight and fast
he was mighty good.

Stewart plays Ransom Stoddard, a young lawyer from the East, who arrives in a Western Territory, not named but definitely not yet a State, only to be immediately robbed and beaten by Valance and his gang. Wayne plays Tom Doniphon, who takes "Ranse" to the home of his girlfriend, Hallie (Miles), who treats his injuries.

From out of the East, a stranger came
a law book in his hand, a man
the kind of a man the West would need
to tame a troubled land.

'Cause the point of a gun was the only law
that Liberty understood.
When it came to shooting straight and fast
He was mighty good.

Many a man would face his gun
And many a man would fall.
The man who shot Liberty Valance
He shot Liberty Valance
He was the bravest of them all.

He would have to be. Ranse learns Valance frequently terrorizes the town of Shinbone and the surrounding country, since the local Marshal, Link Appleyard (Andy Devine), is too cowardly to stop him. Tom says Valance only understands force, but Ranse is determined to bring Valance to justice through the law.

Ranse establishes his law practice, and begins to romance Hallie. Tom makes it clear that Hallie is his bride-to-be. Valance bullies Ranse again, and Ranse begins practicing with a gun loaned to him by Dutton Peabody (Edmond O'Brien), the publisher of the town's newspaper.

Ranse and Peabody are elected the town's delegates to a convention to decide whether the Territory should apply for Statehood. Statehood would mean a federal government presence in town, enforcing federal law. That would be bad news for the cattle barons, who are used to getting their own way. So they hire Valance to try to stop Ranse and Peabody from voting for Statehood. Valance challenges Ranse to a gunfight. Tom offers to assist Ranse in leaving town, but Ranse stubbornly declines.

The love of a girl can make a man stay on
when he should go, stay on
just trying to build a peaceful life
where love is free to grow.

But the point of a gun was the only law
that Liberty understood.
When the final showdown came at last
a law book was no good

Alone and afraid, she prayed that he'd
return that fateful night, oh that night
when nothing she said could keep her man
from going out to fight.

From the moment a girl gets to be full grown
the very first thing she learns:
When two men go out to face each other
only one returns!

This is where the song differs from the film: Ranse didn't stay for the love of Hallie, but out of stubbornness. And although Hallie now wanted Ranse, not Tom, and was worried about the gunfight, the film did not depict her praying for Ranse, or discouraging him from dueling.

That night, Valance and his gang vandalize the newspaper office, and severely injure Peabody for reporting Valance's murder of a local farmer. Ranse arms himself and goes after Valance. But, even drunk, Valance easily shoots Ranse in the arm, causing him to drop his gun, then prepares to kill him. Ranse picks up his gun and shoots, and Valance falls dead.

Everyone heard two shots ring out!
One shot made Liberty fall!
The man who shot Liberty Valance
he shot Liberty Valance
he was the bravest of them all!

The man who shot Liberty Valance
he shot Liberty Valance
he was the bravest of them all!

Everyone who was watching and listening during the gunfight did hear two shots: The shot from Valance that wounded Ranse, and the shot that made Valance fall dead. Tom sees Hallie treat Ranse's wound, and knows that he's lost her.

At the Territorial Convention, Ranse is nominated for delegate to Congress, but withdraws after a representative of the cattle barons, still opposing Statehood, accuses him of building a career from murdering a man.

Tom arrives, and explains to Ranse that it was he who killed Valance: Knowing that Ranse could not win, Tom shot him with a rifle at the same time Ranse fired -- two shots at the same time, hence, "Everyone heard two shots ring out, one shot made Liberty fall," but, in fact, there were three shots, and only Tom knew, until he told Ranse. Tom encourages Ranse to accept the nomination for Hallie's sake, before quietly walking out of the Convention.

Time passes -- 25 years. Ransom and Hallie Stoddard return to Shinbone by train, for Tom Doniphon's funeral. Ransom had been elected Governor, and then U.S. Senator. A President had appointed him U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain. It is a Presidential election year, and the rumor is that Ranse will be nominated for Vice President.

He tells the newspaper's current editor, who had been preparing an anniversary story on the shooting, the truth. Not wanting to ruin Ranse's legacy, he burns his notes, and says, "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." And yet, when the Stoddards board the train to begin their journey back to Washington, Ranse thanks the train conductor for the railroad's courtesies, and the conductor, none the wiser, answers, "Nothing's too good for the man who shot Liberty Valance!"

TL;DR: Jimmy Stewart got the girl, but John Wayne got the bad guy.

*

April 22, 1962 was a Sunday. Football was out of season. The NBA Championship had been won 4 days earlier, by the Boston Celtics, over the Los Angeles Lakers in 7 games.

On this day, the Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the defending champion Chicago Blackhawks 2-1, to take Game 6 of the Finals and win the Stanley Cup for the first time in 11 years. This started a string of 3 straight and 4 in 6 years under head coach-general manager George "Punch" Imlach, with future Hall-of-Famers like Frank Mahovlich, Tim Horton, George Armstrong and Johnny Bower.

When the string ends on May 2, 1967, the Leafs will have won 13 of the 49 Stanley Cups awarded in the NHL era -- 26 percent. At the time, they were only 1 behind their arch-rivals, the Montreal Canadiens, for the most. In the 60 years since, they have never even been to the Finals again, while the Canadiens have added 10 more.

And these baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees were swept in a doubleheader by the Cleveland Indians, 7-5 and 9-3 at Yankee Stadium. In the opener, Yogi Berra and Tom Tresh hit home runs, but Bill Stafford didn't get out of the 3rd inning.

In the nightcap, the game was tied 3-3 after 6, but the Tribe scored 2 runs in the 7th and 4 in the 9th to pull away. Jim Coates started, and Luis Arroyo, injured during the recent Spring Training, ended up as the losing pitcher, a mark of his decline from being the game's best relief pitcher the previous season. Over the 2 games, Mickey Mantle went 1-for-5 with 3 walks.

* The New York Mets lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-3 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. The Mets were now 0-9 in their history, and the Pirates were 10-0, so the Mets were 9 1/2 games out of 1st place even though they'd played only 9 games. In this game, Jim Hickman got 3 hits, and Gil Hodges 2, the rest of the team combined, only 2. Roberto Clemente went 3-for-4. The next day, the Mets got their 1st regular-season win, beating the Pirates, 9-1.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Boston Red Sox, 8-6 at Fenway Park in Boston. Norm Cash hit 2 home runs. Al Kaline went 2-for-5 with an RBI. Carl Yastrzemski went 1-for-5 with an RBI. Jim Pagliaroni and Gary Geiger hit home runs for the Red Sox, and both would end up on the 1969 Seattle Pilots, written about by pitcher Jim Bouton in what became his book Ball Four. (And they both homered in the same game? Pagliaroni, who hit only 90 runs in his career? Ang Geiger, who hit 77? Yeah, surrre! Maybe their greenies kicked in.)

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Washington Senators, 8-3 at District of Columbia Stadium (later Robert F. Kennedy Stadium) in Washington. Brooks Robinson, Jim Gentile, Gus Triandos and Jackie Brandt all homered for the O's.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the San Francisco Giants, 6-4 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Frank Robinson went 0-for-4, but the Reds got home runs from Vada Pinson, Johnny Edwards and Wally Post. Willie Mays went 1-for-4 with an RBI.

* The Kansas City Athletics swept the Chicago White Sox, 7-1 and 7-5 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* The Milwaukee Braves beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 6-3 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Hank Aaron was injured in the 1st inning, and was replaced by his brother, Tommie Aaron. Eddie Mathews went 0-for-1, but drew 4 walks. Duke Snider went 1-for-4 with an RBI.

Hank played again the next day. The main reason he was able to go to hit a record 755 home runs was his remarkable durability and availability: Whatever aches and pains he may have had, from 1955 to 1970, he never played in fewer than 145 games, and only twice in fewer than 150.

* The Chicago Cubs swept a doubleheader from their arch-rivals, the St. Louis Cardinals, 11-5 and 5-1 at Busch Stadium (formerly Sportsman's Park) in St. Louis. In the 1st game, Ernie Banks went 2-for-5 with a home run and 3 RBIs, while Stan Musial went 1-for-4. Banks went 0-for-4 in the 2nd game, while Musial appeared only as a pinch-hitter, and did not reach base.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Houston Colt .45s, 4-3 at Colt Stadium in Houston. The Colts became the Houston Astros in 1965.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Los Angeles Angels, 5-0 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, where the Angels groundshared with the Dodgers until their stadium could be built in nearby Anaheim. Jim Kaat pitched a 4-hit shutout, with 10 strikeouts and no walks. Harmon Killebrew hit a home run.

March 3, 1939: "Stagecoach" Premieres

Claire Trevor and John Wayne

March 3, 1939: The film Stagecoach premieres, directed by John Ford. It is regarded as one of the greatest Western movies ever made, and is credited with making a star out of John Wayne.

Born in 1907 in Iowa, as Marion Michael Morrison, he played football at the University of Southern California, but got kicked off the team when it was discovered that an injury was the result of a dumb stunt. So he went to the Hollywood studios, and became a stuntman for a living, as did many actors before and since.

Stagecoach was the 6th film that Ford directed with John Wayne, but the 1st with Wayne in a starring role. In 1928, Ford directed Wayne in Mother Machree, Four Sons and Hangman's House. This would be followed in 1929 with Salute, and 1930 with Men Without Women. Also in 1930, Ford directed Up the River, which was the film debut of both Spencer Tracy and Humphrey Bogart. Most of these films are considered all or mostly lost.

John Ford, bearing a strong resemblance

to another creative Irishman, James Joyce

Stagecoach is set in 1880, as a driver, Buck (played by Andy Devine) prepares to leave Tonto, Arizona for Lordsburg, New Mexico. (Both Arizona and New Mexico were Territories then, and each would gain Statehood in 1912.) This location would allow Ford to film, as he liked to do, in the American Southwest's "National Monument Valley.

Buck has 4 passengers: Dallas (Claire Trevor, who got top billing in the film, over Wayne), a prostitute driven out of town by self-appointed moral arbiters; Doc Boone (Thomas Mitchell), an alcoholic physician; Lucy Mallory (Louise Platt), a snobbish Southerner, who will, on arrival, be joining her husband, a cavalry officer; and Samuel Peacock (Donald Meek), a short, bald whiskey salesman.

Marshal Curley Wilcox (George Bancroft) tells Buck that his shotgun guard is unavailable, as he is part of a posse looking for the Ringo Kid (Wayne), who has broken out of prison on a revenge mission. Curley offers to "ride shotgun" himself. An Army officer warns that the Apache Chief Geronimo and his braves are on the warpath. Hatfield (John Carradine), a gambler, offers additional protection, and boards the stage. At the edge of town, the stage is flagged by Henry Gatewood (Berton Churchill), an arrogant banker, who pays his fare.

Down the road, Ringo is found, walking after his horse had pulled up lame. Curley and Ringo are friends, and Curley figures Ringo is safer in his custody than anywhere else. At Apache Wells, Mrs. Mallory learns that her husband had been wounded in battle with the Apaches. She faints, and, stunning the group, none of whom knew she was pregnant, goes into labor. Doc Boone sobers up, and delivers the baby, with Dallas assisting.

Later that night, Ringo asks Dallas to marry him, and live on a ranch he owns across the border in Mexico. She accepts, but is unwilling to leave Mrs. Mallory and the newborn. She gives Ringo the rifle Curley had taken, and prods him to escape, promising to meet him there later. But he sees smoke signals, heralding an Apache attack, and returns to custody.

The stage is attacked, shortly after crossing the river outside an Apache-sacked Lee's Ferry. A long chase follows, with some of the party injured in the fight. Down to his last bullet, Hatfield is pulling back the trigger to humanely dispatch Mrs. Mallory when he is mortally wounded. The 6th U.S. Cavalry rides to the rescue. This became part of the Western movie trope of "the cavalry coming over the hill in the nick of time."

They get to Lordsburg safely. There, Gatewood is arrested for attempting to abscond with his bank's funds. Mrs. Mallory learns that her wounded husband will fully recover. She thanks Dallas, who gives Mrs. Mallory her shawl. Dallas then begs Ringo not to confront the 3 Plummer brothers, who had killed his father and brother, prompting his prison break. He guns all 3 down in a shootout, then surrenders to Curley, expecting to go back to prison.

As Ringo takes his seat on a buckboard, Curley invites Dallas to ride with them to the edge of town. But when she gets aboard Curley and Doc stampede the horses, letting the couple speed off together toward Ringo's ranch across the Mexican border, where they can be together without the American authorities being able to touch them.

Ford would direct Wayne again in The Long Voyage Home in 1940, They Were Expendable in 1945, Fort Apache and 3 Godfathers in 1948, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon in 1949, Rio Grande in 1950, The Quiet Man in 1952, The Searchers in 1956, The Wings of Eagles in 1957, The Horse Soldiers in 1959, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and How the West Was Won in 1962, and Donovan's Reef in 1963 -- a total of 19 films.

Together and separately, Wayne and Ford became synonymous with both Western movies and World War II-themed films. They shared a love of their Irish heritage and the American West. They started out as political opposites, with Ford as a New Deal Democrat. But, by the 1950s, he had begun to move toward Wayne's staunch conservatism.

Churchill died of uremic poisoning in 1940, only a year and a half after the premiere of Stagecoach. Meek died of leukemia in 1946. He was followed by Bancroft in 1956, Mitchell in 1962, Ford in 1973, Devine in 1977, Wayne in 1979, Carradine in 1988, Trevor in 2000, and Platt in 2003.

Stagecoach was remade in 1966, with Ann-Margret as Dallas, Alex Cord as Ringo, Van Heflin as Curley, Slim Pickens as Buck, Bing Crosby as Doc Boone, Stefanie Powers as Lucy, Red Buttons as Peacock, Mike Connors as Hatfield, and Robert Cummings as Gatewood.

In 1986, CBS aired another remake, featuring the country music legends who occasionally got together and recorded and performed as The Highwaymen: Johnny Cash as Curley, Kris Kristofferson as Ringo, Willie Nelson as the real-life dentist-gunslinger Doc Holliday, and Waylon Jennings as Hatfield.

Bing's daughter Mary Crosby -- best known as Kristin Shepard, sister-in-law, mistress and shooter of J.R. Ewing on the CBS show Dallas -- playing not Dallas, but Lucy. Elizabeth Ashley played Dallas, John Schneider played Buck, Anthony Newley played Peacock, Tony Franciosa played Gatewood, and Cash's wife June Carter Cash and Jennings' wife Jessi Colter, themselves renowned country singers, had minor roles.

*

March 3, 1939 was a Friday. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And the NHL had no games scheduled. So there were no scores on this historic day.

February 22, 1956: John Wayne's Cursed Film

February 22, 1956: The Conqueror premieres, starring John Wayne as Genghis Khan. I swear, I’m not making that up. It is often considered the worst film of its era, and it was the last John Wayne film to have been shown on television.

From 1203 until his death in 1227, Genghis Khan ruled the Mongol Empire in East Asia, having conquered more land than any human being, before or since. Tales of his savagery are legend, but he was also a smart politician: Any city willing to submit to his rule and his taxes was left to live in peace. Just as just about every person of European ancestry alive today is said to be descended from Charlemagne, just about every person of East Asian ancestry alive today is said to be descended from Genghis Khan.

But John Wayne, best known as the most iconic star of American Western films, was the wrong actor to play him: Not only was he not the least bit Asian, but his hatred of Asians was well established before the film was made. He made that clear in his World War II films, which showed him fighting the Japanese more than the Nazis; and, later on, the Vietnamese in the 1968 film The Ballad of the Green Berets.

The Conqueror was produced by Howard Hughes. Since the airline and film studio mogul was, by then, living in seclusion in Las Vegas, he wanted it filmed near Vegas. Well, in the American West, "near" is relative. It was filmed near St. George, Utah, 117 miles northeast of Las Vegas -- and 137 miles downwind of the federal government's Nevada National Security Site.

Director Dick Powell died of cancer in January 1963, 7 years after the film's release. Pedro Armendáriz, a Mexican actor who was nearly as iconic in his homeland as Wayne was in America, was diagnosed with kidney cancer in 1960, and committed suicide in June 1963 after he learned his condition had become terminal, shortly after he completed filming on the James Bond film From Russia with Love. Wayne, female lead Susan Hayward, and Agnes Moorehead all died of cancer in the 1970s.

The cast and crew totaled 220 people. By the end of 1980, as ascertained by People magazine, 91 of them had developed some form of cancer, and 46 had died of the disease. That's 41 percent developing cancer, and 21 percent dying from it. In addition, several of Wayne's and Hayward's relatives also had cancer scares after visiting the set. Michael Wayne developed skin cancer, his brother Patrick had a benign tumor removed from his chest, and Hayward's son Tim Barker had a benign tumor removed from his mouth.

Dr. Robert Pendleton, professor of biology at the University of Utah, stated, "With these numbers, this case could qualify as an epidemic. The connection between fallout radiation and cancer in individual cases has been practically impossible to prove conclusively. But in a group this size, you'd expect only 30-some cancers to develop. With 91 cancer cases, I think the tie-in to their exposure on the set of The Conqueror would hold up in a court of law."

Bigotry is also a disease. Cultural appropriation, less so, but bad enough. Casting white actors in Asian roles continued, with one of the worst examples being Mickey Rooney as nasty landlord Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany's in 1961. In 1964, with heavy makeup and a heavier accent, Marlo Thomas, a white actress of Lebanese descent (as was her father, Danny Thomas), played a Chinese woman on the TV Western Bonanza.

By the time the TV shows Hawaii Five-O and M*A*S*H premiered, in 1968 and 1972, respectively, TV studios had begun to cast Asian actors in Asian roles, even if the actors weren't specifically Hawaiian (as on the former) or Korean (as on the latter).

*

February 22, 1956 was a  Wednesday. Baseball and football were out of season. There were 3 games played in the NBA. Two of them were a doubleheader, at the Philadelphia Arena in West Philadelphia. In the opener, the Rochester Royals beat the St. Louis Hawks, 110-109. In the nightcap, the New York Knicks beat the Philadelphia Warriors, 117-108. In the other game, the Boston Celtics beat the Minneapolis Lakers, 93-90 at the Minneapolis Auditorium.

And there was 1 game in the NHL: The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the New York Rangers, 4-2 at the old Madison Square Garden.