December 15, 1939: "Gone With the Wind" Premieres

December 15, 1939: The film Gone With the Wind premieres at the Loew's Grand Theatre in Atlanta, the city where most of the film's action takes place.

Until July 1940, the film played only advance-ticket engagements at a limited number of theaters, with a ticket price of $1.00, more than twice the price of regular features in those days -- $20.06 in 2022 money, so a bit more than most movie prices now.

Counting promotion costs, it took $7 million to make the movie -- about $140 million today. It has made over $390 million. It would remain the highest-grossing movie of all time until 1975, surpassed by Jaws. But, with inflation factored in, it's still the highest-grossing movie ever, at $7.8 billion. In comparison, Avengers: Endgame has generated $2.8 billion; Star Wars (Episode IV: A New Hope) has made $776 million, so with inflation from 1977, that's $3.6 billion, still not half as much as Gone With the Wind.

It was the most popular movie of its era because the novel on which it was based, published by Margaret Mitchell in 1936, was the most popular book of the era. It was a story of the Southern aristocracy before, during, and after the American Civil War, and it totally idealizes that culture. It aided the myth of the “Lost Cause,” suggesting that the Confederacy was honorable, just, and heroic. It also indulged in the stereotypes of Southern black people of the era, and does nothing to suggest that slavery was bad. It was. And it does nothing to suggest that the South deserved to lose the war. It did.

And let's say it: There is no hero in this movie: Scarlett O'Hara is a spoiled bitch, and Rhett Butler is an ass -- who ultimately decides that she is too much even for him. It's easy to take his side when he leaves Scarlett, and responds to her question about what she'll do without him by saying, in a line the producers fought the Hays Code to keep in the film, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." (The line, minus the word "Frankly," was in the book.)

The screenwriter, Sidney Howard, died before the premiere. On August 23, 1939, he was working on his farm in Tyringham, Massachusetts. He had turned his tractor on in his garage, but had neglected to put the brake on, and after he got out, it lurched back, and pinned him against the wall. He was only 48 years old. Having already received a Pulitzer Prize for his 1924 play They Knew What They Wanted, he received a posthumous Oscar.

Leslie Howard (no relation to Sidney), who played Ashley Wilkes -- both "Leslie" and "Ashley" were considered masculine names in 1860s America, when and where the story was set, and in 1890s Britain, when and where he was born -- was killed in action in 1943, when his plane was shot down by the Nazis.

Mitchell was killed in 1949, hit by a car in Atlanta. Also dying that year was director Victor Fleming, who also directed The Wizard of Oz in 1939. Hattie McDaniel, who played Mammy, died in 1952. George Reeves, who played Stuart Tarleton, and would go on to play Superman on television, died of a gunshot wound in 1959, officially a suicide, but this is widely doubted. Clark Gable, who played Butler, died in 1960. Producer David O. Selznick died in 1965. Vivien Leigh, who played Scarlett, battled mental illness and alcoholism, and died in 1967.

Thelma "Butterfly" McQueen, who played Prissy, lived until 1995. Cammie King, who played Scarlett and Rhett's daughter, Bonnie Butler, lived until 2010. Olivia de Havilland, who played Melanie Wilkes Hamilton, lived to be 104 years old, dying in 2020 (not of COVID).

The last surviving castmembers? Mickey Kuhn, who died on November 20, 2022, at 90, was the last credited one. He played Beau Wilkes, son of Melanie and Ashley. Patrick Curtis died 4 days later, at 83. He played Beau Wilkes as a baby, but was not credited. He went on to become a film producer, and was, for 5 years, the 2nd of the 4 husbands of actress Raquel Welch. Caren Marsh Doll, 102, was an uncredited extra. Earlier in the year, she was Judy Garland's dance stand-in for The Wizard of Oz, making her the last surviving castmember of that film.

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December 15, 1939 was a Friday. Singer Cindy Birdsong was born on this day. She sang with Patti LaBelle's Bluebelles from 1961 to 1966, then replaced replaced Florence Ballard in The Supremes, singing with them until 1977.

It was the off-season for baseball. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. There were no NHL games played that day. And the pro football season had just ended 5 days earlier, with the NFL Championship Game. The Green Bay Packers beat the New York Giants, 27-0, at the Dairy Bowl in the Milwaukee suburb of West Allis, Wisconsin. The stadium has since been converted into an auto racing track called the Milwaukee Mile. So there were no scores on this historic day.

November 27, 1976: "Network" Premieres

Peter Finch as Howard Beale

November 27, 1976: The film Network premieres, directed by Sidney Lumet, with a screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky. It becomes recognized as a great satire of the television industry -- and, sadly, all too prophetic about what TV would become.

Howard Beale is the anchorman for the evening news at fictional network UBS, the United Broadcasting Service. (He was played by Peter Finch, born in London, raised in Sydney, Australia, but made a good New Yorker.) On September 23, 1975, he announces, live on the air, that he's going to commit suicide in one week's time, also live on the air.

He and his best friend, his producer, Max Schumacher (William Holden), are sure he'll be fired, maybe committed. But the network gets so many phone calls that they're sure the ratings for the next night will be through the roof. So Howard is given one last broadcast. He begins it as follows:

Good evening. Today is Wednesday, September the 24th, and this is my last broadcast.

Yesterday, I announced on this program that I was going to commit public suicide -- admittedly, an act of madness.

Well, I'll tell you what happened: I just ran out of bullshit.

(He pauses.) Am I still on the air? (He sees the red light on the camera is still on, and knows he is, and resumes.)

I really don't know any other way to say it, other than I just ran out of bullshit. Bullshit is all the reasons we give for living. And if we can't think up any reasons of our own, we always have the God bullshit. We don't know why we're going through all this pointless pain, humiliation, decays, so there better be someone, somewhere, who does know. That's the God bullshit.

And then, there's the noble man bullshit: That man is a noble creature that can order his own world; who needs God? Well, if there's anybody out there that can look around this demented slaughterhouse of a world we live in and tell me that man is a noble creature, believe me: That man is full of bullshit.

I don't have anything going for me. I haven't got any kids. And I was married for thirty-three years of shrill, shrieking fraud. So, I don't have any bullshit left. I just ran out of it, you see.

The switchboard at network HQ lights up like a pinball machine. People want Beale kept. He's kept. The ratings go through the roof. And then comes the night when he shows up without having gotten dressed and made up for the broadcast, still wearing his raincoat, his hair soaked with rain, and he says this:

I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work, or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth. Banks are going bust. Shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street. And there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it.

We know the air is unfit to breathe, and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had 15 homicides and 63 violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be.

We know things are bad. Worse than bad: They're crazy. It's like everything, everywhere, is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and, slowly, the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, "Please, at least, leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials, and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone."

Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone! I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot. I don't want you to write to your Congressman, because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street.

All I know is that, first, you've got to get mad! You've got to say, '"I'm a human being, God damn it! My life has value!"

So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up, right now, and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out, and yell, "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"

I want you to get up, right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell, "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad! You've got to say, "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But, first, get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"

And, all over the country, people do it. And, instead of getting Beale the help his clear mental breakdowns need, the network, particularly executive Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway), exploit him. She and Max have an affair, she leaving the boyfriend she has at the start of the film, he leaving his wife. But he dumps her at the end. Noticing that she's roughly the same age as television itself (Dunaway was born in 1941), he tells her:

You're television incarnate, Diana: Indifferent to suffering; insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality. War, murder, death are all the same to you as bottles of beer. And the daily business of life is a corrupt comedy. You even shatter the sensations of time and space into split seconds and instant replays. You're madness, Diana. Virulent madness. And everything you touch dies with you.

Including Howard Beale. She sees to it that he gets his own prime-time show where he can say whatever he wants. But then, he exposes ties between the corporation that owns the network and business interests in Saudi Arabia, whose oil price hikes had caused the nasty recession of 1973-75, which Beale calls "the depression."

Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty), the network's chairman, takes advantage of Beale's deteriorating mind, and tells him that the only true god is money. Beale believes him, and changes his tune, and starts telling the people that their lives don't have value, and humanity is in irreversible decline. And so, his ratings go down.

And so, having caused Beale to fall into their trap, and give them what they consider to be just cause, the network hires terrorists to assassinate Beale: He gets the on-air death he predicted, but not how. The voice-over narration by actor Lee Richardson concludes by saying, "This is the story of Howard Beale, the first known instance of a man who was killed because he had lousy ratings."

Sadly, life came all too close to imitating art: Peter Finch suffered a heart attack and died on January 14, 1977, at the age of 60, just a few weeks after the movie premiered. This is the story of Peter Finch, the first instance of a human being who won a posthumous Academy Award for acting in a leading role. Dunaway also won an Oscar, for Best Actress.

Network taught real-life TV networks the wrong lesson. Beale's show, and Diana's and Jensen's responses to it, led to "reality TV" and Fox News Channel, where the truth doesn't matter, even when you call it "the news."

Paddy Chayefsky, also the author of the novels that became the films Marty and Altered States, died of cancer, even younger than Finch, age 58 -- on August 1, 1981, the day that MTV debuted. What a twist of fate that was!

William Holden also died in 1981, Wesley Addy in 1996, Lee Richardson in 1999, Beatrice Straight in 2001, Sidney Lumet in 2011, Conchata Ferrell in 2020, and Ned Beatty in 2021. As of November 27, 2022, Faye Dunaway and Robert Duvall are still alive. So is Kathy Cronkite, daughter of CBS anchorman Walter. She tended to be cast in politically-themed films, including this one, before leaving acting to become a psychologist. Her father, ABC anchorman Howard K. Smith, and NBC anchorman John Chancellor are all shown in the film, at the beginning, and at the end. (UPDATE: Duvall died in 2026.)

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November 27, 1976 was a Saturday. Actor Jaleel White, best known for playing Steve Urkel on the sitcom Family Matters, was born.

It was Thanksgiving weekend, and the conclusion of college football's rivalry week. Among the games played were these:

* The day before, in a big rivalry, Number 1 University of Pittsburgh beat Number 16 Penn State, 24-7 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh.

* Also the day before, in another big rivalry, Number 8 Oklahoma beat Number 10 Nebraska, 20-17 at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska.

* Number 3 Southern California (USC) beat Number 13 Notre Dame, 17-13 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

* Rivalry: Number 4 Georgia beat Georgia Tech, 13-10 at Sanford Stadium in Athens, Georgia.

* Rivalry: Number 7 Houston beat Rice, 42-20 at Rice Stadium in Houston.

* Number 9 Texas Tech beat Arkansas, 30-7 at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock, Arkansas.

* Rivalry: Number 18 Alabama beat Auburn, 38-7 at Legion Field in Birmingham.

* Rivalry: Boston College beat Holy Cross, 59-6 at Alumni Stadium outside Boston in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.

* Rivalry: Tennessee beat Vanderbilt, 13-10 at Dudley Field (now FirstBank Stadium) in Nashville, Tennessee.

* Rivalry: Arizona State beat Arizona, 27-10 at Arizona Stadium in Tucson.

* And in the greatest rivalry of them all, Navy beat Army, 38-10 at John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia.

There were 8 games played in the NBA: 

* The New York Knicks lost to the Boston Celtics, 123-109 at Madison Square Garden.

* The New York Mets beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 96-91 at the Milwaukee Exposition, Convention Center and Arena, or "The MECCA." Since 2014, it has been named the UW-Panther Arena.

* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Buffalo Braves, 101-94 at The Omni in Atlanta.

* The Houston Rockets beat the San Antonio Spurs, 125-116 at The Summit (now the Lakewood Church Central Campus) in Houston.

* The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 111-104 at The Coliseum in the Cleveland suburb of Richfield, Ohio.

* The Denver Nuggets beat the Indiana Pacers, 122-113 at the McNichols Arena in Denver. David Thompson led all scorers on the day with 37 points,

* The Phoenix Suns beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 119-107 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.

* And the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Washington Bullets, 103-95 at the Portland Memorial Coliseum.

There were 6 games in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers beat the Detroit Red Wings, 5-0 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Boston Bruins, 4-2 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* The New York Islanders beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 3-1 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

* The Minnesota North Stars beat the Washington Capitals, 6-1 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* The St. Louis Blues beat the Buffalo Sabres, 3-2 at the St. Louis Arena.

* The and the Montreal Canadiens beat the Los Angeles Kings, 4-3 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

* And the Chicago Black Hawks, the Philadelphia Flyers, the Cleveland Barons, the Vancouver Canucks, the Atlanta Flames and the Colorado Rockies were not scheduled.

There were 5 games in the World Hockey Association:

* The Minnesota Fighting Saints beat the New England Whalers, 3-1 at the Hartford Civic Center (now the PeoplesBank Arena).

* The Indianapolis Racers beat the Quebec Nordiques, 8-2 at the Colisée de Québec.

* The Cincinnati Stingers beat the Birmingham Bulls, 2-1 at the Riverfront Coliseum (now the Heritage Bank Center) in Cincinnati.

* The Phoenix Roadrunners beat the Edmonton Oilers, 4-2 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.

* And the San Diego Mariners beat the Calgary Cowboys, 2-0 at the Stampede Corral in Calgary.

And in English soccer, North London's Arsenal went to the Midlands, and beat Coventry City, 2-1 at Highfield Road in Coventry.

October 18, 1961: The Film Version of "West Side Story" Premieres

Left: Jets. Right: Sharks.

October 18, 1961: The film version of the 1957 musical West Side Story premieres. It's a modern retelling of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. In some cases, I'm doing entries for the original stage versions of shows. In some, I'm doing it for the films. West Side Story is the only one truly influential enough to deserve an entry for each version.

In this corner, of various white extractions including Irish, Italian and Polish -- and one kid known by a name that would never fly today, "A-rab" -- is a gang named the Jets: Richard Beymer as Tony (replacing Larry Kert from the original Broadway production, Jimmy Bryant did his singing), Russ Tamblyn as Riff (Michael Callan), and several other guys and girls. Elaine Joyce, already a Broadway performer, made her film debut, as Hotsie, girlfriend of Tiger, one of the Jets, several years before she became a regular panelist on game shows.

And in this corner, the Puerto Ricans, calling their gang the Sharks: Natalie Wood as Maria (with her songs sung by Marni Nixon, replacing Carol Lawrence from Broadway), George Chakiris as Bernardo (replacing Ken LeRoy -- ironically, Chakiris played Riff when the musical first took the British stage in 1958), Jose DeVega as Chino, and Rita Moreno as Anita, Maria's best friend and Bernardo's girlfriend (replacing Chita Rivera). 

The Jets and the Sharks only seem to agree on 3 things: That they're all Catholic, that you gotta be tough to survive in Hell's Kitchen -- Manhattan's West Side, 8th Avenue to the Hudson River, 41st to 59th Streets -- and that they hate the police, who hate them back. William Bramley plays Sergeant Krupke, a.k.a. Officer Krupke. Bramley was the only notable actor from the original show reprising his role.

The film was nominated for 11 Academy Awards (Oscars), winning 10 of them, including Best Picture, Best Director for Wise, Best Supporting Actor for Chakiris, and Best Supporting Actress for Moreno. Oddly, Beymer wasn't nominated for Best Actor. (Maximilian Schell won for Judgment at Nuremberg.) Natalie Wood was nominated for Best Actress, but for Splendor in the Grass rather than for West Side Story. (Sophia Loren won for Two Women, the 1st Oscar for a role in a language other than English.)

In the Spring of 2017, I was babysitting my niece Mackenzie, not yet a full year old. And West Side Story came on TV, with its creditless opening montage showing New York from above, including the pre-renovation original Yankee Stadium in living color. When the camera finally panned down to the finger-snapping Jets, and they started dancing to Jerome Robbins' choreography and Leonard Bernstein's score, Mackenzie was transfixed, going, "Ooh, ooh, ooh." This baby could not take her eyes off a movie that premiered nearly 55 years before she was born.

Steven Spielberg directed a remake in 2021, this time with the characters played by actors of the appropriate ethnicities. Tony was played by Ansel Elgort. Rachel Zegler, Polish on her father's side but Colombian on her mother's, played Maria. David Alvarez, a Montreal-born Cuban, played Bernardo.

It was nominated for 7 Oscars, including Best Picture, making it the 2nd remake of a Best Picture nominee to also be so honored, after the 1935 and 1962 versions of Mutiny on the Bounty. But it only won 1: Ariana DuBose, taking over as Anita from Moreno, who cameoed in the film as the mentor character Valentina. No other actor was nominated, although Spielberg was nominated as Best Director for a record 11th time.

(He's won twice, for Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan. I guess he's better doing movies set in 1944 than he is with 1957. He shouldn't make a movie about Sputnik, the move of the Brooklyn Dodgers, or the assassination of Albert Anastasia. He wouldn't make those, but he might make a movie about the Little Rock Nine.)

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October 18, 1961 was a Wednesday. It was a big day in music for another reason: Jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis was born.

Baseball season ended 9 days earlier, when the New York Yankees beat the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series. Football was in midweek. The new NBA season started the next day. There was 1 game played in the NHL: The Montreal Canadiens beat the New York Rangers, 5-2 at the old Madison Square Garden.

September 26, 1957: "West Side Story" Premieres

September 26, 1957: West Side Story premieres at the Winter Garden Theatre. It is often called the greatest musical in Broadway history. Arthur Laurents wrote the book, Stephen Sondheim the lyrics, Leonard Bernstein the music, and Jerome Robbins directed the show and ran the choreography. The show ran until June 27, 1959, before going on a U.S. tour.

In 1949, Robbins approached Bernstein and Laurents (all of them Jewish) about collaborating on a contemporary musical adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. He proposed that the plot focus on the conflict between an Irish Catholic family and a Jewish family living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, during the Easter–Passover season. The conflict was to be centered on the anti-Semitism of the Catholic "Jets" towards the Jewish "Emeralds."

Laurents wrote a first draft he called East Side Story. Only after he completed it did the group realize it was little more than a musicalization of themes that had already been covered in plays like Abie's Irish Rose, and the project was shelved.

In 1955, Laurents and Bernstein met again in Los Angeles, and talked about the recent rise of youth gangs. They decided to revive East Side Story, with the Irish family replaced by a multi-ethnic white gang, and the Jewish family replaced with a Puerto Rican gang. At this point, in the early days of the Civil Rights Movement, making one of the gangs black would have been too incendiary. Sondheim was brought in, and the title was changed to West Side Story.

In this corner, the Jets: Larry Kert as Tony, Michael Callan as Riff, and several other guys and girls. And in the other corner, the Sharks: Carol Lawrence as Maria, Ken LeRoy as Bernardo, Jamie Sanchez (one of the few actual Hispanics in the cast) as Chino, and Chita Rivera (ditto) as Anita. A character named Francisca is played by an actress named Elizabeth Taylor, but it's not that Elizabeth Taylor.

The only thing the Jets and the Sharks seem to agree on, besides all of them being Catholic and that you gotta be tough to survive in Hell's Kitchen on Manhattan's West Side, is hating the police. William Bramley plays Sergeant Krupke, a.k.a. Officer Krupke.

Tony has been out of the Jets for a while, and has a real job, although it doesn't pay much. He meets Maria, sister of Sharks leader Bernardo. They fall in love instantly, one thing leads to another, and, well, Spoiler Alert: Unlike in Romeo and Juliet, "Juliet" lives, but "Romeo" doesn't. Having a tragic ending was unusual for a Broadway musical. Nevertheless, it was nominated for 6 Tony Awards, including Best Musical. It won 2: Robbins for Best Choreography, and Oliver Smith for Best Scenic Design.

A film version premiered on October 18, 1961, directed by Robbins and Robert Wise. Bramley, as Krupke, was the only notable actor from the original show reprising his role. Richard Beymer played Tony (with Jimmy Bryant doing his singing), Natalie Wood played Maria (with Marni Nixon doing her singing), Russ Tamblyn played Riff, George Chakiris as Bernardo (ironically, he'd played Riff in the 1st British stage version in 1958), Jose DeVega as Chino, Rita Moreno in her Oscar-winning performance as Anita, and Elaine Joyce made her film debut, several years before she became a regular on Match Game. The film was nominated for 11 Academy Awards (Oscars), winning 10 of them, including Best Picture. 

The show has been revived on Broadway several times, and a new film version was made in 2021. This one was written by Broadway icon Tony Kushner, and directed by the one and only Steven Spielberg. Tony was played by Ansel Elgort, Maria by Rachel Zegler, Anita by Ariana DeBose, Bernardo by David Alvarez, Riff by Mike Faist, Chino by Josh Andrés Rivera, and Officer Krupke by Brian d'Arcy James. Rita Moreno, age 89, was brought back, in the newly-created role of Valentina, a general store owner.

In 1969, after winning the Super Bowl with a different group of Jets, Joe Namath got his own TV talk show. The moderator was author Dick Schaap. Schaap was an Ivy Leaguer, having gone to Cornell University. Namath barely got through the University of Alabama. At one point during the run of The Joe Namath Show, Schaap mentioned that he was going to see Romeo & Juliet as part of the Shakespeare in the Park series, and invited Namath. Namath said, "What's it about?" Schaap was shocked that Namath had never heard of it. So he said, "Did you ever see West Side Story?"

In 1972, the World Hockey Association was founded. Two of its teams were the Winnipeg Jets and the Los Angeles Sharks. And the "Jets vs. Sharks" jokes were easy. In 1979, with the Sharks long since disbanded, the Jets were among the WHA teams invited to join the NHL. In 1991, the San Jose Sharks were founded, and the jokes resumed. In 1996, the Jets moved to become the team now known as the Arizona Coyotes. In 2011, the Atlanta Thrashers moved, became the new Winnipeg Jets, and the Jets vs. Sharks jokes started all over again.

In 2007, I was babysitting my niece Mackenzie, not yet a full year old. And the 1961 film of West Side Story came on TV, with its creditless opening montage showing New York from above, including the pre-renovation original Yankee Stadium in living color. When the camera finally panned down to the finger-snapping Jets, and they started dancing to Bernstein's score, Mackenzie was transfixed, going, "Ooh, ooh, ooh!" This baby could not take her eyes off a movie that premiered nearly 55 years before she was born.

In 2019, another version of the story, & Juliet premiered in London. It was a "jukebox musical," produced by Swedish songwriter Max Martin, and featuring hit songs he wrote, worked into a story imagining that Juliet had survived and picked up her life.

Among the songs, which have arguably made Martin the most prolific songwriter of the 21st Century thus far: Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way," Britney Spears' "...Baby One More Time" and "Oops!...I Did It Again," Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone," Ellie Goulding's "Love Me Like You Do," Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl," "Teenage Dream" and "Roar," Jessie J's "Domino," and Ariana Grande's "Problem." It is scheduled to open on Broadway on November 17, 2022 -- appropriately enough, at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre.

The Winter Garden Theatre, site of the original Broadway production, still stands at 1634 Broadway, between 50th and 51st Streets. In opened in 1911, and seats 1,600. Among its other original productions: Sky High in 1925, Hellzapoppin in 1938, Wonderful Town in 1953, Peter Pan in 1954, Bus Stop in 1956, Once Upon a Mattress and The Unsinkable Molly Brown in 1960, Funny Girl in 1964, Mame in 1966, Sondheim's musical Follies in 1971, Beatlemania in 1977, and Mamma Mia! in 2001. From 1982 to 2001, it hosted Cats, at the time of its closing the longest-running musical in Broadway history.

In a 2014 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, "Nice" Peter Shukoff played Romeo, and comedian Grace Helbig played Juliet, against YouTuber Hannah Hart as Bonnie Parker and "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist as Clyde Barrow.

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September 26, 1957 was a Thursday. There were only 2 scores on this historic day, both in baseball. The Detroit Tigers beat the Chicago White Sox, 3-2 at Comiskey Park in Chicago, despite Al Kaline going 0-for-4. And the Cleveland Indians beat the Kansas City Athletics, 2-1 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. For the Indians, rookie Roger Maris went 0-for-1 with 3 walks.

August 12, 1927: The Film "Wings" Premieres

Left to right: Charles "Buddy" Rogers, Clara Bow, Richard Arlen

August 12, 1927: Wings premieres, directed by William Wellman, starring Charles "Buddy" Rogers and Richard Arlen as combat pilots in World War I, rivals for the affections of a woman played by Clara Bow, who became a superstar earlier in the year by starring in It. She was still "The It Girl."

Gary Cooper had a small role in the film, launching him to stardom. Two months later, The Jazz Singer opened the door for talking pictures, and Wings almost immediately became a relic.

On May 16, 1929, the 1st Academy Awards ceremony was held, honoring the best films of 1927 and 1928 -- a last gasp for the Silent Film Era. Wings was awarded Best Picture, and it remains the only silent film so honored. (The Artist was awarded Best Picture for 2011, but became a "talkie" at the end.)

Bow died in 1965, Wellman in 1975, Arlen in 1976. Rogers, known as "America's Boyfriend" for his romantic leading roles, married silent film legend Mary Pickford in 1937, following her divorce from Douglas Fairbanks Jr. They remained together until her death in 1979. Rogers lived on until 1999.

The 1990-97 NBC sitcom Wings was also about pilots, but, aside from the title, bears no resemblance to the silent film.

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August 12, 1927 was a Friday. Country singer Porter Wagoner was born. And these baseball games were played:

* The New York Giants beat their arch-rivals, the Brooklyn Dodgers -- or, rather, the Brooklyn Robins, as they were known while Wilbert Robinson was their manager from 1914 to 1931 -- 7-6 at the Polo Grounds. The Robins led 6-0 going to the bottom of the 8th, and blew it. Mel Ott was batting in the bottom of the 10th inning, and hit a ground ball to 1st base, where Babe Herman, normally an outfielder, proved he couldn't play 1st base, either, allowing Rogers Hornsby to score the winning run. Hornsby had 4 RBIs in the game, and Bill Terry went 4-for-5 on the day.

* The Boston Braves beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 12-6 at Braves Field in Boston.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Boston Red Sox, 7-1 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. Ty Cobb, now with the A's, proved he wasn't just playing out the string, going 4-for-5 with 2 RBIs. Nor was former Brooklyn star Zack Wheat playing out the string, as he went 4-for-4 with 2 RBIs.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the St. Louis Browns, 7-3 at Navin Field (later Briggs Stadium and Tiger Stadium) in Detroit.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 2-1 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. "Sunny" Jim Bottomley hit a home run to win the game in the bottom of the 11th inning.

* The New York Yankees, the Chicago White Sox, the Cleveland Indians, the Washington Senators, the Chicago Cubs and the Cincinnati Reds were not scheduled. At the time, Babe Ruth had 36 home runs, and Lou Gehrig had 38.

May 16, 1929: The 1st Academy Awards

May 16, 1929: The 1st Academy Awards ceremony is held, at a private dinner at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) honored the best films of 1927 and 1928 -- a last gasp for, and perhaps a fond farewell to, the Silent Film Era. And it was the only Academy Award ceremony that was not broadcast on either radio or television.

* Best Picture: Wings, a film about pilots in World War I, starring Clara Bow, Charles "Buddy" Rogers and Richard Arlen.

* Best Director. Comedy: Lewis Milestone, for Two Arabian Knights, produced by Howard Hughes. Another film set in the combat of World War I, it starred William Boyd, Mary Astor and Louis Wolheim.

* Best Director, Drama: Frank Borzage, for 7th Heaven, about poor people in Paris, starring Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell.

* Best Writing: Ben Hecht, for Underworld, directed by Josef von Sternberg, a crime drama starring Clive Brook, Evelyn Brent and George Bancroft.

* Best Actor: Emil Jannings, for The Last Command, another von Sternberg film, about the Russian Revolution, also starring Brent, and William Powell.

* Best Actress: Janet Gaynor, for 7th Heaven.

Janet Gaynor with a charter "Oscar"

In 1939, the gold statuette that is the trophy for the Academy Award was officially named "Oscar." The origin of the name is disputed. Margaret Herrick, the Academy's executive director, supposedly first saw the award in 1931, and said, "Why, he looks just like my uncle Oscar." That story was first repeated in 1934. That same year, Walt Disney won one, and thanked the Academy for his "Oscar." This conflicts with the claim of Bette Davis, who won them in 1935 and 1938, and said she named the trophy after her 1st husband, bandleader Harmon Oscar Nelson.

Venues for the ceremonies:

* 1929: Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel (1 time)

* 1930, 1932-34, 1940, 1943: Ambassador Hotel (6)

* 1931, 1935-39, 1941-42: Biltmore Hotel (8)

* 1944-46: Chinese Theatre (3)

* 1947-48, 1988-89, 1991, 1995, 1997-98, 2000-01: Shrine Auditorium (10)

* 1949: Academy Theatre (1)

* 1950-60: Pantages Theatre (11)

* 1961-68: Santa Monica Civic Auditorium (8)

* 1969-87, 1990, 1992-94, 1996, 1999: Dorothy Chandler Pavilion (25)

* 2002-20, 2022: Dolby Theatre (20)

* 2021: Union Station (1, a smaller ceremony, due to COVID restrictions)

In 1989, after 70 years of presenters saying, "And the winner is... " before opening the envelope and revealing the winner, they began saying, "And the Oscar goes to... " That's the way it's been ever since. With one notable exception. In 2003, with his wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones, already a winner for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Chicago, Michael Douglas announced the Best Picture winner with his father, Kirk Douglas. Each of them was a previous Oscar winner. Once Kirk, his voice affected by a stroke, read off the nominees, Michael said, "Now, you're supposed to say, 'And the Oscar goes to.'" But, as one of the earliest surviving winners, Kirk, who lived to be 103, went the old way, and said, "And the winner is... " And they announced it together: "Chicago!"

*

May 16, 1929 was a Thursday. Jazz singer Betty Carter was born on this day.

Football, basketball and hockey were out of season. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Boston Red Sox, 5-3 at Yankee Stadium. Ed Morris outpitched Waite Hoyt, and Bill Regan won it with a triple in the top of the 12th inning. Babe Ruth went 1-for-6 with an RBI, and Lou Gehrig went 0-for-5.

* The New York Giants beat the Boston Braves, 9-5 at Braves Field in Boston. The game went 10 innings, and pitcher Freddie Fitzsimmons helped his own cause with an RBI single in the top of the 10th. Travis Jackson hit a home run.

* The Brooklyn Robins -- as the Dodgers were known while Wilbert Robinson managed them from 1914 to 1931 -- beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 14-13 at Baker Bowl in Philadelphia.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Washington Nationals, 4-1 at Griffith Stadium in Washington. Lefty Grove went the distance for the win.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-2 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Detroit Tigers, 6-2 at Navin Field in Detroit. (It was renamed Briggs Stadium in 1938, and Tiger Stadium in 1961.)

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Cincinnati Reds, 9-3 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

* And the St. Louis Browns beat the Cleveland Indians, 7-6 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.

April 2, 1974: Streaking the Oscars

April 2, 1974: The fad of "streaking" -- taking off your clothes and running naked through a public place -- reaches its peak, at the Academy Awards.

By this point, the Awards, nicknamed the Oscars, were firmly established as the day the American film industry, inherently conservative in spite of the occasional innovation, celebrated itself. When things didn't go according to plan, the studio heads didn't like it.

It was bad enough in 1971, when George C. Scott declined his Best Actor award for playing the titular World War II U.S. Army General in Patton. It got worse in 1973, when Marlon Brando won Best Actor for playing organized crime boss Vito Corleone in The Godfather, and, to accept his award, sent Sacheen Littlefeather, a Native American activist, to plead her people's case, which Brando supported.

In June 1973, the press reported on a "streaking" trend at Michigan State University. The following December 1973, Time magazine called streaking "a growing Los Angeles-area fad" that was "catching on among college students and other groups."

In response to this Time article, a graduate of Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota wrote to the magazine that the term "streaking" was coined because the nude students ran across the campus primarily during the Winter months of January and February, and "unless one appeared as a streak against the landscape, the Minnesota winter was triumphant and streaker became a statue." The school's newspaper, The Carletonian, used the term "streaking" as early as 1967, but initially in negative terms: "Examples of [Carleton's social problems] are the large number of departing female students, the rise of class spirit, low grades, streaking, destruction, drinking, and the popularity of rock dances."

By February 1974, it had become an epidemic. On NBC's The Tonight Show, Johnny Carson began making jokes about it in his monologue. On CBS' Match Game, the fad began appearing in questions. On March 23, a middle-aged man named John Taylor ran onto the field at a soccer game between Arsenal and Manchester City at the Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury, in North London. He was caught, forced into a pair of pants, removed from the stadium, and fined £10. (About £120, or $150, in 2022 money. Arsenal won the game, 2-0.)

On April 2, the Oscars were held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. The hosting duties were divided by 4: Singer Diana Ross, director John Huston, and actors Burt Reynolds (to attract younger viewers, especially women) and David Niven (to attract older viewers, especially women).

There were several notable moments, above and beyond what the night would become most known for:

* Future Star Wars boss George Lucas was nominated for the 1st time, for Best Director for American Graffiti. Setting an apparent record for quickest attempt at nostalgia (1962 to 1973), it was also nominated for Best Picture.

* Tatum O'Neal won Best Supporting Actress for her role in Paper Moon. She was only 10 years old, and remains the youngest Oscar winner ever.

* John Houseman won Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Paper Chase. He was 71, and although he wasn't the oldest Oscar winner ever, the 61-year gap between winners Houseman and O'Neal remains the biggest at a single ceremony.

* The Exorcist became the 1st horror film nominated for Best Picture. It was nominated for 10 awards, but won only 2: Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Sound.

* The Sting, a story about con artists during the Great Depression, won Best Picture. Since that award goes to a film's producer(s), that made Julia Phillips the 1st female producer to win one. George Roy Hill directed it, and won Best Director. Robert Redford was nominated for Best Actor, but co-star Paul Newman was not.

* Groucho Marx was presented with an Honorary Academy Award for his contributions to film.

At the time, Robert Opel, a 34-year-old Pittsburgh native, was an English teacher in Los Angeles, who had once been a speechwriter for actor-turned-Governor Ronald Reagan of California. But on this night, he posed as a journalist to gain entry to the stage at the Pavilion. He waited for Niven to begin a speech introducing actress Elizabeth Taylor. Opel took his clothes off, and ran naked past Niven, flashing not just himself, but also a peace sign.

After breaking into laughter momentarily, Niven regained his composure, turned to the audience and quipped, "Well, ladies and gentlemen, that was almost bound to happen. But isn't it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings?"

On May 18, country singer Ray Stevens, known for his novelty songs, hit Number 1 with his single "The Streak." It held the top spot for 3 weeks. ("Don't look, Ethel!" But it was too late.) By the end of the year, the fad had run its course, or so to speak.

Opel lost his job over the incident, and became an artist, a photographer, and a gay rights activist. On July 7, 1979, he was murdered during a robbery attempt at his studio in San Francisco. He was 39. Both robbers were imprisoned.

*

April 2, 1974 was a Tuesday. The Major League Baseball season opened 2 days later. Football was out of season. The American Basketball Association scheduled no games for this date. The NBA scheduled 3:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Capital Bullets, 88-79 at Madison Square Garden. Known as the Baltimore Bullets from 1963 to 1973, this was the team's only season under the "Capital Bullets" name. For 1974-75, they became the Washington Bullets. For 1997-98, they became the Washington Wizards.

* The Buffalo Braves beat the Boston Celtics, 115-105 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium.

* And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 98-96 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

There were 3 games scheduled in the NHL:

* The New York Islanders beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 3-2 at the Nassau Coliseum.

* The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Minnesota North Stars, 6-3.

* And the St. Louis Blues beat the California Golden Seals, 5-3 at the St. Louis Arena.

And there were 2 games in the World Hockey Association. The Jersey Knights lost to the Chicago Cougars, 7-3 at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago. And the Toronto Toros beat the Edmonton Oilers, 3-2 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

March 30, 1955: And the Winner Is… Grace Kelly?

Left to right: William Holden, Grace Kelly, Bing Crosby

March 30, 1955: The Academy Awards ceremony is held at the RKO Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles. Bob Hope is the host, and the ceremony is broadcast live on NBC.

On the Waterfront was nominated for 12 "Oscars," and received 8, including Best Picture, Best Director for Elia Kazan, Best Actor for Marlon Brando, and Best Supporting Actress for Eva Marie Saint.

Brando, still only 28 years old, had beaten out some heavyweights: Humphrey Bogart for The Caine Mutiny, Bing Crosby for The Country Girl, James Mason for a remake of A Star Is Born, and Dan O'Herlihy for a new version of Robinson Crusoe.

The nominees for Best Actress were, in alphabetical order: Dorothy Dandridge for Carmen Jones (an all-black musical version of the opera Carmen), Judy Garland for A Star Is Born, Audrey Hepburn for Sabrina, Grace Kelly for The Country Girl, and Jane Wyman for Magnificent Obsession.

Dorothy Dandridge

Dandridge was the 1st black person nominated for a lead role, and, in the wake of the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education ruling, there was a lot of support for her to get Best Actress. Many people thought it should go to Garland, because they were longtime fans of hers, and knew she had gone through a lot to get to that point. Time magazine had labeled her performance as "just about the greatest one-woman show in modern movie history," and she had already received the Golden Globe Award for the role.

James Mason and Judy Garland,

in the 1954 version of A Star Is Born

Garland could not attend the Oscar ceremony, having recently given birth to her son, Joey Luft, only the day before. Cameramen were present in her home, ready to broadcast her acceptance speech. In spite of the sentiment for Dandridge, Garland was considered that much of a favorite.

And then there was Kelly. She wasn't a "blonde bombshell" like Marilyn Monroe. Rather, the wealth and sophistication to which she was born gave her an onscreen persona that made her seem, well, graceful, and unattainable, but still very much desirable. In 2006, writing The Great Book of Philadelphia Sports Lists, with some lists having nothing to do with sports, the authors, radio talk-show hosts Big Daddy Graham and Glen Macnow, put her on top of their list of the most beautiful women ever to come from Philadelphia and environs.

Oh, she was desired. And some of those desires came true. She had an affair with Gary Cooper while filming High Noon, even though he was 28 years older. She had an affair with Clark Gable while filming Mogambo, even though he was also 28 years older. She had an affair with Milland while filming Dial M for Murder, even though he was 22 years older. She had an affair with Aly Khan, a notorious Pakistani prince who later married another of the era's leading actresses, Rita Hayworth; he was a mere 18 years older.

In 1954, she filmed The Country Girl, playing the wife of a character played by Crosby -- and the mistress of a character played by Holden. Holden, 11 years older, couldn't resist her, and rumors flew that he was going to leave his wife for her.

But she dumped him for Crosby, 26 years older. He was a strict Catholic with his family. With himself, not so much, although it should be pointed out that, at the time, he was widowed, not married. Grace and Der Bingle had an affair, and it was still ongoing on March 30, 1955, the night of the Academy Awards.

Garland was the favorite. Dandridge had her supporters. If either one had gotten the Oscar, it would have been a great story.

Instead, it went to Kelly. The Country Girl was hardly her best work, and she was not better in it than Garland or Dandridge were in their nominated roles. 

The camera crew set up in the Garland house packed up, and were out of her bedroom before Kelly even got to the stage. Groucho Marx sent Judy a telegram, telling her that her loss was "the biggest robbery since Brink's," referring to the famous armored car heist of 1950.

People began to ask questions like, "Who did Grace Kelly have to sleep with to get that Oscar?" It wasn't Bing Crosby: That night, he expected to, um, celebrate with her. But when he walked into her hotel room, she was, um, celebrating with Brando. (He was only 5 years older. As far as I know, this is the only time a holder of Best Actor and a holder of Best Actress have ever been sexually involved.) In a weird twist of events, Kelly had been offered the female lead in On the Waterfront, but turned it down, leading to Saint being cast in her first film, and she won Best Supporting Actress for it.

Crosby dumped Kelly, but the affairs with him and Holden -- two co-stars in one film -- became the worst-kept secret in Hollywood: Nobody would report on it, but everybody seemed to know about it. She was branded a "homewrecker." Finally, she was set up with Prince Rainier III of Monaco. It meant the end of her acting career, but more money and security than she would have had otherwise.

Sidney Poitier won Best Actor in 1964, for Lilies of the Field. It would take until 2002 for a black woman to win Best Actress: Halle Berry, for playing the title role in Introducing Dorothy Dandridge. (Both Dandridge and Berry were natives of Cleveland.)

*

March 30, 1955 was a Wednesday. In more recent years, the Oscar ceremony has been held on Sundays.

Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. No games were scheduled for the NBA. And the Stanley Cup Playoffs were underway, but no games were played on this day. So there were no scores on this historic day.

March 29, 1951: The 1st Hispanic Oscar Winner

March 29, 1951: The Academy Awards are held at the RKO Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles. Fred Astaire is the host. All About Eve wins 6 "Oscars," including Best Picture. But stars Bette Davis and Anne Baxter, and also Gloria Swanson for Sunset Boulevard, are defeated for Best Actress by Judy Holliday for Born Yesterday.

José Ferrer wins Best Actor, for the title role in a film version of Edmond Rostand's 1897 play Cyrano de Bergerac. The real Cyrano, born in 1619, was a French writer, who died young in 1655, from a cause still not determined, but possibly murder. And while a sketch of him drawn during his lifetime shows him to have had a big nose, it wasn't exaggerated, as in the various portrayals of him.

Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico on January 8, 1912, Ferrer had previously played Cyrano on Broadway. This award made him both the 1st actor of either gender to win both a Tony and an Oscar for the same role, and the 1st Hispanic Academy Award winner, preceding fellow Puerto Rican Rita Moreno by 11 years.

The actors he beat out for this award: James Stewart for Harvey, Spencer Tracy for Father of the Bride, William Holden for Sunset Boulevard, and Louis Calhern in The Magnificent Yankee. (Not a baseball movie: He was playing Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.) So he was up against some difficult competition.

He later starred in Moulin Rouge, The Caine Mutiny, Lawrence of Arabia, Ship of Fools, and the 1984 version of Dune. He was married to actress Uta Hagen, then dancer Phyllis Hill, and then to singer Rosemary Clooney, which eventually made him the father of actor Miguel Ferrer and the uncle of actor George Clooney. He was not related to actor Mel Ferrer (who was of Catalan descent), but did once direct him on Broadway.

José Ferrer passed away on January 26, 1992, the day the Washington Redskins beat the Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXVI. He was 80 years old.

*

March 29, 1951 was a Thursday. Nick Ut, the Vietnamese photographer who took the photo of Kim Phuc running through her napalm-bombed village, was born on this day. This was also the day The King and I premiered on Broadway. I have a separate entry for that event.

Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. There were 2 games in the NBA. The New York Knicks lost to the Syracuse Nationals, 102-80 at the State Fair Coliseum in Syracuse, New York. And the Minneapolis Lakers beat the Rochester Royals, 76-73 at the Minneapolis Auditorium.

There was a Stanley Cup Playoff game that night: The Montreal Canadiens beat the Detroit Red Wings, 1-0 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. It took until 2:20 of the 3rd overtime before a goal could be found, and Maurice "the Rocket" Richard of the Canadiens found it.

March 27, 2022: Will Smith Slaps Chris Rock at the Oscars

March 27, 2022: The Academy Awards ceremony is held at the Dolby Theatre in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles. Comedian Chris Rock is the host. CODA, a film with deaf actors playing deaf characters -- the titular acronym meaning "Child Of Deaf Adults," in other words, one who can hear -- clearly meant as "Oscar bait," won Best Picture.

Jane Campion won Best Director for Power of the Dog, making her the 3rd woman (and the 2nd in a row) to win the award. Jessica Chastain won Best Actress for playing Tammy Faye Bakker, wife of disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker, in The Eyes of Tammy Faye.

But none of the awards would be fresh in anyone's minds. All that could be talked about was the slap.

Rapper-turned-actor Will Smith was up for Best Actor for playing Richard Williams, father and coach of tennis superstars Serena and Venus Williams, in King Richard. Smith's personal life had become complicated. His wife, actress Jada Pinkett Smith, had begun hosting a TV show titled Red Table Talk, where she invited anyone she wanted, and talked about whatever she wanted. This turned out to be mostly women, including her mother, Adrienne Banfield-Norris, and her daughter with Will, Willow Smith, 21 years old at this point.

Will and Jada also have a son, Jaden, 23 at this time; and Will has a son from a previous marriage, Willard Carroll Smith III, a.k.a. Trey, then 29. It had previously been known that, before meeting Will, Jada had dated basketball star Grant Hill and rapper Tupac Shakur, both of whom she had known while growing up in Baltimore. She was badly shaken by Tupac's murder in 1996, and fans speculated that Tupac, not Will, remained the love of her life.

By 2013, rumors had spread that Will and Jada had an "open marriage," one in which cheating in sex was allowed. In 2020, rapper August Alsina, a friend of Jaden's, admitted that he had had an affair with Jada in 2016, with Will's permission. He was 23 and she was 44. Will denied having given permission. On Red Table Talk, Jada confirmed the affair, but also denied having gotten permission from Will, thinking that to be unnecessary because they were separated at the time. In 2021, Will admitted that both of them had cheated, because Jada was the one who "never believed in conventional marriage."

Chris Rock had made it big on Saturday Night Live in 1990, although he was there just 1 season, and had been making jokes about Will and Jada since their 1997 marriage. He was hardly the only comedian to make jokes about their deteriorating, but somehow still surviving, marriage.

But it wasn't a joke about their marriage that led to trouble. Rather, it was a joke about Jada's baldness. She has alopecia, which causes a person to lose their hair. So, to make her hair look even, she shaves her head completely. 

In 1996, Demi Moore had shaved her head for the film G.I. Jane. In 2005, Natalie Portman got her head shaved for V for Vendetta. And in 2014, Charlize Theron had her head shaved for Mad Max: Fury Road. So an actress being intentionally bald for a role was still unusual, but hardly unheard of. But in Jada's case, it was an actual medical condition, and probably shouldn't have been joked about.

Rock was about to announce the nominees for Best Documentary Feature, when he saw Will and Jada in the audience. Off the cuff, he said, "Jada, I love you. G.I. Jane 2, can't wait to see it, all right?"

It wasn't like Rock and the Smiths were close enough friends that he could get away with something like that relatively easily. This was no "Rat Pack," where Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. could make personal jokes about each other, and it was all good, clean fun. 

Much of the audience laughed. Even Will laughed -- at first. Then, he noticed Jada rolling her eyes, annoyed by the joke. Suddenly, he felt the need to avenge this woman whom he loved, but who had so recently humiliated him on TV, over a joke that a man they didn't know well had just told that she found, if not humiliating, then certainly annoying.

He walked up to the stage, walked across it, very calmly, and slapped Rock across the face with his open right hand. And then he walked back down to his seat.

The audience didn't know what to make of it. The Oscars had had some unusual incidents in the past. Was this planned? Smith was known for a calm, sometimes even jovial public image, and had never gone off on anyone in public before, unlike some other actors. (Two-time Best Actor winner Sean Penn was known for beating up paparazzi.)

The ABC censor had to activate the profanity switch for the 7-second delay of the broadcast, as Rock said, "Oh, wow! Wow! Will Smith just smacked the shit out of me." The audience laughed. They still didn't know whether this was planned or not.

From his seat, Smith yelled, "Keep my wife's name out your fucking mouth!"

Now, there were laughs, but also gasps, as people realized that Smith really was angry, and that none of this was planned.

Rock: "Wow, dude!"

Smith: "Yes."

Rock, apparently thinking that saying this would defuse the situation: "It was a G.I. Jane joke."

Smith, louder: "Keep my wife's name out your fucking mouth!"

Rock: "I'm going to, okay? I could, oh, okay. That was a... greatest night in the history of television, okay?" At this, the audience laughed.

Members of the Motion Pictures Academy of Arts & Sciences -- "The Academy," as in "The Academy Awards" and "I'd like to thank The Academy" -- went to event producer Will Packer, to suggest that Smith be removed from the theatre. Except he was still up for his award for Best Actor. The awkwardness of the situation was still increasing. Packer insisted that Smith be allowed to stay.

Forty minutes later, Smith was announced as the winner for Best Actor. (Voting is traditionally closed 10 days before the ceremony.) He took the stage for his acceptance speech. He spoke of the need to protect those around him, but apologized to The Academy, to the other nominees, and to Serena and Venus, who were in attendance to represent their father. (Richard Williams was still alive, but had suffered strokes, rendering him unable to travel to the ceremony.) Smith received a standing ovation. But he did not apologize to Rock.

After the ceremony, award winners were advised to answer questions about their work, but nothing else. Los Angeles Police officers met with Rock, and told him that they were prepared to arrest Smith on charges of battery. Rock chose not to press charges.

Smith issued an online statement, resigning from The Academy, which ended up banning him from all Academy functions, including Oscar ceremonies, for 10 years. In his statement, Smith said to Rock, "I would like to publicly apologize to you, Chris. I was out of line and I was wrong. I am embarrassed and my actions were not indicative of the man I want to be. There is no place for violence in a world of love and kindness."

I guess it's a good thing I never became famous enough to host the Oscars: Given my infatuation with Catherine Zeta-Jones, her husband, Michael Douglas, would have killed me by now.

*

March 27, 2022 was a Sunday. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. There were 7 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Detroit Pistons, 104-102 at the Little Caesars Arena in Detroit.

* The Brooklyn Nets lost to the Charlotte Hornets, 119-110 at the Barclays Center.

* The Boston Celtics beat the Minnesota Timberwolves, 134-112 at the TD Garden in Boston. Jayson Tatum scored 34 points.

* The Washington Wizards beat the Golden State Warriors, 123-115 at the Capital One Arena in Washington.

* The New Orleans Pelicans beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 116-108 at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans. LeBron James scored 39 in defeat.

* The Dallas Mavericks beat the Utah Jazz, 114-100 at the American Airlines Center in Dallas.

* And the Phoenix Suns beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 114-104 at the Footprint Center (now the Mortgage Matchup Center) in Phoenix. Joel Embiid had 37 points and 15 rebounds, but it wasn't enough.

And there were 8 games in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers beat the Buffalo Sabres, 5-4 at Madison Square Garden. K'Andre Miller scored the winning goal with 2:58 left in overtime.

* The New York Islanders lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning, 4-1 at the UBS Arena.

* The New Jersey Devils beat the Montreal Canadiens, 3-2 in a shootout at the Prudential Center.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Florida Panthers, 5-2 at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto.

* The Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Detroit Red Wings, 11-2 at the PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh. Evgeni Malkin had 3 goals and an assist. Sidney Crosby had a goal and 2 assists. Kris Letang had 3 assists.

* The Nashville Predators beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 5-4 at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.

* The Minnesota Wild beat the Colorado Avalanche, 3-2 at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota, Kevin Fiala scored the winning goal, just 15 seconds into overtime.

* And the "new" Winnipeg Jets, formerly the Atlanta Thrashers, beat the Arizona Coyotes, formerly the "old" Winnipeg Jets, 2-1 at the Canada Life Centre in Winnipeg. Mark Scheifele scored the winning goal with only 10 seconds left in overtime.