December 18, 1963: “The Pink Panther” Premieres

December 18, 1963: The film The Pink Panther premieres, directed by Blake Edwards. The cartoon character of the same name debuted in the film's opening sequence, with the classic theme song composed and conducted by Henry Mancini. You know the joke: What did the Pink Panther say when he stepped on an ant? "Dead ant, dead ant... "

But, within the film, the Pink Panther is not a character. Rather, it is the thing everyone is chasing, what film director Alfred Hitchcock called a "MacGuffin": A large pink diamond with a "flaw" in the shape of a leaping panther. It is owned by Princess Dala (played by the Tunisian-born Italian actress Claudia Cardinale, with her voice dubbed by Canadian singer Gale Garnett), an exiled royal whose country's new dictatorship wants it back, and the United Nations' World Court has sided with them, and they've offered a big reward for it.

And Inspector Jacques Clouseau (played by Peter Sellers), the incompetent, clumsy, accident-prone Paris police official who was, clearly, named for oceanographer Jacques Cousteau, isn't the hero of the movie. The hero is actually a criminal, a "gentleman thief" named Sir Charles Lytton, a.k.a. The Phantom (David Niven).

Cardinale, Niven and the Panther

To make matters worse, Clouseau's wife, Simone (the French actress Germaine Hélène Irène Lefebvre, a.k.a. Capucine) is having an affair with The Phantom. He shouldn't be the hero, but he has been treated as such, because, while he often played less-than-moral characters, the handsome, incredibly charming Niven was beloved, as if he were an earlier, English version of Paul Newman. Even my mother, a senior in high school when the film came out, adored Niven. She also liked Robert Wagner, who played Lytton's American-based and even less-moral nephew, George.

The film was successful enough to lead to a series, with A Shot in the Dark premiering the following June, and Inspector Clouseau in 1968. The film also inspired the TV show Get Smart: NBC told the producers to combine Inspector Clouseau and James Bond, because they were the two biggest cultural phenomena in the world at the time. I guess they forgot about the Beatles.

The series resumed a few years later: The Return of the Pink Panther was released in 1975, The Pink Panther Strikes Again in 1976, and The Revenge of the Pink Panther in 1978. Sellers died in 1980. By that point, Niven was suffering from ALS, known in America as Lou Gehrig's disease. That didn't stop Blake Edwards: In 1982, he made The Trail of the Pink Panther, using a brief cameo from Niven and previously unused footage of Sellers, with Clouseau spending most of the film in a body-cast. And in 1983, all kinds of tricks, including the briefest of cameos from a dying Niven, were used for Curse of the Pink Panther.

In a way, in 1983, things came full circle: The cartoon Inspector Gadget premiered, with Don Adams, star of Get Smart, voicing the title role, a well-meaning but incompetent robot cop who dressed much like Inspector Clouseau, with a tan trenchcoat and a trilby hat, the kind also favored by another famous fictional cop, Telly Savalas on Kojak.

In 1993, Edwards tried again, with Son of the Pink Panther, with Italian actor Roberto Benigni as the title character, Gendarme Jacques Gambrelli. As it turns out, he is half of the result of a one-night stand between Clouseau and a different character played by Cardinale, the other being his twin sister, Jacqueline Gambrelli (Nicoletta Braschi).

The one constant through all these films was Czech-British actor Herbert Lom as the original Clouseau's beleaguered boss, Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus.

Capucine died in 1990, Edwards in 2010, Lom in 2012. As of December 18, 2022, Cardinale and Wagner are still alive. (UPDATE: Cardinale died in 2025.)

In 2006, Steve Martin starred in a reboot, with The Pink Panther 2 released in 2009.

*

December 18, 1963 was a Wednesday. Basketball star Charles Oakley and actor Brad Pitt were born.

Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. There were 4 games in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Boston Celtics, 133-111 at the Boston Garden.

* The Baltimore Bullets beat the Detroit Pistons, 124-107 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit. For the Bullets, Gus Johnson scored 38 points, and Walt Bellamy scored 36. 

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 116-96 at the Los Angeles Sports Arena. Jerry West scored 30 points and grabbed 14 rebounds.

* And the San Francisco Warriors beat the St. Louis Hawks, 104-96 at, sort of, a neutral site: The gymnasium at Sacramento High School, 88 miles northeast of downtown San Francisco. It was just another day at the office for Wilt Chamberlain: He scored 27 points, grabbed 27 rebounds, and had 11 assists. For the Hawks, Bob Pettit scored 29 points. Pettit was the NBA's all-time leading scorer.

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

* The New York Rangers and the Detroit Red Wings played to a tie, 1-1 at the old Madison Square Garden.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 7-1 at the Montreal Forum.

* And the Boston Bruins beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 2-1 at the Chicago Stadium.

November 29, 1981: The Death of Natalie Wood

November 29, 1981: Natalie Wood dies of a drowning at age 43, on Santa Catalina Island, California.

She was born on July 20, 1938, in San Francisco, as Natalie Zacharenko. Not yet 8 years old, she starred as Susan Walker in the original 1947 version of Miracle on 34th Street. She played troubled teenagers in Rebel Without a Cause and The Searchers. She moved into musicals, starring in West Side Story in 1961 and Gypsy the next year. Being Russian, she didn't make a convincing Puerto Rican in West Side Story, and Marnie Nixon did her singing for the film. So, for Gypsy, she insisted on doing her own singing, and she was fine.

I'd still like to know how Gypsy, a film about strippers, got past the Hays Code. Not to mention her 1964 film Sex and the Single Girl, based on the memoir of Cosmopolitan magazine editor Helen Gurley Brown. By 1969, the Code was gone, and she was able to star as Carol alongside Robert Culp as Bob, Elliott Gould as Ted, and Dyan Cannon as Alice in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice.

In 1957, only 19 years old, she married 27-year-old actor Robert Wagner. They divorced 5 years later. In 1969, she married British film producer Richard Gregson. Natalie then went into semi-retirement to raise their daughter, Natasha Gregson. Natalie and Richard split up in 1972, and she then remarried Robert Wagner. They had a daughter, Courtney Wagner, and Natalie's first daughter was renamed Natasha Gregson Wagner.

Natalie returned to acting in 1979, taking the Deborah Kerr role in an NBC remake of From Here to Eternity. Although she had been nominated for an Academy Award 3 times without winning, for this role, she won a Golden Globe Award. She became the first actress to be taken seriously as a child, a teenager, a young adult, and a middle-aged woman (she was 41). That same year, she appeared in the science fiction disaster film Meteor, playing a diplomat -- and, for the 1st time, playing a Russian, and speaking the Russian language, which she did in real life, fluently.

In 1981, she was making the science fiction film Brainstorm, which also starred Christopher Walken. For her next role, she had signed to star in a musical stage version of Anastasia, the story of the woman who claimed to be a princess who survived the massacre of the Russian imperial family in 1918. So she would have played a Russian again, and had the hope of adapting it into a film. (Ingrid Bergman had won an Oscar for the 1956 film Anastasia.)

On November 29, Natalie, Robert and Walken were aboard the yacht Splendour while it was moored near the isthmus of Santa Catalina Island, off the coast of Southern California. Walken's wife Georgianne was not there.

According to Robert, Natalie was not there when he went to bed, and, according to his spokesman, he thought she had taken off on a small inflatable boat by herself, as she had done before. Her body was found about a mile away from the yacht, while the inflatable boat was found beached nearby. The autopsy report revealed that Wood had 39 fresh bruises on her body, including an abrasion on her left cheek.

Later, in his memoir Pieces of My Heart, Robert acknowledged that he had an argument with Natalie before she disappeared, but had calmed down and gone to bed. The autopsy found that her blood alcohol content was 0.14 percent -- .04 above the legal prohibition for operating a motorized vehicle, including a boat -- and there were traces of two types of medication in her bloodstream: A motion-sickness pill and a painkiller, both of which increase the effects of alcohol. Two witnesses, who had been on another boat nearby, stated they had heard a woman scream for help during the night.

Following his investigation, Los Angeles County medical examiner Thomas Noguchi, the famed "coroner to the stars," ruled her death an accident by drowning and hypothermia.

She was 43 years old. She left her husband, 2 children, a sister, actress Lana Wood, and several great films. Lana has claimed that Robert murdered Natalie. Others have made that claim as well. The evidence, as thus far released to the public, is flimsy. Both Natasha and Courtney have publicly defended Robert.

Life works out strangely sometimes: Aside from being Natalie's sister, Lana Wood is best known for appearing in the 1971 James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever, as Plenty O'Toole. Also in that film, as the female lead, Tiffany Case, was Jill St. John. Briefly, before Britain's Eon Productions decided to go ahead with making Bond films, they had considered selling the film rights to the Bond novels to an American company, which was considering Wagner to play Bond. In 1990, Robert Wagner married Jill St. John.

In 2004, Peter Bodganovich directed the feature film The Mystery of Natalie Wood. Natalie was played by Justine Waddell. Robert was played by Michael Weatherly. Shortly thereafter, Robert began playing Anthony DiNozzo Sr., father of Weatherly's character, on NCIS. When my mother began watching NCIS, not yet knowing of Robert's connection, she noticed the resemblance immediately. I didn't.

As of November 29, 2022, Robert, Jill and Lana are still alive, and Robert and Jill are still married. Natasha Gregson Wagner became an actress, and married 7th Heaven star Barry Watson. They have a daughter, Clover Watson. In 2020, Natasha released a documentary, Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind. It did not shed any new light on her mother's death, focusing instead on her life. Courtney Wagner is a jewelry designer, with no children. Katie Wagner, Robert's daughter with actress Marion Marshall, and therefore Natalie's (and Jill's) stepdaughter, is an entertainment reporter. She has a daughter, Riley John Wagner-Lewis.

In 1997, Disney made a cartoon version of Anastasia. In 2017, a stage version of that film premiered on Broadway. It wasn't quite Natalie Wood's vision for the story, but she might have wanted to see it. She would have been 78 years old. She did not get the chance to be taken seriously as an old actress.

*

November 29, 1981 was a Sunday. Baseball was out of season. These games were played in the NFL:

* The New York Giants lost to the San Francisco 49ers, 17-10 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

* The New York Jets beat the Baltimore Colts, 25-0 at Shea Stadium.

* The football version of the St. Louis Cardinals beat the New England Patriots, 27-20 at Schaefer Stadium (later Sullivan Stadium and Foxboro Stadium) in the Boston suburb of Foxborough, Massachusetts.

* The Buffalo Bills beat the Washington Redskins, 21-14 at Rich Stadium (later Ralph Wilson Stadium) in the Buffalo suburb of Orchard Park, New York.

* The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Los Angeles Rams, 24-0 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh.

* The Cincinnati Bengals beat their arch-rivals, the Cleveland Browns, 41-21 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The Green Bay Packers beat the Minnesota Vikings, 35-23 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* The Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat the New Orleans Saints, 31-14 at the Superdome in New Orleans.

* The Atlanta Falcons beat the Houston Oilers, 31-27 at the Astrodome in Houston.

* The San Diego Chargers beat the Denver Broncos, 34-17 at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego.

* The Oakland Raiders beat the Seattle Seahawks, 32-31 at the Kingdome in Seattle.

* The next night, on ABC Monday Night Football, the Miami Dolphins beat the Philadelphia Eagles, 13-10 at the Orange Bowl in Miami.

* And 3 days before this day, it was Thanksgiving. The Detroit Lions beat the Kansas City Chiefs, 27-10 at the Silverdome in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, Michigan.

And the Dallas Cowboys beat the Chicago Bears, 10-3 at Texas Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Texas.

There were 4 games played in the NBA:

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the San Antonio Spurs, 105-89 at the Milwaukee Exposition, Convention Center and Arena, or "The MECCA." Since 2014, it has been named the UW-Panther Arena.

* The Kansas City Kings beat the Golden State Warriors, 104-100 at the Kemper Arena (now the Hy-Vee Arena) in Kansas City.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Houston Rockets, 122-104 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

* And the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Chicago Bulls, 114-109 at the Portland Memorial Coliseum.

And there were 5 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers and the Quebec Nordiques played to a tie, 4-4 at Madison Square Garden.

* The New York Islanders lost to the Buffalo Sabres, 5-2 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Hartford Whalers, 6-3 at the Montreal Forum.

* In an "Original Six" matchup, the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Detroit Red Wings, 6-3 at the Joe Louis Arena.

* And the Edmonton Oilers beat the Winnipeg Jets, 10-3 at the Winnipeg Arena. Paul Coffey -- a defenseman -- had 2 goals and 3 assists. Wayne Gretzky had a goal and 3 assists.

September 24, 1957: The Last Game at Ebbets Field

September 24, 1957: The last game is played at Ebbets Field. The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 2-0 on a 5-hit shutout by rookie lefthander Danny McDevitt.

It was also the day that President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division to assist with the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. And it was the day the Camp Nou stadium opened in Barcelona, Spain. I have a separate entry for each of those events.

It was a Tuesday night, a school night, and Dodger fans were already depressed by the fact that the move was, though not yet officially announced, already heavily rumored. Only 6,702 fans came out.

Gladys Gooding was the organist and the National Anthem singer at Ebbets Field, and also at Madison Square Garden. This made her the answer to the snarky trivia question, "Who is the only person to 'play' for the Brooklyn Dodgers, the New York Knicks and the New York Rangers?" (Ray Castoldi has since done so for the Mets, the Knicks and the Rangers. John Kiley was Boston's version, having played the organ at Fenway Park and the Boston Garden.)

Having started with the Dodgers in 1942, Gooding had also written the team's theme song, "Follow the Dodgers." She began the tradition of tailoring "walkup songs" for the players. For Pee Wee Reese, it was "My Old Kentucky Home." For Gil Hodges, it was "Back Home Again in Indiana." For Carl Furillo, "the Reading Rifle," it was "The Pennsylvania Polka."

But for Duke Snider, who was born in Los Angeles and grew up in neighboring Compton -- yes, the Duke of Flatbush really was "straight outta Compton" -- her playing of "California, Here I Come" proved to be all true prophetic. (She also could have played it for Jackie Robinson, who grew up outside L.A. in Pasadena, but she might not have had a song for him. At any rate, he wasn't in this game, having retired after the 1956 season.)

An urban legend says that the reason that umpiring crews became standardized at four isn't just because there's four bases, but also because the umpires were tired of her playing "Three Blind Mice" every time a Dodger argued with an umpire.

But, all through this game, she played sad songs, many of them songs of endings, including "Am I Blue," "After You're Gone," "When I Grow Too Old to Dream," "Silver Threads Among the Gold," "Don't Ask Me Why I'm Leaving" and "How Can You Say We're Through." She was not used to playing the new form of music sweeping the country, rock and roll: The most recent tune she played was Doris Day's hit of the previous year, "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)."

There was some appropriateness to her playing of "When the Blue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day." Not only was blue the Dodgers color, but that song was known as the signature song of crooner Bing Crosby, who was a part-owner of the Pirates, the opponent that evening. Crosby was not in attendance. She also played "Thanks for the Memories," the signature song of Crosby's former film partner, Bob Hope, who was a part-owner of the Cleveland Indians. He did not attend, either.

Jim Gilliam led off the bottom of the 1st inning with a walk. A bad pickoff throw by Pirate starter Bennie Daniels, making his major league debut, allowed Gilliam to reach 2nd base. Daniels struck Gino Cimoli out, but Elmer Valo doubled to right field, scoring Gilliam and putting the Dodgers up, 1-0.

Cimoli led off the bottom of the 3rd by beating out a grounder to 2nd. Valo grounded out, but Cimoli advanced to 2nd on the play. Hodges singled Cimoli home. That made it 2-0 Dodgers, and that was the last scoring play in the ballpark's history.

Daniels pitched the 1st 7 innings for the Pirates, and was the losing pitcher. Like Snider, he grew up in Compton. Unlike Snider, he was black. He was still with the Pirates in 1960, when they won the World Series. He was then lost to the "new" Washington Senators in the expansion draft, and, on September 21, 1961, he was the losing pitcher in the last game at Griffith Stadium in Washington, as the Senators lost to the Minnesota Twins, who had been the "old" Washington Senators. 

The last play at Ebbets Field was a groundout, Dee Fondy hitting the ball to shortstop Don Zimmer, who threw to 1st baseman Hodges, who thus became the last Brooklyn Dodger to play in a home game. The night before, Snider had hit the last Brooklyn home run.

After the last out, Gooding played, "May the Lord Bless and Keep You." Somebody turned on her record of "Follow the Dodgers." No one wanted to follow them to Los Angeles. She quickly reached for the record player, turned it off, and played the last song at Ebbets Field: "Auld Lang Syne."

(If you're familiar with the Brooklyn Dodger Sym-Phony Band, I have no record of whether any of them attended; and, if so, what songs they attempted to play.)

The Dodgers would have the next 2 days off, and close their history as a Brooklyn-based team away to the Philadelphia Phillies, losing the finale. The official announcement of the move was made on October 8. After 75 seasons, 45 of them at Ebbets Field, the Brooklyn Dodgers were dead.

(In the wake of the NFL's Washington Redskins, now the Washington Commanders, calling themselves "The Washington Football Team" in the interim of their name-change, I have taken to calling the L.A. version of the Dodgers "The Los Angeles Baseball Team.")

The ballpark was torn down in 1960. In 1962, the Ebbets Field Apartments opened. By the time I first visited, on June 18, 1988, the area, on the edge of the neighborhoods of Flatbush, Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant, was a gang-riddled, drug-infested hole.

I last visited on December 29, 2012, and the area is still a bit iffy, but a far cry from what it was in the 1980s and early '90s. Brooklyn has gone from all but uninhabitable to actually hip since then. But it will never be what it was when the Dodgers were there.

September 24, 1957, a date which lives in misery. And yet, if the Dodger fans were so great, how come only 6,702 showed up? Huh? (Well, for one thing, the Dodgers were in fourth place. For another, that was also a Tuesday night, a workday and a school night.)

The Brooklyn Dodgers weren't moved. They were assassinated. To this day, Walter O'Malley, the banker's lawyer who owned the team in part from 1942 and wholly from 1950 to his death in 1979, is despised in the New York Tri-State Area.

Some people blame Robert Moses, New York City's "master builder," who refused to condemn the land, across from the Flatbush Avenue Terminal of the Long Island Rail Road on which O'Malley, to his credit, had decided to spend his own money, not taxpayer dollars, to build a new stadium, a domed facility that would be known as the Brooklyn Sports Center. But if O'Malley was truly the "visionary" that his apologists have claimed, he could have found a way around Moses. O'Malley's "vision" only seemed to work when it helped him make more money, not when it could have helped others.

The story is told of two Brooklynites, both boys of the 1940s and young men of the 1950s, who went on to write for the New York Post. Pete Hamill (Irish Catholic) and Jack Newfield (Eastern European Jewish) were having lunch, and one of them said so-and-so was "the worst person who ever lived." (Shades of Bob & Ray's "Worst Person in the World" sketch, later co-opted by MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, who admits to being heavily influenced by Bob & Ray.)

And Pete says, "Let's collaborate on a column: 'The Ten Worst Human Beings Who Ever Lived.' Let's start. I'll write my three worst on my napkin, you write your three worst on yours, and we'll compare."

And each of them ended up writing the same three names, in the same order: Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Walter O'Malley.

Today, of course, the more apt comparison is to Lord Voldemort from the "Harry Potter" stories. O'Malley is, for many old people originally from Brooklyn, He Who Shall Not Be Named. The one who said, "Avada Kedavara" to their childhood dreams. Lord Waltemort.

And yet, one person who escaped punishment was the Mayor, Robert Wagner Jr., son of the U.S. Senator from the State of New York who wrote the 1935 bills that became the Social Security Act and the National Labor Relations Act. A former State Assemblyman and Borough President of Manhattan, he had been elected in 1953 with 46 percent of the vote, and was up for re-election just 6 weeks after the last game at Ebbets Field, and less than 7 week after the last Giants game at the Polo Grounds.

He had received letters saying things like, "I want the Dodgers in Brooklyn. And you can do it by building the Sports Center. You had better get it done, or you'll not get a vote for me." Wagner could have found a way around Moses. He did not try. Instead, up for re-election in mere weeks, he lost 2 major league baseball teams.

The Republican nominee was Robert Christenberry, former Chairman of the New York State Athletic Commission. He was endorsed by President Eisenhower, Vice President Richard Nixon, and the State's most recent Republican Governor, 2-time Presidential nominee Thomas E. Dewey. He never mentioned the loss of the Dodgers, or the loss of the Giants, instead basing his campaign around Wagner's apparent failures on the issue of crime.

Result? Overall, Wagner won 69 percent of the vote, Christenberry only 27. In no Borough did Wagner get less than 64 percent. In aggrieved Brooklyn, Wagner got 75 percent. He would be elected to a 3rd term in 1961. Most likely, this was due less to Christenberry's refusal to make the loss of the baseball teams an issue than it was to the strength of New York City's Democratic political machine, the weakness of its Republican Party, and the weakness of the State's Republican Party.

In 1971, Bob Aspromonte, a Brooklyn native, retired, making him the last active Brooklyn Dodger.

In 2012, roughly where O'Malley wanted to build the Sports Center, the Barclays Center opened, becoming the home of the NBA's Brooklyn Nets, formerly the New Jersey Nets and the Long Island-based New York Nets. Maybe, if there was any justice, the team that moved to Brooklyn should have been the Los Angeles Clippers.

Instead, the "Brooklyn Dodgers" of the other major sports have been the NBA's Minneapolis Lakers, who moved to Los Angeles in 1960; the NFL's Baltimore Colts, who moved to Indianapolis in 1984; and the Minnesota North Stars, who moved to Dallas in 1993.

Despite the move, the Los Angeles Dodgers honored some Brooklyn Dodgers with the retirement of their uniform numbers: 1, Harold "Pee Wee" Reese; 4, Edwin "Duke" Snider; 14, Gil Hodges; 39, Roy Campanella; and 42, Jackie Robinson, the last of these eventually retired for all of baseball.

While they played in Brooklyn, Tommy Lasorda (2), Jim Gilliam (19), Sandy Koufax (32) and Don Drysdale (53), retired number honorees, are better known for playing in Los Angeles. This is also true of manager Walter Alston and broadcaster Vin Scully.

*

September 24, 1957 was a Tuesday. No NFL games were played. And the starts of the NBA and NHL seasons were a month away. But a full slate of Major League Baseball games was played. In addition to the Ebbets Field finale:

* The New York Giants, who had already announced their move to San Francisco for the 1958 season, lost to the Phillies, 5-0 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. Curt Simmons pitched a 4-hit shutout. Willie Mays went 0-for-3. Five days later, on Sunday, September 29, the Giants played their last game at the Polo Grounds, and lost to the Pirates, 9-1.

For the next 4 seasons, New York's National League baseball fans, unwilling to give up baseball, but unwilling to switch to the American League's New York Yankees, took the Pennsylvania Railroad from Penn Station in New York to the North Philadelphia station, and walked the 7 blocks from Broad Street down Lehigh Avenue to 21st Street, and walked into Connie Mack Stadium to watch the Phillies play the Los Angeles Dodgers or the San Francisco Giants.

If they were feeling particularly adventurous, they would drive down, and risk their cars, parking in the North Philly ghetto. Some would cheer their old heroes. Some would boo them.

In 1962, the New York Mets arrived, and the former fans of the Dodgers and the Giants would join in a "marriage of convenience" -- one which produced "The New Breed," the Met fans too young to really remember the former teams.

* The New York Yankees? They didn't play that night. Nor did the Baltimore Orioles, the Cleveland Indians, or the Detroit Tigers.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Washington Senators, 2-1 at Griffith Stadium in Washington. Ted Williams hit a home run.

* The Cincinnati Redlegs -- from 1954 to 1958, the Reds used that name due to the stupidity of the Red Scare -- swept a doubleheader from the Chicago Cubs, at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. The Reds won the opener 4-3, and the nightcap 11-9. Over the 2 games, Ernie Banks went 2-for-9 with a home run and 2 RBIs for the Cubs; while, for the Reds, Frank Robinson went 1-for-6 with an RBI, and Wally Post homered in both games.

* The Milwaukee Braves, having clinched their 1st NL Pennant the night before on an 11th-inning home run by Hank Aaron, beat the St. Louis Cardinals at Milwaukee County Stadium again, this time 6-1 in the regulation 9 innings. In this game, Aaron went 1-for-5, but the hit was a grand slam. Stan Musial went 1-for-2 with 2 walks.

* And the Chicago White Sox beat the Kansas City Athletics, 7-6 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. 

August 25, 1979: “Hart to Hart” Premieres

Left to right: Lionel Stander, Stefanie Powers (holding Freeway), Robert Wagner.

August 25, 1979: Hart to Hart premieres on ABC, created by novelist Sidney Sheldon, who had previously created the sitcoms The Patty Duke Show and I Dream of Jeannie. It was produced by Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg both of whom created several TV shows themselves.

The role of Jonathan Hart was originally offered to Cary Grant, but he was 75 years old, and was determined to remain retired. George Hamilton was suggested, but Spelling said, "The audience will resent him as Hart for being that rich. But no one will begrudge R.J. a nickel."

"R.J." was Robert John Wagner Jr., who had previously starred in the TV shows It Takes a Thief and Switch, each time playing a reformed criminal putting his skills to work for the law. This time, he was cast as Jonathan Hart.

Robert Wagner's real-life wife at the time, Natalie Wood, was given a cameo in the pilot, but Wagner didn't think casting her as Jonathan's wife Jennifer was a good idea. Former Bob Newhart Show co-star Suzanne Pleshette, former Charlie's Angel Kate Jackson and former Bionic Woman Lindsay Wagner were suggested, but Wagner remembered Stefanie Powers, formerly The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., from an episode of It Takes a Thief, and recommended her.

Lionel Stander played Max, who ran their estate, and helped them solve crimes. He narrated the opening sequence. It began with their Grumman Gulfstream II private jet taking off, and showing both of the Harts on board. Then it showed them driving sports cars side-by side. In Season 1, Max said:

This is my boss, Jonathan Hart, a self-made millionaire. He's quite a guy. This is Mrs. H. She's gorgeous. What a terrific lady.

By the way, my name is Max. I take care of them. Which ain't easy. Because their hobby is... murder.

Which makes it sound like their hobby is committing murders, especially since Stander's Bronx accent makes it sound like "moiduh." From Season 2 onward, the opening was altered:

This is my boss, Jonathan Hart, a self-made millionaire. He's quite a guy. This is Mrs. H. She's gorgeous. She's one lady who knows how to take care of herself.

By the way, my name is Max. I take care of both of them. Which ain't easy. 'Cause when they met, it was... murder.

Jonathan is the CEO of Hart Industries, a global conglomerate based in Los Angeles. His wife Jennifer is a freelance journalist. They live in Bel Air, with a dog, a Löwchen they named Freeway, because they found him wandering on one.

Because Jonathan and Jennifer Hart were a wealthy crime-solving couple with a dog, but no children, they were compared to Nick and Nora Charles of the Thin Man movies of the 1930s and '40s.

The show ran for 5 seasons, and there were 8 "reunion" movies, the last in 1996. Wagner and Powers showed that, if Bruce Wayne didn't have the trauma of seeing his parents killed in front of him, he and Selina Kyle, without their Batman and Catwoman costumes, could have been better mystery-solvers than Batman and Robin. Certainly, more stylish.

*

August 25, 1979 was a Saturday. These Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Minnesota Twins, 4-1 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Jerry Koosman outpitched Luis Tiant. Reggie Jackson went 1-for-3 with a walk.

* The New York Mets lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 8-4 at Shea Stadium. The Reds scored 5 runs, including a home run by George Foster, in the top of the 9th inning to win. Johnny Bench also hit a home run. Joel Youngblood hit one for the Mets. The Mets signed Foster as a free agent in 1982, but it didn't work out for them.

* The Houston Astros beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 3-1 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Mike Schmidt went 0-for-2 with 2 walks. Pete Rose went 1-for-4.

* The California Angels beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 24-2 at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto. The Angels scored 8 runs in the top of the 1st inning and coasted the rest of the way. Rod Carew went 2-for-5 with 2 walks and an RBI. The Halos got 2 home runs from Don Baylor, and 1 each from Bobby Grich, Dan Ford and Bobby Clark.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Oakland Athletics, 5-3 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Rookie Rickey Henderson went 1-for-3 with a walk.

* The Seattle Mariners beat the Detroit Tigers, 8-4 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Boston Red Sox, 1-0 at Royals Stadium (later Kauffman Stadium) in Kansas City. Dennis Leonard pitched a 4-hit shutout, outpitching Mike Torrez. The only run came in the bottom of the 1st inning, on an inside-the-park home run by Willie Wilson. George Brett went 1-for-4. Carl Yastrzemski went 1-for-3.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Texas Rangers, 5-2 at Arlington Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas. Robin Yount went 0-for-4, and Paul Molitor went 3-for-5 with an RBI.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the San Diego Padres, 4-3 at San Diego Stadium (later Jack Murphy Stadium and Qualcomm Stadium). This game went to the 19th inning, when Tim Foli singled Bill Robinson home. Willie Stargell went 2-for-7 with a walk. Dave Winfield entered the game as a pinch-hitter, and stayed in the game as the Padres' right fielder, going 0-for-2 with 3 walks.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 5-4 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Lou Brock, in his last season, goes 2-for-5.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the Chicago Cubs, 5-2 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

* The Baltimore Orioles and the Chicago White Sox were rained out at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Because the Orioles ended up willing the American League Eastern Division title, and the White Sox are far back in the AL Western Division, the game is never made up.

* And the Atlanta Braves and the Montreal Expos were rained out at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. Because the Expos finished 2 games behind the Pirates in the National League Eastern Division, the game is never made up.

And in English soccer, Arsenal and Manchester United played to a draw, 0-0 at the Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury, in North London.

August 14, 1935: The Social Security Act

August 14, 1935: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act into law. It becomes the keystone of his domestic program, the New Deal.

By the 1930s, America was the only modern industrial country without any national system of pensions for older people. In the depths of the Great Depression, a physician named Francis Townsend rallied support for a proposal to issue direct payments to the elderly.

Responding to that movement, Roosevelt organized a committee led by Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins to develop a major social welfare program proposal. Roosevelt presented the plan to Congress in January 1935. An ally of his from his tenure as Governor of New York, and from that of his predecessor in that office, Alfred E. Smith, FDR had made Perkins the 1st woman appointed to any post in the President's Cabinet, upon taking office in 1933.

The actual bill was written by Senator Robert F. Wagner, a fellow New Yorker, who would write another key piece of New Deal legislation, the National Labor Relations Act. His son, Robert F. Wagner Jr., would serve as Mayor of New York City from 1954 to 1965. However, these Robert Wagners were not related to the actor Robert Wagner.

The program was expanded to provide payments to widows and dependents of Social Security recipients. Job categories that were not covered by the act included workers in agricultural labor, domestic service, government employees, and many teachers, nurses, hospital employees, librarians, and social workers.

As a result, 65 percent of the African-American workforce, and 27 percent of white workers, were excluded from the initial Social Security program. Many of these workers were covered only later on, when Social Security was expanded in 1950, and again in 1954.

The program was funded through a newly-established payroll tax, which later became known as the Federal Insurance Contributions Act tax (FICA). Social Security taxes would be collected from employers by the States, with employers and employees contributing equally to the tax.

In addition to creating the program, the Social Security Act also established a state-administered unemployment insurance system and the Aid to Dependent Children, which provided aid to families headed by single mothers.

As with many other American "reforms," compared with the social security systems in Western Europe, the Social Security Act of 1935 was rather conservative. However, it was the first time that the federal government took responsibility for the economic security of the aged, the temporarily unemployed, dependent children, and the handicapped.

It's important to note that, in 1935, the average life expectancy for an American man was 67 years -- two years past the age when Social Security kicked in. This was a time before the wide availability of antibiotics, the polio vaccine, seat belts in cars, speed limits, raising the drinking age to 21, the prohibition of lead in paint, most environmental regulations, and the Surgeon General's warnings about the dangers of smoking.

FDR himself didn't even live to be 65: He died of a cerebral hemorrhage at 63, due in large part to his constant smoking, and the pressures of World War II, driving his blood pressure sky-high. The first person to receive a Social Security number also didn't make it: On November 24, 1936, SSN 055-09-0001 went to John Sweeney, a 23-year-old electrical supply clerk from New Rochelle, New York, who was scheduled to collect an estimated $85 per month beginning in 1978. Except he died in 1975, at the age of 61.

Senator Wagner lived to be 75, Secretary Perkins to be 85. In 1936, the Republican nominee for President, Governor Alfred M. Landon of Kansas, ran on a Party platform that called for the repeal of Social Security, and he lost 48 out of 50 States. Ironically, he lived to be 101, the longest-lived major-party nominee in the history of Presidential elections.

Today, with men and women just about equally in the workforce, the average life expectancy at around 79, and living to be 100 or more becoming less of a novelty, the Social Security age has been raised to 67.

*

August 14, 1935 was a Wednesday. It was the off-season for the NFL and the NHL, and the NBA hadn't been founded yet. But there was a full slate of Major League Baseball games played, and then some:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Cleveland Indians, 7-6 at League Park in Cleveland. The Yankees trailed 5-2 going into the 8th, then took a 6-5 lead into the bottom of the 9th, but the normally reliable reliever Johnny Murphy blew it.

* The New York Giants split a doubleheader with the St. Louis Cardinals at the Polo Grounds. The Jints won the 1st game 6-4, as King Carl Hubbell outpitched Paul "Daffy" Dean. But the defending World Champions struck back in the 2nd game, winning 3-0. Bill Hallahan allowed 10 hits and 4 walks, and Daffy had to step in and get the last 2 outs, but the Cards got the shutout. Daffy's brother Jay "Dizzy" Dean did not appear in either game. (It's worth noting that Diz didn't mind his nickname, but Paul hated his. He was a very smart and stable guy, not daffy in the slightest.)

* The Brooklyn Dodgers swept a doubleheader from the Chicago Cubs at Ebbets Field. Dem Bums took the 1st game 9-5, and the 2nd game 3-2.

* The Boston Braves swept a doubleheader from the Cincinnati Reds at Braves Field in Boston. The Braves won the 1st game 8-1, and the 2nd game 11-5. This may have been the highlight of the worst season in the Braves' 150-season history: They went 38-115.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates swept a doubleheader from the Philadelphia Phillies at Baker Bowl in Philadelphia. The Bucs won the opener 8-1, and the nightcap 7-4.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Washington Senators, 18-2 at Navin Field in Detroit. That ballpark would be renamed Briggs Stadium in 1938 and Tiger Stadium in 1961.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Chicago White Sox, 7-1 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* And the Philadelphia Athletics beat the St. Louis Browns, 8-2 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.

July 15, 1949: The Housing Act of 1949

July 15, 1949: President Harry Truman signed the Housing Act of 1949 into law. It is a major part of his "Fair Deal" legislative program.

In the 1948 campaign, Truman ran largely against the Republican-controlled Congress as obstructive and "do-nothing." But on this legislation, he worked with perhaps his own harshest critic, the man so conservative, he was known as "Mr. Republican," Senator Robert Taft of Ohio. Taft and 2 Democrats, Robert Wagner of New York and Allen Ellender of Louisiana, sponsored the bill in the Senate. 

The bill authorized loans to help cities acquire slums and blighted land for public or private redevelopment. It amended the National Housing Act of 1934, by reauthorizing the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) for 6 weeks, and raised by $500 million the amount the FHA was allowed to offer as mortgage insurance.

It required that public housing authorities demolish or renovate one slum dwelling unit for every public housing apartment they built. It provided funds and the authority to conduct extensive research into the economics of housing construction, markets, and financing. And it addressed the problems of rural housing by reorganizing and expanding the loan program initiated under the Bankhead-Johns Farm Tenant Act of 1937, which allowed farmer to purchase and improve farms.

The Senate passed the bill on April 21, 57-13; the House, 227-186 on May 9. A conference committee worked out the differences, and both houses passed it on July 8.

On the plus side, actual houses became more available to people than ever before, and some awful tenements were replaced by housing projects, with aid to cities to provide for police departments for such complexes. On the down side, many of those projects became the same kind of crime-ridden places, anyway, with little net gain, to the point where "the projects" became a byword for black-populated ghettoes in the cities.

*

July 15, 1949 was a Friday. Author Richard Russo was born. And these baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the St. Louis Browns, 6-0 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Eddie Lopat pitched a 5-hit shutout. St. Louis native Yogi Berra hit 2 home runs. Joe DiMaggio went 1-for-4.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Cincinnati Reds, 11-5 at Ebbets Field. Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella and Tommy Brown hit home runs in support of Don Newcombe.

* The Boston Braves beat the Chicago Cubs, 6-1 at Braves Field in Boston.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 1-0 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. Howie Pollet pitched a 6-hit shutout, outpitching Robin Roberts. Stan Musial went 1-for-4.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Cleveland Indians, 8-0 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Dick Fowler pitched a 7-hit shutout, while Bob Feller didn't get out of the 6th inning.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Boston Red Sox, 8-7 at Briggs Stadium (later Tiger Stadium) in Detroit. Ted Williams went 3-for-5.

* The Washington Senators beat the Chicago White Sox, 9-4.

* And the New York Giants and the Pittsburgh Pirates were rained out at the Polo Grounds. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader the next day. The Pirates, swept, 9-0 and 7-6. Bob Chesnes pitched a 6-hit shutout in the opener. Wally Westlake hit 2 home runs. In the nightcap, Westlake homered again. In the top of the 11th inning, Vic Lombardi singled STan Rojek home with the winning run.

Over the 2 games, Westlake went 6-for-11 with 3 home runs, a walk and 6 RBIs. Ralph Kiner went 4-for-9 with a home run, a walk and 3 RBIs.