December 13, 1955: Laurence Olivier's Film Version of "Richard III"

December 13, 1955: The film Richard III premieres. Having previously directed and starred in a film version of Henry V, who has been called "Shakespeare's only true hero," Laurence Olivier takes on the role of the most villainous character that William Shakespeare ever depicted.

When the play, which premiered in 1594, and film begin, it is 1483, and it appears that the Wars of the Roses are long over, and that the House of York have defeated the House of Lancaster for good. King Henry VI is dead. King Edward IV, of York (played in the film by Cedric Hardwicke), is on the throne. He is happily married to Elizabeth Woodville (Mary Kerridge), although he cheats on her endlessly.

The succession seems to be secured: Edward and Elizabeth have 2 sons, Edward (Paul Huson) the 12-year-old Prince of Wales, and Richard of Shrewsbury (Andy Shine), the 9-year-old Duke of York. After those boys in the line of succession is King Edward's brother, George (John Gielgud), Duke of Clarence, and then the youngest brother, Richard (Olivier), Duke of Gloucester. In other words, in spite of his heroism in the Wars of the Roses (which is backed up by actual history), the Duke of Gloucester is nowhere near ever receiving the crown.

And he begins the play and film with one of the most famous opening lines in literature:

Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this sun of York;

And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house

In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;

Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;

Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,

Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.

Grim-visaged war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;

And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds

To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,

He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber

To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.

Sounds good, right? Ah, but in spite of his wealth and privilege, Richard is not happy. Shakespeare followed the legend that Richard was ugly, and a hunchback with a withered arm. So Richard continues, whining that even his wealth and privilege doesn't give him the kind of way with women that his brother Edward has, and vowing revenge upon the world that made him this way:

But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,

Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;

I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty

To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;

I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,

Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,

Deformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time

Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,

And that so lamely and unfashionable

That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;

Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,

Have no delight to pass away the time,

Unless to spy my shadow in the sun

And descant on mine own deformity:

And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,

To entertain these fair well-spoken days,

I am determined to prove a villain

And hate the idle pleasures of these days.

Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,

By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams,

To set my brother Clarence and the king

In deadly hate the one against the other:

And if King Edward be as true and just

As I am subtle, false and treacherous,

This day should Clarence closely be mew'd up,

About a prophecy, which says that 'G'

Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.

So Richard points out that "George" begins with a "G" -- even though it could also be "Gloucester," his title. George is executed for treason, even though he's innocent. (This actually happened in 1478.) So now, Edward the King, Edward the Prince of Wales and Richard the Duke of York are ahead of Richard the Duke of Gloucester.

In spite of his physical form, Richard manages to win the hand in marriage of Lady Anne Neville (Claire Bloom), despite his having been on the side that led to the deaths of her father, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick (a.k.a. "Warwick the Kingmaker"); and her previous husband, Edward of Westminster, son and would-be heir of Henry VI. (No age issue if the play is to be believed: Richard was 28 at the time, and Anne was 27. In real life, though, the wedding was in 1472, when he was 19 and she was 18.)

And then, on April 9, 1483, Edward IV dies -- only 40 years old (Hardwicke was 62, a great actor but much too old for the role), from a cause still debated today. He lived through his illness long enough to legally make his brother Richard "Lord Protector" of England, and guardian of his sons Edward and Richard, until Edward reaches his majority and can rule on his own.

King Edward V and his brother Richard were at Ludlow Castle, over 150 miles northwest of London, and it took 5 days for them to receive word of their father's death. They are taken back to London, and Uncle Richard meets them along the way. He convinces them that, with plots all around, they will be safest in the Tower of London. So far, this matches what history tells us.

And Edward and Richard are never seen in public again. Richard gets Parliament to declare the wedding of Edward IV and Elizabeth null and void, because Edward had secretly married someone else before that. (Which is still in dispute, over 500 years later.) Therefore, Edward and Richard are stricken from the line of succession, and the Duke of Gloucester is crowned King Richard III.

History still hasn't answered what happened to "The Princes In the Tower," but Shakespeare's play forever embedded in the public imagination that Richard had them killed. In the play, it is done by Sir James Tyrell, a knight loyal to Richard (played in this film by Patrick Troughton, later to star in Doctor Who). Some sources have said that Richard literally took matters into his own hands, and smothered the boys with their pillows. Other sources suggest that they merely died of illnesses, which, given the damp air of castles and the state of medicine in the late 15th Century, would hardly have been shocking -- except that one was a king and the other was his heir.

Richard reigns for 2 years, during which Queen Anne dies, and history doesn't make it clear how, though Richard's enemies thought he poisoned her so that he could marry Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV -- and thus his own niece, and she was just 19 at the time -- to strengthen his claim on the crown. Which he does.

Richard and Anne had a son, Edward of Middleham, but he died on April 9, 1484, at the age of 10, possibly of tuberculosis. The King's enemies called it divine retribution. After this, Richard named a new heir, his nephew, John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, son of Elizabeth of York, sister to Richard III and Edward IV. He died in 1492, though apparently not of suspicious causes.

Richard III also had an illegitimate son, John of Gloucester; and an illegitimate daughter, Katherine, who later married the Earl of Pembroke. She died of an illness in 1487, and John died in 1499, possibly executed on the order of Richard's successor. There is no record of him cheating on Anne, or his 2nd wife, Elizabeth, and, since this makes him an outlier among Kings of England (especially in comparison to his brother Edward), historians have doubted the claims of illegitimate children, and Shakespeare's portrayal of him as a lascivious man, suggesting that he had little interest in sex.

Richard's opponents find someone with a claim to the crown: Henry Tudor (Stanley Baker), Earl of Richmond. Well, his claim wasn't all that strong: Through his mother, Margaret Beaufort, he was a great-great-great-grandson of King Edward III; through Margaret's husband, Edmund Tudor, he was a martilineal nephew of Henry VI, and a step-grandson of Henry V; which made him, by marriage, his own 4th cousin, and a 3rd cousin once removed of Richard III. In other words, he was, like Richard III, a member of the House of Plantagenet, but of the Lancaster branch, and now of the House of Tudor as well.

Stronger than Henry's claim was his army. And the night before the Battle of Bosworth Field, 13 miles west of downtown Leicester, and over 100 miles northwest of London, Richard is visited in his dreams by the ghosts of men he has killed, or has had killed: Henry VI (or "Harry the Sixth," as he calls himself), and his son, Edward of Westminster; his wife, Lady Anne; his brother, George; his nephews, Edward V and Richard of Shrewsbury; his brother-in-law, Anthony Woodville, Lord Rivers; Richard Grey and Sir Thomas Vaughan; his nephew, Richard Grey, half-brother of Edward V; Sir Thomas Vaughan, a knight who was loyal to Edward IV but opposed to Richard III; Sir William Hastings, a friend whom Edward IV had appointed Ambassador to France, but stood in Richard's way; and Henry Stafford (Ralph Richardson), Duke of Buckingham, who had been first an ally of Richard's, then an enemy. Every one of these men (and boys), one after the other, places his hand on the head of the sleeping Richard, and says, "Despair and die!"

Richard is shaken by this dream, but composes himself, and, trying to copy Henry V at Agincourt, 68 years earlier, gives his troops an inspirational speech. It doesn't work: In the battle, on August 22, 1485, Richard is knocked off his horse, and loses his cherished crown. He claims that there must be "six Richmonds in the field," because he's already killed five of them. He yells, "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!" He doesn't get the horse, and he is hacked to death with swords. History does not record him yelling the famous line, but it does say his last word was the word "Treason!" over and over again.

The film's premiere was attended by Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip. Producer Alexander Korda sold the American film rights to NBC, which broadcast it on March 11, 1956. It got great reviews from TV critics. But its subsequent theater release was a box-office failure, killing Olivier's chances of getting funding for a version of Macbeth, although he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. And yet, upon re-release in 1966, it was a hit.

Richard III remains the last King of England to be killed in battle His defeat, and Henry VII taking the throne, beginning the reign of the House of Tudor, is considered the end of both the Wars of the Roses and the Middle Ages in Britain. He was buried without ceremony in Leicester, and his remains were long believed uncovered and dumped into a river.

However, construction of a parking lot in 2012 found a skeleton, and DNA testing showed it was him. It also showed that he wasn't a hunchback, but he did have severe scoliosis. As doctors and military historians, familiar with the armor of the time, were able to prove, it would not have stopped him from being able to ride a horse in battle. The bones were properly reburied in Leicester Cathedral. 

The best-known portrait of the real Richard III

In 1924, the Richard III Society was founded, to try to rehabilitate his image, claiming that he was an excellent administrator, carried out many reforms in his 2 years on the throne, and did nothing to harm his nephews. They claim that the boys were still alive and living in the Tower after Bosworth Field, and that they were killed as a threat to the throne not on his order, but on that of Henry VII. And yet, the Society's members don't seem to defend his actions in taking the throne as a usurper.

An addition to Olivier, actors who have played Richard III include William V. Ranous in a silent film in 1908, John Barrymore in The Show of Shows in 1929, Basil Rathbone in Tower of London in 1939, Vincent Price in a remake of the preceding in 1962 (having played the Duke of Clarence in the earlier version), William Windom on NBC's Masterpiece Playhouse in 1950, Paul Daneman in BBC's An Age of Kings in 1960, Ian Holm in War of the Roses in 1965, Ron Cook on the BBC in 1983, Peter Cook in the pilot episode of the 1983 BBC sitcom Blackadder, Andrew Jarvis on the BBC's The Wars of the Roses in 1989, Ian McKellen in 1995, Al Pacino in Looking for Richard in 1996 (a documentary that served as an examination of the character and the play), Paul Mohan on the comedy-educational BBC series Historyonics in 2004, Aneurin Barnard in The White Queen in 2013, and Benedict Cumberbatch in The Hollow Crown in 2016.

In Blackadder, Cook's Richard is treated as a kind, benevolent monarch, who defeats Henry Tudor at Bosworth Field, but is then accidentally killed by the bumbling Edmund, Duke of Edinburgh, known as The Black Adder (Rowan Atkinson). Richard is replaced by his nephew, who becomes King Richard IV, and is, surprisingly in each case, still alive, an adult, and the father of Edmund. (His mother, Gertrude of Flanders, and her other son, John, Prince of Wales, were completely fictional characters.)

McKellen's Richard III is moved forward to the 1930s, and depicts Richard as a Fascist dictator, in the mold of Hitler, Mussolini and Franco. His "winter of our discontent" speech is at a victory banquet, but its followup, about his deformities and plots, is a fourth-wall-break in a restroom. The final battle is at Battersea Power Station, which was under construction at the time the film takes place, and Richard crashes his car, leading him to offer his kingdom for a horse.

In 1984, the BBC aired "The Trial of King Richard III," at Britain's most famous courthouse, the Old Bailey in London. Presided over by former Lord Chancellor Lord Elwyn-Jones, the prosecutors and defense attorneys were played by real-life Queen's Counsels, and historians and forensic experts served as witnesses. Richard was found not guilty -- not that he was innocent, but that the prosecution's case could not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. In other words, nothing was settled.

That said, in 2022, the BBC series Lucy Worsley Investigates showed Worsley, a prominent British historian, looking into the case. While a letter was found suggesting that Richard, Duke of York, survived, his accused uncle by many years, she also saw evidence linking Richard III directly to the men previously suspected of carrying out the murders. She rejected arguments by modern apologists claiming Richard's innocence, stating that assertions of his non-involvement fail to stand up to logical scrutiny.

She said, "Another thing that often surprises me is that historians say, 'Well, there's no evidence that Richard III murdered his nephews', and I think that there wouldn't be, would there? When Lenin killed the Romanovs, he made sure that there was no paper trail. I think it's very good practice if you're going to carry out political murder to make sure people can't pin the crime to you. So had evidence been discovered, Richard the Third would have just been making a rookie error!"

*

December 13, 1955 was a Tuesday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. no games were scheduled in the NHL.

There were 2 games in the NBA, a doubleheader at what would eventually be called "the old Madison Square Garden." The Philadelphia Warriors beat the Boston Celtics, 109-108. Then the New York Knicks beat the Minneapolis Lakers, 98-91.

November 22, 1944: Laurence Olivier's Version of William Shakespeare's "Henry V"

November 22, 1944: The film Henry V premieres. One of the earliest films depicting a play of William Shakespeare in color, Laurence Olivier directs, and stars as the King of England who has been called "Shakespeare's only true hero." It was produced during World War II, and meant as a morale booster to British troops.

The film begins with a panorama of London in 1600. The viewpoint travels to the Globe Theatre, home of Shakespeare and his theater company, where the audience is being seated. The Chorus enters and implores the audience to use their imagination to visualize the setting of the play.

The play is set around the Battle of Agincourt, which was fought on October 25, 1415, in what is now Azincourt, Pas-de-Calais, France, about 140 miles north of Paris. The night before the impending battle, Henry wanders around the camp in disguise, to find out what the men think of him. The next day, before the battle, Henry delivers his famous Saint Crispin's Day speech -- in the play, in Act IV, Scene III:

This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say "To-morrow is Saint Crispian:"
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say "These wounds I had on Crispin’s day."
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne''er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

In reality, Henry is said to have spoken much more briefly, and without an appeal to glory. Nevertheless: Outnumbered 2-1, Henry, personally leading his troops, led English and Welsh longbowmen to a stunning victory over the French army on French soil.

The most familiar portrait of King Henry V

The English lost 112 men, including the sitting Duke of York and Earl of Suffolk; the French, possibly 10,000, including the Dukes of Alençon, Brabant and Lorraine, and the Counts of Dreux and Nevers. Say what you want about those noblemen, but they were noble enough to fight and risk death alongside the men they commanded.

This battle turned the tide for England, as King Charles VI of France, in order to mollify the Lancastrian invader, allowed him to marry his daughter, Catherine of Valois. Together, they had a son. But when Henry V died of illness in 1422, his son was just 9 months old, and King Henry VI -- first under his greedy, incompetent regents, then by his mentally ill self -- ended up losing all the gains of his father and ancestors during the Hundred Years War.

The battle made an archer the greatest thing to which most Englishmen and Welshmen could aspire in that era. Legend has it that King Henry VIII, 100 or so years later, banned tennis from English and Welsh soil because it was distracting men from practicing archery.

It also led to a ridiculous urban legend. Supposedly, the French would cut the index fingers off English prisoners before releasing them, but when they got back to their own side, they could still use their middle fingers to pull back their bowstrings. And the bows were made from yew trees, so, when they captured French prisoners, they would show them their middle fingers, and say, "See? We can still pluck yew! Pluck yew!" Thus was born both the middle-finger gesture and the profane expression, "Fuck you."

Well, none of it is true: The middle-finger gesture has been traced as far back as ancient Greece, about 2,000 years before Agincourt, and it was rather popular in Roman times, where it was known as "El Dedo Medio": The Middle Digit. As for the other expression, that's probably as old as language itself.

In America, the film was not released until after World War II, on June 17, 1946. It was nominated for 4 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and Best Actor for Olivier. But it won none, losing Best Picture to The Best Years of Our Lives, and Olivier lost Best Actor to Frederic March, in the preceding film. Olivier was, however, given an Honorary Oscar for the film. Having previously been nominated for Wuthering Heights and Rebecca, he finally won in 1949, for his version of Shakespeare's Hamlet. He would also be nominated for his versions of Richard III and Othello, but did not win.

Other film versions of Henry V have starred Kenneth Branagh in 1989, Tom Hiddleston as part of the BBC series The Hollow Crown in 2012, and Timothée Chalamet (who, conveniently, has the middle name "Hal") in 2019.

*

November 22, 1944 was a Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. If this had been an American film, that would have been a consideration in its release date. But since it was a British film, the American market had nothing to do with the timing. It was, however, chosen as the release date of Meet Me In St. Louis, directed by Vincente Minnelli, and starring his soon-to-be-wife Judy Garland. I have a separate entry for this event.

Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And no games were played in the NHL. So there were no scores on this day.

November 2, 1935: Notre Dame vs. Ohio State, "The Game of the Century"

November 2, 1935: For the 1st time, a college football game is given the label "The Game of the Century."

This may have been inspired by the trial, earlier in the year, of Bruno Richard Hauptmann, for kidnapping and killing Charles Lindbergh Jr., the 2-year-old son of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh. That trial, held in Flemington, Hunterdon County, New Jersey from January 3 to February 13, was known as "The Trial of the Century."

Most college football games that have been called "The Game of the Century" were between the teams ranked Number 1 and Number 2 in the national polls. That was not possible this time: The 1st major poll, that of the Associated Press, did not begin until the next season.

At the time, Ohio State University was one of the better programs, having gone 7-1 in both 1933 and 1934. But they weren't yet an iconic team: That would come in the 1950s, under head coach Woody Hayes. For now, the Buckeyes were coached by Francis Schmidt. And they had begun the season by beating Kentucky, Drake (clobbering the Des Moines, Iowa school 85-7), Northwestern and Indiana.

In contrast, the University of Notre Dame, based in South Bend, Indiana, did already have a national following, thanks to their late coach Knute Rockne. They had won the National Championship in 1924, thanks to a backfield known as the Four Horsemen. Now, one of those Horsemen, Elmer Layden, was their head coach.

They had already become the unofficial Catholic university of America. (Not to be confused with The Catholic University of America, an actual school in Washington, D.C.) The a Irish opened their season 5-0, beating Kansas at home, Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon) away, Wisconsin away, Pittsburgh at home, and Navy in Baltimore.

So these 2 big teams were ready to face each other on November 2, at Ohio Stadium in Columbus. Every major newspaper in the country sent a writer to cover it. It was broadcast on national radio, unusual even then. A crowd of 81,018 poured in, and some people had paid scalpers up to $50 for a ticket -- a little over $1,000 in today's money. And this was during the Great Depression.

Ohio Stadium, as it would have appeared in 1935

Ohio State were heavily favored, and, at first, the game followed that script. Frank Antenucci intercepted Notre Dame quarterback Mike Layden (the coach's younger brother), and lateraled to Frank Boucher (no relation to the New York Rangers hockey star of the same name), resulting in a 65-yard return for a touchdown.

In the 2nd quarter, another interception set up a 3-yard touchdown run by Joe Williams. But, having kicked the extra point on the 1st touchdown, Dick Beltz missed on this one. Still, that 13-0 lead held into the 4th quarter. Notre Dame looked beaten.

Looks can be deceiving. At the end of the 3rd quarter, Andy Pilney returned a punt to the Ohio State 13-yard line. That led to, early in the 4th quarter, Steve Miller running the ball in from 1 yard. It was 13-6 Ohio State. Pilney later threw a touchdown pass to Mike Layden, making it 13-12. Both times, the extra point was missed.

Notre Dame had a legendary name in their backfield: William Shakespeare. Playing off his sharing of a name of the greatest writer in the English language, the New York native was known as the Bard of Staten Island, the Bard of South Bend, and the Merchant of Menace. He had already scored a touchdown for Notre Dame against Army the year before, at Yankee Stadium in his hometown.

Now, Ohio State tried to run out the clock, but fumbled, and the Irish recovered. With less than a minute to go, Pilney ran for 30 yards, getting the ball to the Buckeye 19. But he was injured on the play. Shakespeare entered the game. Once more unto the breach. He threw a pass, and an Ohio State player nearly intercepted it, but dropped it.

Finally, with time for perhaps one more play, fullback Jim McKenna took the snap, and handed it to Shakespeare, who threw an option pass. Wayne Millner, later to make the Pro Football Hall of Fame by catching passes from Sammy Baugh on the Washington Redskins, was down on his knees in the end zone, and caught the ball. Notre Dame had won, 18-13.

Grantland Rice, his column in The New York Herald Tribune syndicated throughout the land, wrote of the game, "This was one of the finest things I've ever seen in football."

But the glory did not last. Just 7 days later, at home no less, Notre Dame lost to Northwestern. Then they went to New York, to again play Army at Yankee Stadium, and only came away with a 6-6 tie. They closed the season at home, beating USC, finishing 7-1-1.

Ohio State bounced back, beating the University of Chicago away, Illinois at home, and Michigan in Ann Arbor. But they didn't play Minnesota. Ohio State and Minnesota were declared Co-Champions of the Big Ten Conference, but it was Minnesota, 8-0, who were named National Champions by most organizations then deciding the thing.

There have been a few "Games of the Century" since, some involving Notre Dame. One in 1993 followed this pattern: Notre Dame stunned Florida State, then blew the National Championship the following week by losing, in that case to Boston College.

Aside from Millner, most of the players on both sides did not play professional football. Shakespeare was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers, but made more money than he could have in football at the time by signing with the Cincinnati Rubber Company. He became an executive with them, and still was one when he died in 1974.

Elmer Layden remained at Notre Dame until 1941, when he was offered the job of NFL Commissioner. He held that job for 5 seasons, guiding the League through the difficult days of World War II. He died in 1973.

Francis Schmidt stayed at Ohio State through the 1940 season, winning another Big Ten title in 1939. He was succeeded by Paul Brown, who began his legend by leading the Buckeyes to the 1942 National Championship. Schmidt became head coach at the University of Idaho, but his health began to fail, and he died in 1944.

*

November 2, 1935 was a Saturday. There were a few other big college football games that day.

One was in New York. Fordham University -- coached by another of Notre Dame's former Four Horsemen, Jim Crowley -- played the University of Pittsburgh at the Polo Grounds, and it ended 0-0. Fordham finished 6-1-2 on the year, Pitt 7-1-2. They would play each other at the Polo Grounds again in 1936 and 1937, and those games would also end scoreless. Finally, in 1938, Fordham went to Pitt Stadium, and the Panthers emerged victorious, 24-13.

Manhattan College beat City College (CCNY), 65-0 at Ebbets Field. New York University beat Bucknell, 14-0 at Yankee Stadium. One of NYU's players, Ed Smith, had done some modeling work, and was a high school teammate of sculptor Frank Eliscu. Eliscu asked Smith to pose in his football uniform. In 1982, someone called Smith up and asked him what it was like being the model for the Heisman Trophy, which Eliscu had designed. Smith said he did know he was the model for the Heisman. The Downtown Athletic Club, caretakers of the Trophy, gave him a copy.

Among New Jersey's teams: Rutgers beat Lafayette, 31-6 at Fisher Field in Easton, Pennsylvania; and Princeton beat Navy, 26-0 at Palmer Stadium in Princeton.

The aforementioned Minnesota beat Purdue, 29-7 at Memorial Stadium in Minneapolis. Nebraska beat Missouri, 19-6 at Memorial Stadium (now Faurot Field) in Columbia, and went on to win the Big Six Conference, which later became the Big Eight and formed the bulk of the Big Twelve.

Stanford beat Santa Clara, 9-6 at Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto, California, between San Francisco and San Jose. By beating the University of California 3 weeks later, they won the Pacific Coast Conference, the precursor to today's Pac-12.

Louisiana State beat Auburn, 6-0 at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, and went on to win the Southeastern Conference title. Southern Methodist (SMU) beat Texas, 20-0 at Ownby Stadium in Dallas, and went on to win the Southwest Conference title.

There were no scores in the other sports. The NHL hadn't yet started their season. The NBA hadn't yet started at all. Baseball was done until April. And the NFL waited until the next day, Sunday, to play.    

October 19, 1901: Edward Elgar Debuts His "Pomp and Circumstance Marches"

October 19, 1901: Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 and March No. 2 premiere, at Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool. The marches are conducted by their composer, Edward Elgar. Two days later, he conducts them again at Queen's Hall in London.

Elgar was born on June 2, 1857 in Lower Broadheath, Worcestershire, in the West Midlands of England. By the age of eight, Elgar was taking piano and violin lessons, and his father, who tuned the pianos at many grand houses in Worcestershire, would sometimes take him along, giving him the chance to display his skill to important local figures.

In 1879, he took up the post of conductor of the attendants' band at Powick Hospital, a psychiatric institution outside Worcester. In 1882, he became a violinist with a Birmingham orchestra. He married Alice Roberts in 1886, and they lived in her hometown of Great Malvern, outside Worcester. By 1892, his own compositions began to be performed. In 1899, his Enigma Variations made him world-famous.

Elgar took the phrase "Pomp and Circumstance" from Act 3, Scene 3 of William Shakespeare's tragedy Othello:

Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, th'ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner, and all quality,
Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!

Pomp and Circumstance was written in 6 "Marches": No. 1 in D major in 1901; No. 2 in A minor, also in 1901; No. 3 in C minor in 1904; No. 4 in G major in 1907; No. 5 in C major in 1930; and No. 6 in G minor, which remained unpublished at his death on February 23, 1934, from colon cancer, at the age of 76.

The five original marches were dedicated to friends of Elgar's: The conductor Alfred E. Rodewald, the composer Granville Bantock, and the organists Ivor Atkins, G.R. Sinclair, and Percy Hull.

Pomp and Circumstance, March No. 1 includes the trio section "Land of Hope and Glory." It is the section that truly popularized the work, since it became the "Coronation Ode" for the Coronation of King Edward VII on August 9, 1902.

It is often known as "The Graduation March," and is played as the processional tune at many high school and college graduation ceremonies. It was first played at such a ceremony on June 28, 1905, at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, where the Professor of Music, Samuel Sanford, had invited his friend Elgar to attend commencement, and receive an honorary doctorate of music. Elgar repaid the compliment by dedicating his Introduction and Allegro to Sanford later that year.

*

October 19, 1901 was a Saturday. The only games played in North America that day were college football games. Among them were these:

* Harvard beat Army, 6-0 on The Plain at West Point, New York. Harvard finished 12-0 that season, and were generally regarded as the Champions of the East.

* Yale beat Penn State, 22-0 at Yale Field in New Haven, Connecticut.

* Columbia beat Hamilton College of Kirkland, New York, 12-0 at the Polo Grounds.

* Cornell beat the Carlisle Indian School, 17-0 at the Stadium of the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo.

* Princeton beat Brown, 35-0 at University Field in Princeton, New Jersey.

* The University of Pennsylvania beat Bucknell, 6-0 at the original Franklin Field in Philadelphia.

* Rutgers lost to Swarthmore, 27-0 at Whittier Field in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, outside Philadelphia.

* Navy beat Lehigh, 18-0 at Worden Field in Annapolis, Maryland.

* Michigan beat Northwestern, 29-0 at Regents Field in Ann Arbor, Michigan. This was coach Fielding Yost's "Point-a-Minute Team," outscoring 11 opponents 550-0 -- an average of 50-0, not quite a point for every minute, but, given time of possession, considerably more than that. They were generally considered to be what their song "Hail to the Victors" called them: "The Champions of the West," a title they seemed to secure by winning what is generally regarded as the 1st bowl game, beating West Coast champions Stanford on New Year's Day, January 1, 1902, 49-0.

* Notre Dame, not yet the power they would become, beat Chicago Eclectic Medical College, 32-0 at Cartier Field in South Bend, Indiana. Chicago Eclectic Medical changed its name the next year, to the American College of Medicine and Surgery. The school closed in 1917, due to the manpower drain of World War I, and never reopened.

* And Illinois beat the team then generally regarded as their rivals, the University of Chicago, 24-0 at Marshall Field in Chicago, named for Marshall Field, who ran the department store that also bore his name.

And in English soccer, Woolwich Arsenal, the South London team that would later become Arsenal F.C. of North London, traveled to Yorkshire, and lost to Middlesbrough F.C., 3-0 at Linthorpe Road West in Middlesbrough.

In 1979, having had to go to 4 replays in the 3rd Round of the FA Cup against Sheffield Wednesday, the last 3 of them on neutral ground at Filbert Street, home of Leicester City, Arsenal fans -- nicknamed "Gooners," after the team's nickname, "the Gunners" -- adapted Elgar's "Land of Hope and Glory" into this song:

We all follow The Arsenal

over land and sea!

(And Leicester!)

We all follow The Arsenal

on to victory!

The next season, after going to 3 replays of the FA Cup Semifinal against Liverpool, losing the Final to West Ham United, seeing Liverpool win the Football League title, and seeing Nottingham Forest win the European Cup, the Gooners redid the song again:

We hate Nottingham Forest!

We hate Liverpool, too!
(And Tottenham!)

We hate West Ham United!

But Arsenal, we love you!

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.)

*

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.