Robert Sheehan b. 1988 (The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, Misfits, Season of the Witch)
Lyndsy Fonseca b. 1987 (Kick-Ass, Kick-Ass 2)
Lauren Cohan b. 1982 (The Walking Dead, The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural)
Jeremy Renner b. 1971 (The Avengers, Thor, 28 Weeks Later, Angel)
David Yost b. 1969 (Mighty Morphin Power Rangers)
Nicolas Cage b. 1964 (National Treasure, Kick-Ass, Ghost Rider, Season of the Witch, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Vampire’s Kiss)
Mark Allen Shepherd b. 1961 (Deep Space Nine)
Robert Longo b. 1953 (director, Johnny Mnemonic)
Erin Gray b. 1950 (The Guild, Nuclear Hurricane, Jason Goes to Hell, Superboy, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century)
Terry Moore b. 1929 (Mighty Joe Young [1949 and 1998], Death Dimension, Batman)
William Peter Blatty b. 1928 (author, The Exorcist)Gene L. Coon b. 1924 died 8 July 1973 (writer, Star Trek)
Vincent Gardenia b. 1920 died 9 December 1992 (Little Shop of Horrors [1986], The Twilight Zone, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea)
Alan Napier b. 1903 died 8 August 1988 (Batman, Twilight Zone, Premature Burial, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Island of Lost Women, The Mole People, The Invisible Man Returns, Cat People)
Interesting birthday list today. Jeremy Renner got the Picture Slot last year, so I was thinking about how to mix it up this year. Both Erin Gray and Lauren Cohan would be well-known faces and meet the Pretty Girl = Picture Slot criteria, and I was surprised at how much work Alan Napier did in genre. As for Nicolas Cage, sadly when you think about his over-acting, it's almost always in genre, which is sad because he did good work early in his career. But instead, I went with Star Trek and a character who never spoke on screen, though Quark often says Morn never shuts up. It should also be mentioned that writer Gene L. Coon is credited with the creation of the Klingons, the Prime Directive and Khan Noonien Singh.
Many happy returns of the day to the living on our list, and to Gene L. Coon, Vincent Gardenia and Alan Napier, thanks for all the memories.
Predictor: H.G. Wells in The Shape of Things to Come, published 1933
Prediction: From May 1955 to November 1956, a worldwide epidemic of maculated fever kills half the world's population.
Reality: And with this, we bid a fond farewell to The Shape of Things to Come. Wells makes up a disease which is supposed to exist in baboons and gives it a name which was previously used to discuss typhus.
The reason the book is famously "prophetic" is that he predicted war in Europe starting in 1940 between the Germans and Poles and that the United States and Japan would also be combatants in a separate war in the 1940s. Other than that, the book gets a hell of a lot of stuff wrong and his attitude toward non-Englishmen - most especially the Americans and Irish - is exceedingly prejudiced. As of next Tuesday, we will get a new regular, Ray Kurzweil, making predictions about 2009 in his 1999 book The Age of Spiritual Machines.
Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!
We hear from our Wednesday regular T. Baron Russell, not always accurate but a hell of a lot more cheery than Herbert George Wells.
Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!
GOOD LORD NOT KURZWEIL!!!
ReplyDeleteOh, yes, Kurzweil. He claims only one of his predictions in all his work is wrong and I need to make it clear he's full of it.
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