Sunday, April 26, 2015

26 April 2015

Birthdays
Channing Tatum b. 1980 (X-Men: Apocalypse, Jupiter Ascending, This is the End, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, War of the Worlds)
Jordana Brewster b. 1980 (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: The Beginning, The Faculty)
Marnette Patterson b. 1980 (Starship Troopers 3: Marauder, Charmed, Supernatural, 3rd Rock from the Sun, A Nightmare on Elm Street 5)
Klara Issova b. 1979 (The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Children of Dune, Dune)
Stana Katic b. 1978 (The Spirit, Heroes, The Librarian: The Curse of the Jade Chalice)
Tom Welling b. 1977 (Smallville, The Fog)
Brandon Slagle b. 1977 (Dead Sea, Entity, Biohazard: Patient Zero, Area 51 Confidential)
Jason Earles b. 1977 (Phil of the Future, National Treasure)
McKenzie Westmore b. 1977 (Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Insurrection, Weird Science [TV], Star Trek: The Next Generation)
Emily Booth b. 1976 (Grindhouse, Evil Aliens, Event Horizon)
Ivana Milicevic b. 1974 (Eastwick, Fallen, Dark Shadows [2005 TV movie], Frankenstein [2004 TV movie], Paycheck, Charmed, Buffy, Vanilla Sky, Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest)
Marianne Jean-Baptiste b. 1967 (Edge of Tomorrow, RoboCop [2014], The Cell)
Jet Li b. 1963 (The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, The Forbidden Kingdom, The One)
Debra Wilson b. 1962 (Avatar, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
Joan Chen b. 1961 (Fringe, Cyber Wars, The Outer Limits [1998], Judge Dredd)
Giancarlo Esposito b. 1958 (Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, Revolution, Once Upon a Time, Xenophobia, NYPD 2069, Monkeybone, Stardust [1998], Creature, The Hunger, The Tomorrow Man, The Brother from Another Planet)
Ron Donachie b. 1956 (Atlantis, Game of Thrones, The Deep [TV], Doctor Who, Starhunter [TV])
Andy Secombe b. 1953 (Star Wars: Episodes I and II, Star Cops, Aladdin and the Forty Thieves)
Erwin Stoff b. 1951 (producer, The Day the Earth Stood Still [2008], A Scanner Darkly, Constantine, The Matrix, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey)
Warren Clarke b. 1947 died 12 November 2014 (Firefox, Hawk the Slayer, A Clockwork Orange)
Carol Burnett b. 1933 (Twilight Zone)
Stafford Repp b. 1918 died 5 November 1974 (Batman [TV], I Dream of Jeannie, My Favorite Martian, Twilight Zone)
Vic Perrin b. 1916 died 4 July 1989 (Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Project U.F.O., Wonder Woman, Land of the Giants, The Invaders, Star Trek, Outer Limits, Twilight Zone, Adventures of Superman, The Twonky)
H.L. Gold b. 1914 died 21 February 1996 (editor, Galaxy Science Fiction 1950-1961)
A.E. van Vogt b. 1912 died 26 January 2000 (author, The World of Null-A, The Book of Ptath, The Voyage of the Space Beagle)
Ethel Griffies b. 1878 died 9 September 1975 (The Birds, It Happened Tomorrow)

Notes from the birthday list.
1. The Picture Slot. In 2012, I had a picture of Watto from the Star Wars movie that must not be named, a CGI character voiced by Andy Secombe. In 2014, It was Ron Donachie from Game of Thrones. I had every intention of putting up a picture of Tom Welling from Smallville, but the career of Vic Perrin captured my interest. The picture is from Star Trek; he's the leader of the planet that won't let either the Enterprise of the "normal" universe or the Spock-with-a-beard universe mine their dilithium crystals. While I consider any major guest star role on the original Star Trek iconic, Perrin also did a lot of voiceover, most notably the narration on the original Outer Limits. While I am of the opinion that The Outer Limits was a pale imitation of The Twilight Zone, that line "We control the horizontal, we control the vertical" is every bit as good as "You're traveling through another dimension." Vic Perrin had an interesting career and deserves to be remembered.

2. Nepotism of an unusual kind. McKenzie Westmore is the daughter of a make-up artist. Robert De Niro came to the home of the of the artist to work on make-up for Raging Bull and got along famously with McKenzie, then three years old. De Niro decided she should play his daughter in the film. An unusual first break in the business.

3. Spot the Canadian and Not a Canadian. Stana Katic is Canadian. Tom Welling is not. Some of the Canadian genre show do have native born stars, but not all of them.

4. Carol Burnett? My current method for searching imdb.com is to click on the first ten names of the top 100 no matter what, then only grab people from positions 11 to 100 if I know they did something or if I think they might have. Carol Burnett was in the top 10, and with her career she certainly deserves it. She was in three different versions of Once Upon a Mattress twice as the princess and a more recent turn as the queen, but the fairy tale The Princess and the Pea has very little fantasy element to it. On the other hand, I forgot she was on an episode of the original Twilight Zone. That always merits inclusion on the list.

Many happy returns to all the living on the list and to the dead, thanks for all the memories. 
 
Predictor: Robert A. Heinlein in his 1956 book The Door Into Summer

Prediction: In 2000, there were seven million people in Great Los Angeles.

Reality: In the city proper, there were about 3.7 million in 2000. In the region, there were about 16.4 million, so Heinlein's off by about a factor of two whichever geographical area he meant, probably the second one.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

Those three little words... OMNI Future Almanac. 

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

3 comments:

  1. Carol Burnett relevant:

    https://youtu.be/3qqE_WmagjY

    ReplyDelete
  2. McKenzie Westmore and her dad (their extended family includes a LOT of makeup artists,) both appear on SyFy's Face Off, a movie makeup reality show.

    McKenzie is the host, and is a woman with the kind of statuesque beauty and fashion sense that Univision soap operas like to employ to slap each other in the face.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't know what she was like at the age of three when she and De Niro hit it off, but she's certainly va-va-voomy now.

      Delete

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