Cara Delevingne b. 1992 (Suicide Squad, Pan)
Keith Stanfield b. 1991 (The Purge: Anarchy)
Leah Pipes b. 1988 (The Originals, The Vampire Diaries, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Angel)
Electra and Elise Avellan b. 1986 (Grindhouse)
Charlotte Salt b. 1985 (Beowulf)
Natalie Mendoza b. 1981 (Code 46, BeastMaster [2000 TV], Farscape)
Dominique Swain b. 1980 (Journeyman)
Maggie Lawson b. 1980 (Gamer, Smallville, Pleasantville, Meego)
Casey Affleck b. 1975 (Interstellar)
Rebecca Gayheart b. 1971 (Dead Like Me, Invasion, Sliders, Earth 2)
Yvette Nicole Brown b. 1971 (Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, Repo Men, The Island)
Michael Ian Black b. 1971 (Reaper)
Ellory Elkayem b. 1970 (director, Return of the Living Dead: Rave to the Grave, Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis, Eight Legged Freaks, They Nest)
Katherine Kendall b. 1969 (Southland Tales, Firefly)
Andras Jones b. 1968 (The Attic Expeditions, Alien Nation [TV], A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama)
Brett Sexton b. 1967 (Surface, Birds of Prey, Vanilla Sky, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, The X Files, 3rd Rock from the Sun, Angel)
Peter Krause b. 1965 (Beastly, The Lost Room, The Truman Show, 3rd Rock from the Sun)
Bruce Greenwood b. 1956 (Star Trek Into Darkness, Star Trek, Super 8, National Treasure: Book of Secrets, Mee-Shee: The Water Giant, I, Robot, The Core, Sleepwalkers [TV], Deadly Nightmares [TV])
Sam J. Jones b. 1954 (Ted, Flash Gordon [2007 TV and 1980], Black Scorpion, Stargate SG-1, Earth Minus Zero)
Ray Abruzzo b. 1954 (The Burning Zone, Lois & Clark)
Jim Beaver b. 1950 (Revolution, Supernatural, Tremors [TV], Star Trek: Enterprise, 3rd Rock from the Sun, The X Files, Lois & Clark)
Bruce Solomon b. 1944 (Night of the Creeps, Twilight Zone [1986])
Dana Ivey b. 1941 (Addams Family Values, The Addams Family, Explorers)
Oliver Ford Davies b. 1939 (Game of Thrones, Star Wars: Episodes I, II and III, Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story, The Cloning of Joanna May, Moonbase 3)
George Hamilton b. 1939 (The Little Unicorn, Love at First Bite)
Carol Eve Rossen b. 1937 (Mr. Merlin, The Fury, The Stepford Wives, The Invaders, Twilight Zone)
Michael Coles b. 1936 died 26 April 2005 (The Satanic Rites of Dracula, Dracula A.D. 1972, Doctor Who and the Daleks)
Elizabeth Shepherd b. 1936 (The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne, Poltergeist: The Legacy, PSI Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal, Damien: Omen II, The Tomb of Ligeia)
William Goldman b. 1931 (screenwriter, Dreamcatcher, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, The Princess Bride, The Stepford Wives)
John Bluthal b. 1929 (Dark City, The Fifth Element, Spellbreaker: Secret of the Leprechauns, Leaping Leprechauns, Superman III, The Return of Captain Invincible, The Flying Sorcerer)
Dan Curtis b. 1927 died 27 March 2006 (writer, Dark Shadows, Frankenstein [1973 TV])
Ralph Nelson b. 1916 died 21 December 1987 (director, Charly, Twilight Zone)
Richard L. Bare b. 1913 (director, Twilight Zone)
Jane Wyatt b. 1910 died 20 October 2006 (Amityville: The Evil Escapes, Starman [TV], Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Gemini Man, Star Trek)
Oskar Homolka b. 1898 died 28 January 1978 (The Invisible Man [1976 TV], The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, The Invisible Woman)
Marion Lorne b. 1883 died 9 May 1968 (Bewitched)
Notes from the birthday list.
1. The Picture Slot. In previous years, the Picture Slot went to Sam J. Jones as Flash Gordon and Jane Wyatt as Spock's mom. Excluding those two, the most iconic genre actor is likely Marion Lorne as Aunt Clara from Bewitched. After that, I'd likely put Oliver Ford Davies, Maester Cressen in one episode of Game of Thrones and the unfortunately named Sio Bibble from the Star Wars prequels. (The story goes that George Lucas let his kids name characters in the sequels, which explains Mace Windu and Count Dooku. Nothing and no one will ever explain J**-J** B**ks to my satisfaction, and I might have to smack anyone who tries.) But I decided instead to honor one of my favorite screenwriters of all time, William Goldman. I can love movies for a lot of reasons, but when I was a kid, my first love was snappy dialogue, and The Princess Bride has as many quotable lines as Casablanca or All About Eve or Dr. Strangelove.
2. Canadian pre-spotted for your protection. Bruce Greenwood's career has taken him south of the border many times, with only a few Canadian genre shows to his name.
3. Nepotism more or less. Casey Affleck is Ben Affleck's kid brother and he does show up in some productions where Ben is one of the guys in charge - Good Will Hunting and Gone Baby Gone being the most notable - but Casey gets plenty of work on his own, so I'm not going to give this post the Nepotism FTW label.
Many happy returns to all the living on the list and to the dead, thanks for all the memories.
Prediction: One pound of good coal will evaporate nine pounds of water, equal to about 250 cubic inches, this doing 250 foot-tons of work. But Niagara performs the same amount of work at infinitely less cost.
Reality: As a mathematician, I quibble with "infinitely less cost", but this is still an interesting point of cost analysis. It's not like renewables are a brand spanking new idea, though we now understand costs to the environment as well. I am somewhat optimistic that we can wean ourselves off of fossil fuels, but longtime readers will know I'm unmovable commie scum deeply versed in Alinsky style treachery and deceit. (In all serious, if someone quotes Alinsky these days, you know it's someone off the deep end of the conservative side of the pool.)
Director Herbert Wise has died at the age of 90. he was born in Austria, but was part of the Kindertransport system that took European Jewish children and sent them to Britain. He did a lot of work on British TV and the highlight of his career for me is directing all twelve episodes of I, Claudius, still one of the highlights in the history of television. He is remembered he for the British TV version of The Woman in Black - recently redone with Daniel Radcliffe - and The Tenth Kingdom.
Best wishes to the family and friends of Herbert Wise, from a fan. He is never to be forgotten.
Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!
Thursday means a visit from Morris Ernst and his overly optimistic book from the 1950 entitled Utopia 1976.
Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!
I'm unmovable commie scum deeply versed in Alinsky style treachery and deceit.
ReplyDeleteI KNEW there was a reason I liked you...
...also, "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!"
DeleteI am a leaf on the wind.
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