Wednesday, February 8, 2006

 

Spotlight: Film icon James Dean would have been 75 today. The brooding young actor's three most famous films, East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause (both in 1955) and Giant (1956), were all made in just over a year. Dean had acted in New York, both on stage and in TV; Hollywood producers who saw his Broadway appearance in André Gide's The Immoralist brought him to California and to Warner Bros., which cast him in East of Eden. Dean was killed in an automobile accident right after finishing filming on Giant, on September 30, 1955.

Quote: "Being an actor is the loneliest thing in the world... Being a good actor isn't easy. Being a man is even harder. I want to be both before I'm done." – James Dean

Word of the day: posthumous: occurring after one's death; James Dean is the only actor in history to receive more than one Oscar nomination posthumously. (© )

Today's News:

• Haiti: election turnout huge; ex-leader Rene Preval is front-runner (story)
• Indonesia: dozens of new species discovered (story)
• Google: melding Google Talk with Gmail (story)

Today's History:

• Mary, Queen of Scots: was beheaded after being implicated in the Babington plot against Elizabeth I (1587)
• Russo-Japanese War: began with surprise attack by Japan on the Russian fleet at Port Arthur (1904)
• Nasdaq: world's first electronic stock exchange opened for business (1971)

Today's Birthdays:

• novelists: Jules Verne, Around the World in Eighty Days (1828-1905); John Grisham, The Firm (51)
• Martin Buber: Jewish philosopher (1878-1975)
• actors: Nick Nolte, Affliction (65); Gary Coleman of Diff'rent Strokes (38)