P. G. Wodehouse

He was born Pelham Grenville Wodehouse on October 15, 1881 in Guildford, Surrey in South East England.

Wodehouse in 1930, aged 48

Pelham was the third son of Henry Ernest Wodehouse, a magistrate resident in the British colony of Hong Kong, and his wife, Eleanor, daughter of the Rev John Bathurst Deane.

The Wodehouses traced their ancestry back to the Boleyn family.

P. G. Wodehouse was one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. His novels and short stories feature elaborate plots and a unique writing style based on a combination of very formal language, references to classical literature, and contemporary club-room slang.

His first novel was a school story called The Pothunters, serialised incomplete in Public School Magazine in early 1902, and issued in full in hardback on September 18, 1902.

First edition Wikipedia

After starting out with school stories, Wodehouse later switched to comic fiction, creating several regular comic characters who became familiar to the public, most famously the jolly gentleman of leisure Bertie Wooster and his invaluable and impeccable man-servant, Jeeves.

Percy Jeeves, a popular Warwickshire fast bowler, was the inspiration for Wodehouse's man-servant. The author witnessed the cricketer bowling at Cheltenham Cricket Festival in 1913. Jeeves died in the Battle of Somme during World War I, less than a year after the first appearance of the Wodehouse  character who would make his name a household word.

The fictional character Aunt Agatha in the Jeeves novels was based on Wodehouse's own aunt, Mary Bathurst Deane.

Other comic characters created by Wodehouse include the immaculate and loquacious Psmith; Lord Emsworth of Blandings Castle with his pig, the Empress of Blandings; the disaster-prone opportunist Ukridge; the Oldest Member, with stories about golf; and Mr Mulliner, with tales on numerous subjects from film studios to the Church of England.

Wodehouse reached the peak of his productivity in the 1930s, averaging two books each year, and grossing an annual £100,000.

Kaiser Wilhelm II read P.G. Wodehouse aloud to his entourage, glaring at them when they failed to laugh.

In the mid 1900s, the young American composer Jerome Kern was writing for shows at London's Aldwych Theatre. In early 1906 the Aldwych Theatre actor-manager Seymour Hicks invited Wodehouse to join Kern and add topical verses to the shows running there.

Wodehouse aged 23

The first Kern-Wodehouse collaboration, a comic number for The Beauty of Bath titled "Mr [Joseph] Chamberlain", was a show-stopper and was briefly the most popular song in London.

Towards the end of 1915 Jerome Kern introduced Wodehouse to the writer Guy Bolton, who became Wodehouse's closest friend and a regular collaborator.

Wodehouse also wrote scripts and screenplays and, in August 1911, his script A Gentleman of Leisure was produced on the Broadway stage.

His writing for plays also turned into movie scriptwriting, starting with the 1915 film A Gentleman of Leisure. He joined Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in 1930 for a year, and then worked for RKO Pictures in 1937.

Wodehouse's only advice for would-be writers was "apply the seat of the trousers to the surface of the chair."

Wodehouse moved to France in 1934 for tax reasons where he bought a house near Le Touquet in the north.

In 1940 Wodehouse was taken prisoner at Le Touquet by the invading Germans and interned for nearly a year.

After his release, Wodehouse made some humorous broadcasts from German radio in Berlin. Though the talks were comic and apolitical, they were taken amiss in Britain at the time and there was a threat of prosecution. He never returned to England, living from 1947 until his death in the US.

Wodehouse was later exonerated and in 1974 the British prime minister, Harold Wilson, intervened to secure a knighthood for him which was announced in the January 1975 New Year Honours list.

He died of a heart attack in Southampton, New York on February 14, 1975 at the age of 93. Wodehouse was buried at Remsenburg Presbyterian Church four days later.

The Wizard of Oz

THE BOOK

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is an American children's novel written by author L. Frank Baum originally published on May 17, 1900.

Dorothy meets the Cowardly Lion, from the first edition

The full name of the Wizard of Oz in Frank Baum’s book was Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkle Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs.

Writer L. Frank Baum chose "Oz" as the name of the fantasy land in his The Wizard of Oz stories while making up the stories for his children and their friends. He spotted a file cabinet marked O-Z, and impulsively named the magical land was "Oz."

In the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Emerald City is not green but is just a regular city, and everyone who enters it is forced to wear green-tinted glasses.

There was a popular 1902 Broadway musical adaptation whose success led Baum to write thirteen additional Oz books that serve as official sequels to the first story.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz sold three million copies by the time it entered the public domain in 1956.

THE FILM

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was famously adapted in the 1939 film starring Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, and Bert Lahr. It was considered innovative because of its songs, special effects, and revolutionary use of the new Technicolor.

Theatrical release poster

The Wizard of Oz had its red-carpet premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood on August 15, 1939. The premiere was a star-studded event, with many of the film's cast and crew in attendance. Judy Garland, who played Dorothy Gale, arrived at the theater in a white gown and a blue ribbon in her hair. The other stars of the film, including Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, and Bert Lahr, were also there.

When The Wizard of Oz premiered at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, over ten thousand spectators showed up.

The role of Dorothy Gale, given to Judy Garland, was originally to be played by Shirley Temple or Deanna Durbin. The wizard role was written for W.C. Fields — but he turned it down when MGM Studios refused to pay his asking price.

In the original novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Dorothy wore silver shoes. They used Ruby slippers in the movie to take advantage of the new Technicolor film.

The Cowardly Lion, Dorothy, Scarecrow, and the Tin Man

Due to the stubborn nature of French Bulldogs, Toto in The Wizard of Oz had to be recast as a terrier.

A cairn terrier named Terry was paid $125 a week to play the dog Toto in The Wizard Of Oz. Judy Garland, who played Dorothy was paid $500 a week.

A canine double played Toto when Terry was recovering from being stepped on by an actor.

The Cowardly Lion’s costume in The Wizard of Oz was made from a real lion skin.

The Cowardly Lion's facial makeup included a brown paper bag. Bert Lahr couldn't eat without ruining his makeup. Tired of eating soup and milkshakes, he decided to eat lunch and have his makeup redone.

The Wizard of Oz saved the lives of the "munchkins." In 1938, the Nazis plan was "exterminating undesirables," including those born with a physical impairment. Landing their roles allowed them to escape Nazi Germany and come to US. They couldn't speak English; their voices are someone else's.

The snow used in the Wizard of Oz was 100% pure asbestos.

The tornado in The Wizard of Oz is just a 35 foot (10.7 metres) stocking blown by artificial wind and dirt held up by a "gantry" on a set - the gantry cost more than the whole anticipated budget for the entire scene; $218,347.23 in today's money.

"Over the Rainbow" is a ballad composed by Harold Arlen with lyrics by Yip Harburg for The Wizard of Oz. It was sung by actress Judy Garland in her starring role as Dorothy. Arlen wrote its melody while on a drive with his wife.

"Over the Rainbow" won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and became Garland's signature song. It was voted song of the century by the Recording Industry Association of America.

"Over the Rainbow" was nearly cut from The Wizard of Oz as it was deemed too long. It isn't even three minutes.

The Wizard of Oz received one negative review, from the New Yorker, whose film critic despised the film's "Vulgarity [of] raw, eye-straining Technicolor" and "Singer Midgets".

While The Wizard of Oz was considered a critical success upon release, it failed to make a profit for MGM until the 1949 re-release, earning only $3,017,000 on a $2,777,000 budget, not including promotional costs, which made it MGM's most expensive production at that time.

 Liza Minelli, daughter of Judy Garland, was once married to Jack Haley, Jr., son of Jack Haley, the actor who played the Tin Man in the same film. He was Minnelli’s second husband.

A blue and white gingham dress worn by 17-year-old Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz sold for $266,000 (£140,000) at an auction in 2005. The dress, which has a 27in waist and Garland's name sewn on the inside hem, was one of six made for the 1939 film.

The Wizard of Oz original camera negatives are stored 650 feet underground in a Kansas salt mine.

THE MUSICAL

Wicked is a Broadway musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz , which premiered on May 28, 2003 at the Curran Theatre, San Francisco. It is based on the Gregory Maguire novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (published in 1995), itself a retelling of the classic 1900 novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Touring cast members in the curtain call at a show in Omaha, Nebraska, By Cornstalker

The writer of Wicked thought of Elphaba's name by using the initials of L. Frank Baum - L.F.B. = El-pha-ba.

In July 2017, Wicked surpassed The Phantom of the Opera as Broadway's second-highest grossing musical, trailing only The Lion King.

Bruce Willis

EARLY LIFE 

He was born Walter Bruce Willis on March 19, 1955, in the town of Idar-Oberstein, West Germany.

Willis at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival

Bruce's father, David Willis, was an American soldier. His mother, Marlene, was German.

After being discharged from the military in 1957, Bruce's father took his family back to Carneys Point Township, New Jersey. His mom worked in a bank and his dad was a welder, master mechanic, and factory worker.

He had severe stuttering problems as a child. Bruce discovered the stutter disappeared while performing in a school play through the memorization of lines. While studying acting in college it was the combination of acting and speech therapy which helped him overcome his condition.

CAREER 

After graduating from high school in 1973, Willis was briefly employed as a security guard and a private investigator.

He studied drama for a couple of years at Montclair State University before dropping out and moving to New York City, where he worked as a bartender at the art bar Kamikaze on West 19th Street.

His first movie role was an extra in 1980's The First Deadly Sin. In the scene below, Willis is the second person to enter the diner. The tall one with the hat.

Willis' breakthrough came in 1985 when he auditioned for the role of David Addison Jr. the co-lead in the television comedy drama series Moonlighting. Competing against 3,000 other actors, he won the part.

Willis is also a musician; he released his debut album, The Return of Bruno on Motown, in 1987.

The record included a cover version of The Staples Singers' "Respect Yourself", which was a #5 hit in the US. Willis was the first white male solo act to hit the Top 5 with a record on the Motown label, and only the second white male solo act - after R. Dean Taylor's "Indiana Wants Me" - to be so successful for the Motown Corporation.

Willis became one of Hollywood's biggest stars as a result of his role as Lt. John McClane in the Die Hard franchise (1988–2013). When Die Hard was first made, Willis was mostly known for TV. and his $5 million fee for the first film was seen as a huge risk. The movie ended up taking at least $140 million.

He was offered the role as Sam Wheat for Ghost (1990) but turned it down because he didn't think the film would work with the main character being dead most of the movie.

The Honda Civic that Butch (Bruce Willis) drove in Pulp Fiction was the same Honda Civic that Pam Grier later drove in Jackie Brown.

He was forced to sign a three picture deal with Disney after pulling out of The Broadway Brawler, a romantic comedy about a hockey player. The three movies Willis made were Armageddon, The Sixth Sense, and The Kid. The movies combined to gross an estimated $1.3 billion worldwide.

Bruce Willis was the first actor to ever "act" in a video game, when in 1998, he participated in the PlayStation game Apocalypse, No one before had ever done voice work along with having their movements digitally added to the game.

He only agreed to guest star on Friends after losing a bet with his The Whole Nine Yards co-star Mathew Perry. Willis played the father of Ross Geller's much-younger girlfriend on a three episode arc and won an Emmy in 2000 for his performance. He donated his acting fee to five charities.

Willis made his Broadway debut in the stage adaptation of Misery in 2015.

Willis' daughter Rumer announced on March 30, 2022 that he was retiring from acting after being diagnosed with aphasia.

PERSONAL LIFE 

He proposed to actress Demi Moore at Pink's Hot Dog Stand in Hollywood. They married on November 21, 1987.

Willis and Moore announced their separation on June 24, 1998 and they filed for divorce 28 months later.

Demi Moore in 2010. By David Shankbone

Willis married model Emma Heming in Turks and Caicos on March 21, 2009. The ceremony was not legally binding, so the couple wed again in a civil ceremony in Beverly Hills, six days later.

He has five daughters, three by his first marriage - Rumer, Tallulah and Scout, plus two  by his second marriage - Mabel and Evelyn.

He is a co-founder of the theme restaurant chain Planet Hollywood, along with fellow actors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone.

While filming Die Hard, Willis got too close to a firing gun, which caused two-thirds partial hearing loss in his left ear.

Bruce Willis once bought 12,000 girl-scout cookies for military service members in the Middle East.

In 2003, Willis visited Iraq as part of the USO tour, singing to the troops with his group, The Accelerators.

Willis in Tikrit, Iraq, during his 2003 USO tour

He personally offered $1 million to any civilian who captured Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

The 42nd Golden Raspberry Awards, recognizing the “worst” in film for 2021, introduced a one-time category titled “Worst Performance by Bruce Willis in a 2021 Movie.” In an unusual move, all eight of Willis’s film performances released that year were simultaneously nominated, effectively creating a category devoted entirely to a single actor. The “award” ultimately went to his role in the science fiction film Cosmic Sin.

Within days of the winners being announced, Willis’s family made public that he had been diagnosed with aphasia, a language disorder that affects communication, and that he would be retiring from acting. In light of this revelation, the organizers of the Golden Raspberry Awards rescinded the Bruce Willis category and its associated “worst performance” dishonor, stating that it was inappropriate to satirize an actor’s work when a medical condition might have impaired his performances.

On March 30,  2022 Bruce Willis’ family announced that he would step away from acting after being diagnosed with aphasia. Just under a year later, his family said his “condition has progressed” to frontotemporal dementia.

Robin Williams

EARLY LIFE 

Robin Williams was born in Chicago, Illinois on July 21, 1951.

His father Robert Williams worked for Ford Motor Company. His mother Laura McLaurin (née Smith) was a former model from New Orleans, Louisiana.

Photo of Robin Williams, as printed on the March 12, 1979, cover of Time magazine, 

Robin Williams was one of just 20 students accepted into Julliard School in New York City in 1973. While his comedic genius was immediately obvious, he wasn't taken seriously until his portrayal of a wheelchair-bound old man in the Tennessee Williams play The Night of the Iguana during a third-year acting class.

He dropped out during his junior year in 1976 at the recommendation of his professor because his professor told Williams, "there was nothing more Juilliard could teach him."

Christopher Reeve was Williams' roommate and best friend at Juilliard. William Hurt and Mandy Patinkin were also classmates.

When Williams was first starting out, he performed as a mime outside New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art to make money. A photographer took pictures of a street mime in Central Park in 1974, and 35 years later discovered it was Robin Williams before he was famous.

CAREER 

After his family moved to Marin County, California, Williams began his career doing stand-up comedy shows in the San Francisco Bay Area in the mid-1970s. His first performance took place at the Holy City Zoo, a comedy club in San Francisco, where he worked his way up from tending bar to getting on stage.

Redd Foxx gave Pat Morita $3,500 to help with the down payment on his first home when Morita was a struggling comic, with the condition that he pay it forward instead of repaying Foxx. This happened after they became friends while working on Sanford and Son. Years later, Morita, having found success, saw a young Robin Williams perform in San Francisco, where Williams jokingly mentioned his financial struggles. After the show, Morita gave him $3,500—the same amount Foxx had given him—and told Williams to pay it forward, which Williams reportedly did.

Williams became famous for his role as Mork in the television series Mork & Mindy (1978–1982). 

Mork first appears in the Happy Days season five episode "My Favorite Orkan", which aired in February 1978 and is a take on the 1960s sitcom My Favorite Martian. The costume Robin Williams used as Mork on Happy Days was originally used in the Star Trek episode "The Savage Curtain."

Three cameras were standard in multi cam television filming prior to the 1970s; then Garry Marshall needed a fourth camera to solely follow Robin Williams during Mork & Mindy filming, since Williams was so unpredictable with his physical comedy.

Williams went on to a successful career in both stand-up comedy and movie acting.

Williams appeared in the music video for "Don't Worry, Be Happy" by Bobby McFerrin. He also had a cameo in "You Make Me Feel..." by Cobra Starship,

Williams said his favorite celebrity to impersonate was Jack Nicholson.

Williams December 2011 By Eva Rinaldi 

To cope while filming Schindlers' List, Steven Spielberg would call Robin Williams for 15 minutes every day to hear him do stand up over the phone.

When Robin Williams appeared on Inside the Actors Studio in 2001, an audience member developed a hernia from laughing too hard, and had to be taken away in an ambulance.

MOVIES 

Most of the radio broadcasts that Robin Williams delivered in the 1989 movie Good Morning Vietnam were improvised by him.

Robin Williams provided 14 hours of improvised lines for his first animated voice work in 1991's Ferngully: The Last Rainforest. Originally given an 8-minute part, after impressing the director, Williams' screen time was tripled.

In 1992, in Disney's Aladdin, Williams ad-libbed so many of his lines as the Genie that the film reportedly could not be nominated for the best screenplay Oscar.

Robin Williams only made $75,000 for voicing the Genie in Aladdin. After grossing over $200 million, Disney sent him a Picasso painting.

The hit movie 1993 Mrs. Doubtfire was originally written as a movie spin off for the TV show Home Improvement. It's star Tim Allen turned down the role of two characters and the idea was scrapped, re-written and handed over to Robin Williams.

During the filming of Mrs. Doubtfire, Robin Williams improvised so much that there were PG, PG-13, R, and NC-17 edits of the film.

It took four-and-a-half hours to apply Robin Williams' makeup for the role of Mrs. Doubtfire.

Williams received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as psychologist Sean Maguire in 1997's Good Will Hunting.

PERSONAL LIFE 

He was married three times. Williams wed Valerie Velardi in 1978. They divorced ten years later. In 1989, Williams married film producer Marsha Garces. She divorced him in 2008. Williams married graphic designer Susan Schneider in 2011. Their marriage lasted until Williams' death in 2014.

His daughter Zelda Rae Williams (b July 31, 1989) became an actress. Williams also had two sons named Zachary and Cody.

Williams was an enthusiast of video games. His daughter Zelda was named after the title character from The Legend of Zelda, a family favorite video game series.

Zelda Williams 2011. By PopCultureGeek.com -

Robin Williams' favorite television shows were Doctor Who and Star Trek.

Williams was an alcoholic and was also addicted to cocaine.  One month before his death, Williams went to rehab for his alcoholism. At the time he was suffering from severe depression.

DEATH 

On August 11, 2014, Robin Williams committed suicide at his home in Paradise Cay, California. He was 63-years-old.

The day after Robin Williams' suicide, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline fielded the greatest number of calls in its history.

Suicides nationwide increased by 10 percent after Robin Williams’ death; researchers found a convincing parallel between the increase and sensationalized coverage/headlines of his passing that violated CDC guidelines, focusing on the method of death.

Robin Williams had been asked to appear for the final night of Monty Python Live a month before he committed suicide. He declined citing 'severe depression'. The DVD of the night was dedicated to Williams upon release.

Robin Williams' ashes were scattered over San Francisco Bay.

Robin Williams' will prevents Disney from using his name, taped performances or voice recordings being used for 25 years after his death.

After Robin Williams' passing, Disney wanted to make a new Aladdin movie featuring Williams' unused Genie outtakes from the previous films. However, this was forbidden by the clause in Williams' will forbidding using his voice recordings, until 2039, after which they will be able to create Aladdin 2 using the film legend's real voice.

Three months after Robin Williams' death, they discovered that he had a rare brain disease called Lewy body dementia that was one of the worst cases ever seen.

On December 16, 2014, it was revealed that, as a result of his death, Williams was the fastest growing search term on Google in 2014.

John Wayne

John Wayne was the archetypal Western star. His films included Stagecoach (1939), The Searchers (1956) and True Grit (1969).

Pixiebay

He was born Marion Morrison on May 26, 1907 at 224 South Second Street in Winterset, Iowa.

Marion moved as a child to Glendale, California. A football star at Glendale High School, he attended the University of Southern California on a scholarship but dropped out after two years as a result of a bodysurfing accident, He tore ligaments in his shoulder while riding the surf near Balboa Pier.

After finding work locally as a movie studio laborer, Wayne befriended director John Ford, then a rising talent.

His first acting jobs were bit parts in which he was credited as Duke Morrison. "Duke" was a nickname derived from the name of a beloved childhood pet, a huge Airedale Terrier.

Wayne's college buddy, director Raoul Walsh, saw him moving studio furniture while working as a prop boy and cast him in his first starring role in The Big Trail (1930).

It was during this time that Marion Morrison became "John Wayne," when Raoul Walsh didn't think Marion was a good name for an actor playing a tough western hero.

Only leading roles in B movies followed during the 1930s, most of them also Westerns. Wayne's career was rejuvenated when John Ford's Stagecoach was released on March 2, 1939. Wayne's role as The Ringo Kid made him an instant mainstream star. Stagecoach was actually his 80th feature film. 

John Wayne wore a toupee beginning in about 1948. Wayne felt more confident wearing his toupee and never denied it. He often joked saying "It's not phony, it's real hair. Of course, it's not mine, but it's real."

Joseph Stalin ordered the KGB to kill John Wayne because he considered his anti-communist rhetoric a threat to the Soviet Union. He allegedly sent more than one hit squad to do the job.

When Nikita Khrushchev visited the United States he made two requests: to visit Disneyland and meet John Wayne.

Pixiebay

On May 31, 1956, Buddy Holly went to the movies. He saw the John Wayne film The Searchers, where Wayne repeatedly says, "That'll be the day."

On April 7, 1970 John Wayne, a movie veteran of around 150 films, won his first and only Academy Award for his role as a cantankerous one-eyed marshal in True Grit.

Studio Directors knew to film John Wayne's scenes before noon, because by the afternoon he was a 'real mean drunk'.

John Wayne did a commercial for Australian shoe company Grosby's when he was in Australia for an award show. He only took a small fee as he was impressed that the small ad agency representing them had actually asked him.

America, Why I Love Her, A LP of poetry read by John Wayne reached #66 on the US albums chart. Released on March 1, 1973, the record consists of patriotic poems written by actor John Mitchum, the brother of Robert Mitchum.

John Wayne had an 18-inch neck.

He smoked six packs of cigarettes a day.

Wayne had lung cancer in the 1960s. He had his left lung removed in 1964 and was declared cancer free five years later. Wayne has been credited with coining the term "The Big C" as a euphemism for cancer.

He made his last public appearance at the Academy Awards ceremony on April 9, 1979.

John Wayne played the leading role in 142 of his 153 movies. 83 of his lead roles were in Westerns.

Wayne's 142 movies, in a career spanning 50 years, grossed a half-billion dollars or more.

John Wayne died at age 72 on June 11, 1979 from stomach cancer. The cancer was likely caused by radiation poisoning. 91 other cast and crew also developed cancers after shooting The Conqueror downwind from recent US government nuclear weapons tests in 1956. By the end of 1980, 46 members of the film’s cast and crew had died from some form of the disease.

Despite the suggestion that Wayne's lung cancer in the 1960s also was a  result of nuclear contamination, the actor himself believed it was a result of his six-pack-a-day cigarette habit.

The house in Winterset, Iowa, where Wayne was born in 1907 is below. The John Wayne Birthplace Museum is located near the downtown area at 216 South 2nd Street.

Here is a list of songs inspired by John Wayne. 

Video recorder

A video recorder is a device that, when linked to a television set, can be used for recording on and playing videotapes.

Video-cassette player model LG-C240M 

Video recording dates back to 1927, when John Logie Baird used wax discs.

Bing Crosby was heavily involved in the initial development of both audio and videotape recording in the late 1940s and early 1950s.  He funded an electronics lab, to develop audio and video recording primarily for use on his own television and radio projects.

The first video recorder was demonstrated at Bing Crosby Enterprises in Beverly Hills, California in 1952.

Ampex introduced the Quadruplex videotape professional broadcast standard format with its Ampex VRX-1000 in 1956. It was the size of a large freezer.

The Ampex VRX-100 became the world's first commercially successful videotape recorder using two-inch (5.1 cm) wide tape. it quickly obscuring Crosby's early videotape format

Ampex VRX-1000 - the first video tape 

The half-inch tape Sony model CV-2000, first marketed in 1965, was their first Videotape recorder intended for home use.

In 1970, Philips developed a home video cassette format which was made available on the consumer market in 1972. Philips named this format "Video Cassette Recording". It used square cassettes and half-inch (1.3 cm) tape, mounted on coaxial reels, giving a recording time of one hour.

Philips' first mass-market video cassette recorder, available in the United Kingdom in 1972 cost nearly £600.

June 7th is Betamax Day, marking Sony's introduction of their first videocassette recorder on this date in 1975. It sold for $995.

The VHS (Video Home System) was created in 1976 by the Victor Company of Japan (also called JVC).

In the 1980s, VHS was involved in a format war with Sony's Betamax. Betamax's smaller-sized cassettes were not able to contain as much magnetic tape as VHS cassettes. This meant that Sony had to slow the tape speed down to 0.787 ips (Beta II) in order to reach two hours of video recording in the same cassette size. This meant that the television picture produced by a Betamax tape was worse than VHS when comparing two-hour recordings, so consumers preferred the VHS-format VCRs. Sony eventually released a longer Betamax cassette called Beta III which allowed NTSC Betamax to record more than two hours, but by then VHS had already won the format war.

Videocassette recorders at first were mainly used to record programs from television broadcasts. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, many people used VCRs to record their favorite television shows to watch them later.

In 1975 Marion Stokes, a Philadelphia woman got a Betamax magnetic videotape recorder and began recording bits of sitcoms, science documentaries, and political news coverage. From the outset of the Iran Hostage Crisis on November 4, 1979, she began taping whatever was on television and didn't stop until her death in 2012. The 71,000 VHS and Betamax tapes she made are the most complete collection preserving this era of TV.

In the early 1980s film companies tried to make it illegal due to the possibility of recording copyrighted material, in a case which reached the Supreme Court. The head of the MPAA compared the effect of the VCR on television to that of the Boston Strangler on women.

In 1984 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that using a home video recorder to tape movies and television shows for non-commercial purposes did not violate federal copyright law. The decision paved the way for an explosion of the technology in American homes.

By the mid-1980s, VCRs had become a very popular way for people to watch movies on their home television. Video rental stores opened up offering a large selection of films recorded on VHS tapes that customers could rent.

The first Blockbuster video-rental store opened, in Dallas, Texas on October 19, 1985 and by 1989, a new blockbuster store was opening in the United States every 17 hours.

A Blockbuster store in Durham, North Carolina By Ildar Sagdejev (Specious)

By 1995, the Blockbuster video rental chain had more than 4,500 stores. The company made $785 million in profits on $2.4 billion in revenues: a profit margin of over 30 percent. Much of this profit came from "late fees" on overdue rentals.

At its peak in 2004, Blockbuster employed 84,300 people worldwide and had 9,094 stores in total, with more than 4,500 of these in the US.

Blockbuster began to lose significant revenue during the 2000s, and the company filed for bankruptcy on September 23, 2010. On April 6, 2011, Blockbuster and its remaining 1,700 stores were bought by the satellite television company Dish Network. The stores remained open until Dish closed all company-owned locations in 2013.

Family Video still operates over 500 stores in Canada and the USA. They own the real estate where their stores are located and they own all of the media they rent out so they keep all of the profits. This is why they were able to outlast other video rental businesses like Blockbuster.

In the late 1990s and throughout the 2000s, the DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) player replaced the VCR as the most common way to watch movies on a home television. The DVD and Blu-ray became more popular as they are easier to use, the quality is higher, they last longer, and the discs and players are cheaper to make.

2006 marked the end of the VHS era with the release of A History of Violence, the last VHS release for a major Hollywood film. 

Consumer digital video recorders ReplayTV and TiVo were launched at the 1999 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada.

In contrast to VCRs, hard-disk based digital video recorders make "time shifting" more convenient and also allow for functions such as pausing live television, instant replay, viewing a recording before it has been completed and skipping over advertising during playback.

The world's last VHS player was made in June 2016 by Japan's Funai Electric.

Rudolph Valentino

The archetypical romantic lead of the silent movie era was born Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Piero Filiberto Guglielmi in Castellaneta, Italy on May 6, 1895.

After moving to New York, Valentino worked as a gardener, a busboy, and as a taxi driver.

Rudolph Valentino's movie career started with his appearance as an uncredited extra in My Official Wife (1914), although this is now a lost film.

He featured in several films in a minor role until 1921. Valentino got his major break when he appeared in the role of Julio in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and he went on to play leading roles in fourteen films as a romantic figure.

The films in which Valentino played a romantic role within the action genre were the more successful at the box office including The Sheik (1921) and his final two works The Eagle (1925) and The Son of the Sheik (1926).

Valentino's fans were eager to hear him sing. On May 14, 1923, Valentino made two vocal recordings for Brunswick Records, "Kashmiri Song" and "El Relicario." Valentino's voice was not classically trained, but it was clear and expressive. He had a natural talent for singing, and his voice was well-suited to the romantic ballads that he performed. The recordings were not a commercial success, but they did provide fans with a rare glimpse into Valentino's singing voice.

Rudolph Valentino impulsively married actress, Jean Acker on November 6, 1919. A closet lesbian, she locked him out of her bedroom on their wedding night. The union was never consummated and the pair divorced two years later.

Valentino enjoyed gardening, riding, hunting for small game, collecting mussels along the sea shore and walking in the desert near Palm Springs.

Valentino did not live long enough to see movies with sound replace silent movies. He died suddenly of peritonitis on August 23, 1926, at the age of 31. The subsequent extensive media coverage turned his funeral into a national event when an estimated 100,000 people lined the streets of Manhattan to pay their respects.

Toy Story

Toy Story is a 1995 American computer animated fantasy comedy adventure movie directed by John Lassiter. 

It was the first Disney/Pixar animated movie and the first animated movie to be completely done with computers instead of hand-drawn animation. 

Wikipedia

At Pixar, Lasseter created short, computer-animated films to show off the Pixar Image Computer's capabilities, and the 1988 short Tin Toy – a story told from the perspective of a toy, referencing Lasseter's love of classic toys—would go on to claim the 1988 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, the first computer-generated film to do so.

In the 1990s, Disney approached Lasseter about creating a Christmas special follow-up to Tin Toy, called A Tin Toy Christmas. Originally the film was going to only be six minutes long, but Lasseter asked for 30 minutes. Peter Schneider, former President of Walt Disney Studios, then green-lit a full-length feature instead.

Pixar made the movie while Disney packaged it and sold the reels of the movie to movie theaters. 

Toy Story was released on November 22, 1995. Due to tension between Pixar and Disney over whose film it really was, Toy Story had two premiers, one hosted by Disney and one hosted by Pixar chairman Steve Jobs. Disney invited actors and other Hollywood celebrities, Jobs invited people from the tech industry.

“Toy Story” wasn't the original film title. During production, the crew used the working name “Toy Story” - which they decided to keep - but other titles for the film included "Toyz in the Hood", "The Cowboy & The Spaceman", "I'm With Stupid" and "Did Not, Did Too."

Toy Story had many rejected titles when looking for an official one, some of these including "Toyz in the Hood" and "The Cowboy & The Spaceman", in the end however they went with Toy Story which was originally just a temporary placeholder name during the creation of the project.

Director John Lasseter revealed that his own childhood toys inspired the characters of Woody and Buzz Lightyear. 

John Lasseter (left) holding the action figure of Buzz Lightyear,

In the film's first test, Buzz Lightyear was originally called Tempus From Morph. It was later changed to Lunar Larry and then Buzz Lightyear to honor Apollo 11 astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin.

Comic actor Tim Allen is the voice of Buzz Lightyear, but Jim Carrey was one of several people considered for the role. Billy Crystal was originally offered the part of Buzz, but he declined. Crystal later said in an interview that it was the biggest mistake of his career.

Sheriff Woody Pride is voiced by Tom Hanks in the feature-length films and short films. Tom Hanks' brother, Jim Hanks, provides the voice for Woody in the Toy Story video games, short films, toys and basically anything that isn't the Pixar movies.

Woody was based on a pull-string Casper doll Lassiter once owned. He was originally a spooky-looking ventriloquist doll and was mean to the other toys. Disney felt a ventriloquist would be too scary for children, so Lasseter changed him to a pull-string toy. He also gave Woody a different, much nicer personality.

Woody as he appears in Toy Story 3

The Space Ranger took inspiration from the superior GI Joe action figure that the young Lassiter moved on to when he grew bored of his pull-string Casper doll.

Woody’s owner Andy was named after and based on Andy Luckey, the son of legendary animator Bud Luckey, Pixar's fifth employee and the creator of Sheriff Woody Pride. 

In all three Toy Story movies the number 95 is sprinkled throughout several scenes. The number is a reference to 1995, when the first film was released.

In their most productive week, the Pixar team animated 3½ minutes of the film Toy Story.

The toys never blink both eyes at the same time, instead blinking one eye at a time. It's an animation trope called ‘Offset Blink’. 

While Toy Story 2 was in production, an employee accidentally deleted the film. Luckily, a pregnant animator had a copy on her home computer since she wanted to work while taking care of her new baby.

The Etch a Sketch's appearance in Toy Story 2 increased sales of the product by 20% and saved The Ohio Art Company from financial ruin.

Sources NME, IBTimes

Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was born in London on February 27, 1932. Her parents, Francis Lenn Taylor and Sara Sothern, were originally from Arkansas City, Kansas and were living in England. They returned to the United States on the onset of World War II. 

Colorized Film still of Elizabeth Taylor, late 1950s.

FILM CAREER

Elizabeth Taylor began her movie career as a child actress in the early 1940s, making her screen debut in a minor role in There's One Born Every Minute (1942). Her breakthrough role in National Velvet (1944), made her one of Hollywood's most popular teenage stars. 

Mickey Rooney and Taylor in National Velvet (1944), 

Taylor made the transition to adult roles in the early 1950s, when she starred in the comedy Father of the Bride (1950) and the following year received critical acclaim for her performance in the drama A Place in the Sun alongside Montgomery Clift. 

Working steadily during the 1950s, Taylor's notable movies  included; Giant (1956), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), Suddenly last Summer (1959), Butterfield 8 (1960).

In 1963, Taylor played the lead role in the hugely expensive Cleopatra opposite Richard Burton, This was, of course, the film that kick started their fiery and passionate romance (plus two marriages).

Richard Burton as Mark Antony with Taylor as Cleopatra in Cleopatra (1963)

Elizabeth Taylor had a record 65 costume changes playing the title role in Cleopatra, and received Hollywood's first million dollar contract for her part. 

Taylor won two Academy Awards for best actress, the first for her performance in Butterfield 8, the second for her performance in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

In 1999 Taylor won the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award, a lifetime achievement award. 

She has appeared twice on The Simpsons – once as herself and once saying Maggie's first word "Daddy." It took Taylor 24 takes to get the voice of a baby, because Matt Groening said: 'They were always too sexual.'"

PRIVATE LIFE

Taylor often received media attention because of her seven husbands and eight marriages. Her marriage partners were Nicky Hilton, Michael Wilding, Mike Todd, Eddie Fisher, Richard Burton (twice), John Warner and Larry Fortensky.

She had two sons with Michael Wilding and a daughter with Mike Todd. Taylor also adopted a daughter while married to Richard Burton. 

Taylor with her third husband Mike Todd and her three children in 1957

On January 29, 1951, Elizabeth Taylor was divorced from U.S. hotel heir Conrad Hilton Jnr — the first of her eight marriages, to seven men, to fail.

Elizabeth Taylor almost called off her wedding to film producer Mike Todd on February 4, 1957. The ceremony, at the beach resort of Acapulco, Mexico, was delayed for more than an hour before Todd convinced the highly strung actress to go through with it. Singer Eddie Fisher was best man and his wife Debbie Reynolds was maid of honor. 

Fisher went on to marry Taylor after an affair following Todd's death in a plane crash.

Taylor's marriages to Richard Burton lasted from March 15, 1964 to June 26, 1974 and from October 10, 1975 to July 29, 1976. Their first wedding was at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Montreal.

Richard Burton indulged Taylor's love of jewellery. He once gave her a £127,000 ring "just because it was a Tuesday."

Taylor made 11 films with Richard Burton, plus one made-for-TV movie in 1973 entitled Divorce His, Divorce Hers, about a couple whose marriage had ended. Just a year after that film's release, the real-life couple of Taylor and Burton got divorced for the first time.

Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton secretly married for the second time at a game park in Botswana on October 10, 1975, 16 months after getting divorced.

In 1991 Michael Jackson gave Elizabeth Taylor away to Larry Fortensky during her eighth wedding, held at Jackson's 2,700-acre Neverland estate near Los Angeles.

Elizabeth Taylor was the godmother of two of Michael Jackson's children. 

FASHION

Taylor was the first celebrity to create her own collection of fragrances. In collaboration with Elizabeth Arden, Inc., she began by launching two best-selling perfumes – Passion in 1987, and White Diamonds in 1991. 

£40m ($50m) worth of Elizabeth Taylor's White Diamonds perfume was bought in 2010. making it the best-selling celebrity perfume. According to biographers Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger, Taylor earned more money through the fragrance collection than during her entire acting career.

Taylor promoting her first fragrance, Passion, in 1987. By SMU Central University Libraries

Elizabeth Taylor allegedly wouldn't let anyone else on her movie sets wear the same shade of lipstick as her.

Her vast collection of fine jewelry purchased by her and given to her as gifts are well documented in her jewelry autobiography My Love Affair With Jewelry that came out in 2002.

Eighty pieces of jewellery that had belonged to Elizabeth Taylor sold for $116 million (£74.9 million) in 2011, including the fabulous Krupp diamond, the 33.19 carat ring given to her by Richard Burton. He bought it at an auction for $ 307,000 (£ 230,000) in 1968 and presented it to Taylor on board their yacht while moored on the Thames in London.

BELIEFS 

Elizabeth Taylor converted to Judaism on March 28, 1959, taking the Hebrew name Elisheba Rachel, a year after the death of her Jewish third husband Mike Todd. The ceremony, consisting of a prayer read in Hebrew by a rabbi with Miss Taylor replying, took place in the Temple Israel of Hollywood. She converted, she said, "because, in a way, it was what I told my husband I would do."

Taylor was refused entry to Egypt in 1962 because of her conversion to Judaism in 1959 and her Israeli sympathies. But Egypt's government relented when Cleopatra came out in 1963 and they realized the great publicity could make them millions.

In 1976, Taylor offered herself as a hostage to save more than 100 Air France passengers hijacked by terrorists in Uganda before Israeli forces rescued them.

From the mid-1980s, Taylor supported HIV and AIDS programs; she co-founded the American Foundation for AIDS Research in 1985, and the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation in 1993. 

Picture below shows congresswoman Nancy Pelosi alongside Taylor, who is testifying in 1990 before the House Budget Committee on HIV-AIDS Funding.

By Nancy Pelosi from San Francisco, CA 

Elizabeth Taylor advised: "Milk is my recipe for lovely skin, sparkling eyes and a well-rounded figure. Without these, you cannot be attractive."

HEALTH AND DEATH 

Elizabeth Taylor‘s voluminous eyelashes were caused by a rare genetic mutation which was responsible for her having two rows of eyelashes.

Taylor was pronounced dead in 1960 while playing a high-class call girl in Butterfield 8, due to a rare strain of pneumonia. But she rose from her deathbed to pick up an Oscar for the film.

She suffered many years of ill health. In 2004, Taylor was diagnosed with congestive heart failure for which she underwent cardiac surgery five years later. 

In early 2011, new symptoms related to congestive heart failure caused her to be admitted into Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for treatment. Taylor died on March 23, 2011, surrounded by her four children at the same medical center in Los Angeles at the age of 79.

Elizabeth Taylor wanted to be late for her own funeral, so the coffin arrived 15 minutes after the announced start time.