Veronica Lake was an American film actress and pin-up model. She received both popular and critical acclaim, most notably for her role in Sullivan’s Travels and for her femme fatale roles in film noir with Alan Ladd during the 1940s. Lake was well known for her peekaboo hairstyle. She died of complications of alcoholism in 1973.
Note: Lake was one of the models for the animated character of Jessica Rabbit in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, especially for her hairstyle.
Bill Nye is an American science educator, comedian, television host and mechanical engineer. He is best known as the host of the Disney/PBS children’s science show Bill Nye the Science Guy (1993-98) and for his many subsequent appearances in popular media as a science educator. His professional entertainment career began with a local sketch comedy television show in Seattle. He was born on this day in 1955.
Note: Nye studied mechanical engineering at Cornell University, where one of his professors was Carl Sagan. “Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don’t.” – Bill Nye
Bob Ross was an American painter, art instructor and television host. He is best known as the creator and host of The Joy of Painting, a TV program that ran from 1983 to 1994 on PBS in the U.S. and Canada. With his wet-on-wet oil painting technique, Ross taught the world that mistakes are just “happy accidents.” He painted an an incalculable number of “happy little trees.” Ross was born on this day in 1942 and died from lymphoma in 1995.
P.S. Listen to “Happy Little Clouds (Bob Ross Remixed)” from PBS Digital Studios.
Rita Hayworth was an American film actress and dancer who garnered fame during the 1940s as one of the era’s top stars. Appearing first as Rita Cansino, she agreed to change her name and dye her hair dark red to attract a greater range of roles. She was featured on the cover of Life magazine five times, beginning in 1940. Hayworth appeared in a total of 61 films over 37 years.
Jim Henson was an American puppeteer, best known as the creator of The Muppets. As a puppeteer, Henson performed in various TV programs, such as Sesame Street and The Muppet Show, and numerous Muppet films. He created advanced puppets for projects like Fraggle Rock, The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth. He was also an Oscar-nominated film director, Emmy Award-winning television producer and the founder of The Jim Henson Company. He was born on this day in 1936.
Sophia Loren is an Italian actress. In 1962, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Two Women, becoming the first actress to win an Academy Award for a non-English-speaking performance. Loren has won several international awards, including a Golden Globe, a Grammy, a BAFTA Award and a Laurel Award. She was born on this day in 1934.
Note: The risqué negligee worn by 8-bit Sophia Loren is from an iconic photograph by Alfred Eisenstaedt. The controversial shot appeared on the cover of Life magazine in 1966. It caused many Life readers to cancel their subscriptions. See more beautiful Eisenstaedt photos of Loren from 1961.
Mae West was a controversial American actress, playwright, screenwriter and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades. Known for her bawdy double entendres, she made a name for herself in burlesque and vaudeville, and on the stage in New York, before moving to Hollywood in 1932. The American Film Institute named West 15th among the greatest female stars of all time. She was born on this day in 1893.
Martha Stewart is an American business magnate, bestselling author, magazine publisher and TV personality. She is the founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, publisher of Martha Stewart Living magazine and star of the syndicated talk show Martha. Starting in 2004, Stewart served a five-month prison sentence following ImClone insider trading convictions, but her media empire simply cannot be destroyed. She was born on this day in 1941.
Fiona Apple is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. She has released four albums, all critically acclaimed: Tidal (1996), When the Pawn… (1999), Extraordinary Machine (2005) and The Idler Wheel… (2012). Apple’s vocal range is contralto and her musical style contains elements of jazz and alternative rock.
Fiona Apple is one of my favorites. Tonight Heidi and I will see her in concert at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in Portland, Oregon. Blake Mills opens. By the way, in case you’ve forgotten, Fiona’s stunning live cover of Elvis Costello’s “I Want You” still exists.
Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed “Lady Day,” she pioneered a new vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists. Holiday is perhaps most celebrated for singing “Strange Fruit,” a protest song that became one of her standards and was made famous with her 1939 recording. She died on this day in 1959.
Björk Guðmundsdóttir is an Icelandic singer-songwriter with an eclectic musical style and seven acclaimed studio albums. Three of her 1990s singles from Post charted in the UK Top 10. Björk wore her celebrated “swan dress” to the 2001 Oscars for her Selmasongs duet with Thom Yorke of Radiohead, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song.
Bill Cosby is an American comedian, actor and television producer. During the 1980s, Cosby produced and starred in The Cosby Show (1984-1992), which is considered one of the decade’s defining sitcoms. He is also known for The Electric Company, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids and A Different World. Cosby is a notable spokesman for Jell-O and other products. He was born on this day in 1937.
Note: The Cosby Sweater Project is great.
Trent Reznor is an American singer-songwriter, composer and record producer. Reznor has led the industrial rock project Nine Inch Nails as vocalist and multi-instrumentalist since 1988. In 2010, he and his wife, Mariqueen Maandig, formed the post-industrial band How to Destroy Angels alongside fellow composer Atticus Ross, with whom Reznor has scored two films. Reznor was on born on this day in 1965.
David Byrne is a musician and artist, best known as a founding member and principal songwriter of the American new wave band Talking Heads, which was active between 1975 and 1991. Since then, Byrne has released solo recordings and worked with various media including film and photography. He was born on this day in 1952.
Note: The inspiration for this 8-bit character is Stop Making Sense, a 1984 concert movie featuring Talking Heads live on stage. The movie is notable for Byrne’s “big suit,” an absurdly oversized business suit he dons late in the concert for the song “Girlfriend is Better.”
Eddie Vedder is an American musician and singer-songwriter best known for being the lead singer and one of three guitarists of the alternative rock band Pearl Jam. He is widely considered an icon of alternative rock and Seattle grunge. Vedder was originally invited to Seattle in 1990 by former Mother Love Bone members to audition for the Temple of the Dog tribute project and their new band Mookie Blaylock (renamed Pearl Jam in 1991).
Ludwig van Beethoven is a German composer and virtuoso pianist. He is one of the most famous and influential of all composers, and is an important figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras. His hearing began to deteriorate in his late twenties, yet he continued to compose, conduct and perform, even after becoming completely deaf. He died on this day in 1827.
An American martial artist and actor. After serving in the U.S. Air Force, he rose to fame as a martial artist and has since founded his own school, Chun Kuk Do. As a result of his “tough guy” image, an Internet phenomenon began in 2005 known as Chuck Norris facts, ascribing various implausible or even impossible feats to Norris. He was born tomorrow in 1940.
Mister Rogers was an American educator, Presbyterian minister, songwriter, author and television host. Rogers created and hosted Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood (1968-2001), which featured his gentle, soft-spoken personality and directness to his audiences. As a kid in the 1980s, I watched countless episodes of his show on PBS. He died on this day in 2003.
P.S. “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of ‘disaster,’ I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world.” – Fred Rogers
Update: Listen to “Garden of Your Mind (Mister Rogers Remixed)” from PBS Digital Studios.
An American film actor and cultural icon. He is best embodied in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause (1955), in which he starred as a troubled Los Angeles teenager. Dean’s enduring fame is due to his performances in just three films. His death in a car crash at age 24 cemented his legendary status. He was born on this day in 1931.
Harry Houdini – No. 530
Harry Houdini was an Austrian-Hungarian-born American stunt performer, noted for his sensational escape acts in the early 1900s. For most of his career, Houdini was a headline act in vaudeville. His career began with handcuff-escape gimmicks and expanded to include shackles, chains, ropes slung from skyscrapers and underwater straitjackets. Houdini was keen to uphold professional standards and expose fraudulent magicians who gave practitioners a bad name. He was also quick to sue anyone who pirated his own escape stunts. He died, somewhat mysteriously, of a ruptured appendix on this day in 1926.
Happy Halloween! Today Heidi and I are in Florence, Italy. We are currently traveling across Europe on a whirlwind vacation.