December 2: This Day in TV History

[Stanislav]

Just a few random TV related events that happened on December 2. Discuss or comment as you please……

1914: Actor Ray Walston (My Favorite Martian, Picket Fences) is born (as Herman Walston) in New Orleans, Louisiana.

1924: Actor Jonathan Frid (Dark Shadows) is born in Hamilton, Ontario.

1944: Actress Cathy Lee Crosby (That’s Incredible) is born in Los Angeles.

1944: Actress Connie Booth (Fawlty Towers) is born in Indianapolis, Indiana. We all know her as the former wife of Fawlty co-star John Cleese, but DYK that her current husband is John Lahr, son of actor Bert Lahr? (Nope, I didn’t know that, either!)

1954: Journalist Stone Phillips (Dateline NBC) is born in Texas City, Texas.

1956: Actor Steven Bauer (Que Pasa USA) is born (as Esteban Ernesto Echevarria) in Havana, Cuba. (He was credited as “Rocky Echevarria” on Que Pasa USA.)

1983: Michael Jackson's music video for "Thriller" is broadcast for the first time. It went on to become the most often repeated and perhaps most famous music video of all time

1986: Actor Desi Arnaz (I Love Lucy) dies in Del Mar, California, aged 69.

1990: Actor Robert Cummings (The Bob Cummings Show, My Living Doll) dies in Woodland Hills, California, aged 82.

1990: To boldly go where no reporter has gone before......TV reporter Toyohiro Akiyama of Japan’s TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting Service) launches with 2 Soviet cosmonauts aboard Soyuz TM-11 to the space station Mir and becomes the first TV journalist (as well as the first Japanese citizen) in space. The spacecraft’s launch shroud and Soyuz booster were painted with the Japanese flag and advertisements, and TBS reportedly paid $14 million to the cash-starved Soviet space agency for their reporter’s trip.

2000: Actress Gail Fisher (Mannix) dies in Culver City, California, aged 65.

(Just a little featurette I hope to do as time permits. It’s an entirely random selection based on a quick Net search, and is not meant to be comprehensive. So, don’t post nasty messages about “you forgot THIS” or “how could you not mention THAT?” Do so, and I’ll just take my keyboard and go home…..)

 

[FreddyE1977]

I had absolutely no clue that Connie Booth was an American. Was she raised in the UK?
She certainly had the Brit accent nailed, at least as well as Renee Zellwegger did (or as
well as Hugh Laurie nailed ours).

She would also occasionally turn-up in bit parts on Monty Python's Flying Circus.
(though most of the female roles went to Carol Cleveland, one of the all-time best
sports in TV history).

 

[Ultimajock]

I had absolutely no clue that Connie Booth was an American. Was she raised in the UK?

...Indianapolis and New York City suburbs, according to her Wikipedia page...

 

[Stanislav]

I had absolutely no clue that Connie Booth was an American. Was she raised in the UK?
She certainly had the Brit accent nailed, at least as well as Renee Zellwegger did (or as
well as Hugh Laurie nailed ours).

I don't know how long Ms. Booth lived and worked in the U.K. prior to doing Fawlty, but it seems like Yanks who spend a long time in the U.K. tend to gradually adopt the accent. Take Terry Gilliam, of Monty Python. Early on, he sounded mostly American with a few odd British vowel sounds here and there. By the time he started directing movies, it was a pretty solid "Mid-Atlantic" accent with about equal elements of both. Nowadays when you hear him speak, you'd swear he'd been in Merrie Olde England all his life.

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

1981: Singer/actress/international sensation Britney Spears is born in McComb, MS (she would be raised in Kentwood, LA).

 

[FilmCritic3K]

And, coincidentally, I turn 28 today.

 

[KML0224]

I'm just waiting for Christina Aguilera's 29th birthday soon. Ha ha!

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

Ties into TV history:

1968: Former MLB pitcher Darryl Kile, whose playing career included stops with the Colorado Rockies and St. Louis Cardinals, is born in Garden Grove, CA. His death in a Chicago hotel room due to coronary disease on June 22, 2002 was discovered prior to what would have been a televised Fox Saturday baseball broadcast between the Cardinals and the rival Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field (with Joe Girardi announcing the game's postponement and asking fans to "say a prayer for the St. Louis Cardinals family"). Kile's passing occurred 4 days after the death of longtime Cardinal broadcaster Jack Buck.