Author Archives: dcaligari

March 22, 1931 –Success is different for everyone; everybody defines it in their own way, and that’s part of what we do in ‘Close Up’, finding what it was each person wanted to achieve and what their willingness to sacrifice for that was. William Shatner, arguably the world’s (or at least Canada’s) greatest actor wasContinue reading “William Shatner”

March 22, 1963 – The Beatles’ first album, Please Please Me, was released in the UK on this date. The album went to the top of the UK charts in two months and remained there for 30 weeks. Please Please Me has been ranked in the top 50 of the “500 Greatest Albums of AllContinue reading “Please Please Me went on sale”

March 22, 1895 –Auguste and Louis Lumiere may have first demonstrated motion pictures in Paris using celluloid film. Unless it was March 19, 1895, or December 28, 1894, or cellulite instead of celluloid. And it may have been in Milan, or Warsaw, and it’s possible it wasn’t Louis and Auguste Lumiere, but Max and EmilContinue reading “The first public screening of a film (maybe)”

March 21, 1995 –We all get to spend Dave Nelson’s first day at WNYX when NewsRadio, starring Dave Foley, Phil Hartman, Maura Tierney and Andy Dick premiered on NBC-TV, on this date. Maura Tierney was added to the cast the day before they shot the pilot.

March 21, 1980 –On the season finale of Dallas, the infamous character J.R. Ewing was shot by an unknown individual – Who Shot JR? Viewers had to wait all summer, and most of the autumn because of a Hollywood actors’ strike (and Hagman’s own holdout), to learn whether J.R. would survive, and which of hisContinue reading “Well, I didn’t”

March 21, 1947 –In honor of the start of Spring, let us seriously consider spring cleaning and the unhappy ending of the Collyer brothers. Homer and Langley Collyer were well-to-do New Yorkers who grew up in a fashionable brownstone in Harlem with their mother and father, just before the turn of the previous century. UnfortunatelyContinue reading “This is what comes from improper hand washing”

March 21, 1952 –The first rock and roll concert was held in America on this date, when DJ Alan Freed (the man who coined the phrase “Rock and Roll“) hosted The Moondog Coronation Ball in Cleveland, Ohio. The first rock and roll concert was shut down after the first act, when it appeared that aContinue reading “The Moondog Coronation Ball”

March 20, 1973 –The TV movie pilot for the series The Police Story, Slow Boy, starring Vic Morrow, Edward Asner, Diane Baker, Chuck Connors, and Harry Guardino premiered on NBC TV on this date. In the opening stakeout scene, the squad is watching Slow Boy (Chuck Connors) outside a theater showing the movie The NewContinue reading “The Police Story premiered”

March 20, 1987 –Robert Townsend’s seminal satirical comedy Hollywood Shuffle, starring Robert Townsend and a whole bunch of the Wayan family premiered on this date. At the end of the film, Robert Townsend plays a flying black superhero. Six years later, he would star in The Meteor Man, about a flying black superhero.

March 20, 1971 –Janis Joplin’s hit Me and Bobby McGee reached no. #1 on the Billboard Charts on this date. It was her only solo number one single, released on the posthumous album Pearl. The song was written by Kris Kristofferson, who has written hundreds of songs for a wide variety of artists. Kristofferson wouldContinue reading “Me and Bobby McGee topped the charts”