Donster
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General Motors Ad - May 1942
1940: The Labour Party Conference in Bournemouth gives support to Churchill's government by 2,413,000 votes to 170,000. Churchill makes 'blood, sweat, tears and toil' speech. Queen Wilhelmina and the Dutch royal family arrive in London.
1940: Supported by waves of Luftwaffe Stuka dive-bombers, the two German Panzer Korps of Heeresgruppe B establish bridgeheads across the Meuse river, tearing a 50-mile gap in the French defenses between Dinant and Sedan. The 7th Panzer Division (Rommel) is the first division across. Dutch troops withdraw to their second and final line of defense on the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Utrecht line.
1941: German aircraft begin to operate over Iraq in support of the rebellion by anti-British Iraqi forces.
*Alexis Smith
1942: The British Chiefs of staff approve a major raid against the French port of Dieppe. Initially code-named 'Rutter', the plan had been under consideration since March by Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, Chief of Combined Operations, who wanting to explore the problems of an opposed landing on the French coast.
1942: The siege of Leningrad continues. Tanya Savicheva, a young girl, writes in her address book, "Mummy 13th May at 7.30 morning 1942. The Savichevs are dead, all dead, only Tanya remains." Her book also lists the death of her brothers, grandmother, and two uncles. Evacuated to Gorky on the Volga, Tanya herself dies of chronic dysentery in the summer of 1943.
Alexis Smith
1943: For the first time in the war, the British now claim more German prisoners than the Germans have British.
1943: The Royal Navy begin the bombardment of Pantelleria Island, between Tunisia and Sicily.
1943: Marshal Messe, the Italian C in C of Tunisia, surrenders to Montgomery.
Hamilton Watch Ad - May 1943
1944: The allies take Sant' Angelo and Castelforte, thereby opening the way to Rome.
1944: Jail Hill and other key Kohima features are recaptured by the British.
Alexis Smith
1945: The British Royal Family and allied military leaders attend a thanks giving service at St. Paul's Cathedral.
1945: Crown Prince Olav, some members of the exiled government and the head of the allied mission, Gen. Sir Andrew Thorne arrive in Oslo.
1945: Rear Admiral Brüning, the commander of German naval forces, arrives at Felixstowe to sign the unconditional surrender of all boats under his command.
Alexis Smith
1945: The last pockets of German resistance in Czechoslovakia are crushed by the Red Army.
1945: U.S. troops capture Del Monte air base on Mindanao. The Australians clear the Wewak peninsula in New Guinea.
Alexis Smith
*Born Gladys Smith on June 8, 1921 in Penticton, British Columbia, Canada, Smith was raised in Los Angeles. She was signed to a contract by Warner Bros. after being discovered by a talent scout while attending college. Her earliest film roles were uncredited bit parts and it took several years for her career to gain momentum. Her first credited part was in the feature film "Dive Bomber" (1941), playing the female lead opposite Errol Flynn. Her appearance in "The Constant Nymph" (1943) was well received and led to bigger parts. During the 1940s she appeared opposite some of the most popular male stars of the day, including Errol Flynn in "Gentleman Jim" (1942) and "San Antonio" (1945) (in which she sang a special version of the popular ballad "Some Sunday Morning"), Humphrey Bogart in "The Two Mrs. Carrolls" (1947), Cary Grant in a sanitized, fictional version of Cole and Linda Porter's life in "Night and Day" (1946), and Bing Crosby in "Here Comes the Groom" (1951).
Alexis Smith
Some of Smith's other films include "Rhapsody In Blue" (1945), "Of Human Bondage" (1946) and "The Young Philadelphians" (1959).
She appeared on the cover of the May 3, 1971 issue of Time with the announcement that she would be starring in Hal Prince's Broadway production of "Stephen Sondheim's Follies". In 1972 she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance. She followed this with the 1973 all-star revival of "The Women", the short-lived 1975 comedy "Summer Brave" and the ill-fated 1978 musical "Platinum", which drew decent notices only for her performance and quickly closed.
Alexis Smith
Smith had a recurring role on the TV series "Dallas" as Clayton Farlow's sister Jessica Montford in 1984 and again in 1990. She was nominated for an Emmy Award for her guest appearance on the television sitcom "Cheers" in 1990. Alexis Smith died on June 9, 1993 in Los Angeles, California from brain cancer the day after her 72nd birthday. She had no children and was survived by her husband actor Craig Stevens.
TRIVIA:
Height - 5' 9" (1.75 m)
Measurements: 34-24-35
Bendix Aviation Ad - May 1944
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Morning all. 44F under clear skies. Sunny today with a light SW wind and a high of 62F. Road crew has just arrived to fix all the potholes and cracks in our street, then next week they will put down the overcoating on the driveways and street. I live on a private street, so this is a job we have to pay for.
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Chrysler Ad - May 1944
1940: French forces withdraw behind the Meuse river between Dinant and Sedan as advance German panzer columns push out from the Ardennes. Germans troops continue their advance through Holland, crossing the Yssel and Meuse rivers at several points. Massive German artillery bombardments are maintained on western front, the Luftwaffe continues to reek havoc across Northern France and Belgium, causing refugees to stream west, clogging the roads for allied forces. Internment of Germans begins in Britain.
1941: A British convoy, codenamed 'Tiger', arrives at Alexandria with much needed tanks and aircraft.
*Linda Darnell
1942: The first contingent of the US Eighth Army Air Force arrives in Britain.
1942: Timoshenko's offensive grinds forward into Army Group South with two pincer attacks, one Northwest out of the Izyum bulge by the 6th Red Army and the other West then Southwest by the 28th Red Army from the Volchansk area, designed to converge west of Kharkov. The Red Army falls back towards Kerch in the Crimea.
1943: Surrender of all German and Italian forces in Tunisia (130,000 German and 120,000 Italian prisoners). General von Arnim and 25 other axis generals are claimed captured, so ending the life of the once mighty 'Afrika Korps' and marking the end of the three-year North African campaign.
Linda Darnell
1944: 800 bombers of the US 8th Air Force carry out attacks against the synthetic fuel plants at Leuna-Merseburg, Lützkendorf, Zeitz and Brüx.
1944: Fierce German counter-attacks are put in by the German defenders at Monte Cassino.
1944: The remains of German Seventeenth Army in Crimea are destroyed, with the Russians taking 36,000 Axis troops prisoner.
Linda Darnell
1944: The Japanese attacks to the South East of Imphal are broken off.
1945: British relief troops land at St Hélier in Jersey, to an 'overwhelming' welcome.
Linda Darnell
1945: The German garrison in Crete under Major General Bentach surrenders
1945: General Vlasov, commander of the anti-Bolshevist Russian Liberation Army is handed over to the Russians by the Americans and will be executed for treason in August, 1946.
1945: Very heavy fighting continues on Okinawa, with 125 Japanese aircraft being reported as shot down.
Linda Darnell
*Linda Darnell, was born Monetta Eloyse Darnell, in Dallas, Texas on October 16, 1923. She was one of five children of a post office worker and his wife. A Texas-born beauty, her mother encouraged her to model. Her mother already knew that Linda was special because of her rare good looks. By 1934 she was modeling clothes for an area department store. Sometimes officials would think that she was 15 or 16 because she really didn't look her age. Neither Linda nor her mother discouraged their thinking.
By the time Linda was 13, she was appearing with local theater companies and her talent was already becoming apparent. There was no doubt that Linda had a rare gift for someone so young. When the Hollywood moguls sent scouts to the Dallas-Fort Worth area, her mother thought it would be a good idea to give Linda a shot at a try-out. The talent scouts took one look at her and her acting abilities and arranged for a screen test. She made the trek to Hollywood and when her true age was discovered she was sent home. After two years and more local theater appearances, Linda returned to California and her career was off and running.
Linda Darnell
er debut was in 1939 in the role of Marcia Bromley in "Hotel for Women" (1939). She was all of 16 at the time and became the youngest leading lady in Hollywood history. Her next film was that same year in "Day-Time Wife" (1939). Her third film was as Carolyn Sayres in "Star Dust" (1940) made in 1940 and Linda immediately rose to heights of stardom. Other quality films followed. In 1941 she appeared in "Blood and Sand" (1941) and "Rise and Shine" (1941). In 1945 she played Netta Longdon in the film "Hangover Square" (1945). The movie proved to be a box-office bonanza. The following year Linda appeared with the legendary Lillian Gish in "Centennial Summer" (1946). Later that same year she co-starred with Henry Fonda and Victor Mature in "My Darling Clementine" (1946). It was another hit. Linda reached the height of her career when she played opposite Cornel Wilde in 1947's "Forever Amber" (1947) where she survives the famed London fire. In 1952 she starred in "Blackbeard, the Pirate" (1952) along with Irene Ryan, Robert Newton, and William Bendix. She had filmed a total of 46 movies.
Linda's final appearance on the silver screen was in 1965's "Black Spurs" (1965). She was married and divorced three times. They were: J. Peverell Marley from 1944-1952, Phillip Liebmann (a New York brewer) from 1954-1955 and finally Merle Roy Robertson (an airline pilot) from 1957-1962.
Linda died of burns she suffered in a house fire of an unknown source at the home of her former secretary in Glenview, Illinois. While sleeping upstairs and awakened by smoke, she tried to exit through the downstairs door, but was trapped. Badly burned over 90% of her body she died the following day in the hospital. Ironically, she had been watching "Star Dust" (1940) on television earlier that evening, which was one of the films that set her career in motion. Often described as the "girl with the perfect face", Linda died on April 10, 1965 at the age of 41.
Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation Ad - May 1945
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Hanging's too good for them!
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Morning all. 44F under clear skies. Mostly sunny with NW winds at 10-20 MPH and a high of 59F.
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Chesterfield Cigarette Ad - May 1943
1940: King signs proclamation canceling Whitsun holiday.
1940: Seven out of eight Battles fail to return from an attack on enemy forces in Luxembourg. No. 114 Sqn's Blenheims are annihilated on the ground in a low-level German raid.
*Dolores Moran
1940: German troops occupy the Duchy of Luxembourg. A glider-borne parachute detachment of 1st Fallschirmjäger Regiment led by Hauptmann Koch and Leutnant Witzig captures the "impregnable" Belgian border fortress of Eben-Emael.
1940: President Roosevelt expresses his dismay to King Leopold of Belgium about the German invasion.
1940: Allied troops land in Dutch West Indies.
Dolores Moran
1941: The RAF launches a heavy raid against Hamburg.
1941: German troops complete the occupation of the Greek islands in the Aegean Sea.
1941: Japan makes proposals to the USA in order to improve relations. They demand that the USA stop supplying war materials to China and that they normalize trade relations. These are rejected by the USA, although both sides agree to continue talks.
Dolores Moran
1942: The Luftwaffe sinks three British destroyers, Lively, Kipling and Jackal to the South of Crete.
1942: German troops continue their attack at Sevastopol, surrounding some defenders at Ak-Monay. The Luftwaffe is making about 1,800 sorties per day.
1942: British retreat across Chindwin completed.
Dolores Moran
1943: The British evacuate Maumgdaw before the monsoon arrives in the Arakan. All ground gained since September 1942 for the loss of 5,000 battle casualties is lost.
1944: The British Eighth and U.S. Fifth Armies begin an attack on Gustav Line in central Italy with a 2,200-gun bombardment.
1944: 72,000 Chinese begin an advance along the Burma Road.
Dolores Moran
1945: The German garrison at Dunkirk surrenders to Czech troops.
1945: The Red Army launches a final assault against the remnants of Army Group Centre, which is still holding out in Moravia.
1945: In a new offensive, the U.S. Tenth Army reaches the suburbs of Naha, the capital of Okinawa. Wewak is captured by the 6th Australian Division.
Dolores Moran
*Moran's brief career as a film actress began in 1942 with some uncredited roles in such films as "Yankee Doodle Dandy". By 1943 she had become a popular pin-up girl and appeared on the cover of such magazines as Yank. She was given supporting roles in films such as "Old Acquaintance" (1943) with Bette Davis and Warner Bros. attempted to increase interest in her, promoting her along with Lauren Bacall as a new screen personality when they co-starred with Humphrey Bogart in "To Have and Have Not" (1944). The film made a star of Bacall, but Moran languished and her subsequent films did little to further her career.
Dolores Moran
The "Horn Blows at Midnight" gave her a leading role with Jack Benny and Alexis Smith but her film appearances after this were sporadic, and she suffered ill health that reduced her ability to work. Her film career ended in 1954 with a featured role in the John Payne and Lizabeth Scott western film "Silver Lode".
She was married to the film producer Benedict E. Bogeaus in Salome, Arizona in 1946. Their son, Brett Benedict, born 30 August 1948 in Hollywood, later became a successful businessman. They divorced in 1962, he died of a heart attack in 1968. As Dolores Moran Bogeaus, she dies of cancer on February 5, 1982 at age 56 in Woodland Hills, California.
Martin Aircraft Ad - May 1945
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Itchie, you couldn't hack up a loogie.
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Morning all. 46F under cloudy skies. A mix of sun and clouds today with a high temp of 60F.
Glad the PSU fixed your PC issue Stans. 👍
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United Aircraft Corporation Ad - May 1942
1940: At 5.35am, the Wehrmacht begins 'Operation Yellow', the invasion of Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg, employing Army Group A (von Rundstedt) and B (von Bock), with Army Group C (von Leeb) in reserve. The attacking forces comprise 10 Armored, 5 Motorized, and 75 infantry divisions. The 19th Panzer Korps (Guderian), 20th Panzer Korps (Hoth) and the 41st Panzer Korps (Reinhardt) field between them 2,445 tanks, most of which are of the light Marks I, II, 35(t) and 38(t) type, against 3,373 French and British tanks. In his Order of the Day, Hitler declares, "Soldiers of the Western Front! The battle which is beginning today will decide the fate of the German nation for the next thousand years. Go forward now and do your duty!" Airborne troops seize airfields and strategic bridges near Amsterdam and Rotterdam in Holland. The Luftwaffe, using hundreds of level and dive bombers, attacks Allied airfields, troop assembly areas and rear communications.
1940: Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigns and is replaced by the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, who forms a coalition government from all three main parties.
*Cyd Charisse
1941: The Luftwaffe launches a massive attack against London, the heaviest so far received by the capital. One third of all streets within Greater London are rendered impassible and 155,000 family's are left without gas, water and electricity. Westminster Abbey, House of Commons, Tower of London and the Royal Mint are all hit. A record 1,436 people are killed and 1,792 are seriously injured.
1941: Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy and former World War 1 fighter pilot, flies from Augsburg to Scotland to persuade anti-Churchill politicians that England should stop the war with Germany, adopt a neutral attitude and allow Germany to eliminate the Bolshevik menace and gain Lebensraum in the East. He is taken to a secret location, interrogated and then held incommunicado at various places until the end of the war, later to be charged and condemned as a major war criminal at Nuremberg.
Cyd Charisse
1942: Kesselring declares that Malta has been neutralized. However, that same day the Axis air forces found themselves outnumbered for the first time in the sky over Malta, losing 12 aircraft in return for 3 RAF Spitfires. This marked a definite turning point in the fortunes of Malta with Axis air activity slackening noticeably as aircraft were drawn off to Russia.
1942: Winston Churchill warns that Britain will use poison gas on Germany if the Germans do so on the Soviet Union. The battle for Sevastopol rumbles on, with the Russian Coastal Army fielding 106,000 men, 600 guns, 100 mortars, 38 tanks, and 55 planes. The Germans hurl 204,000 men, 670 guns, 450 mortars, 720 tanks, and 600 aircraft at Sevastopol. The Germans also move in 19 motor torpedo boats, 30 patrol boats, eight ASW boats, and a unit of 150 bombers trained in anti-shipping operations. German artillery ranges from 76mm field guns to mammoth 800-mm railway-mounted super-heavy siege mortars.
Coca-Cola Ad - May 1943
1942: The Germans open up a new death camp just outside Minsk, near the village of Maly Trostenets. Russian POW's and Jews have been forced to build the barracks for 600 slave labourers and their German and Ukrainian guards. Tens of thousands of Austrian, German, and Czech Jews are shipped there and driven towards the village in mobile gas chambers. When the vans reach the camp, all inside them are dead. At the camp, the slave labourers bury the bodies in deep pits. Maly Trostenets remains a tight German secret.
1942: General William Sharp, commanding the Central Philippines orders the surrender of the remaining US and Filipino forces to the Japanese, thus ending resistance throughout the whole of the Philippines.
Cyd Charisse
1943: The British First Army reaches Hammamet.
1943: U.S. troops invade Attu in the Aleutian Islands.
Cyd Charisse
1944: The Free French claim that the resistance now numbers 100,000 and plead for more military aid.
1945: The first U-boat to surrenders, U-249 puts in at Portland.
Cyd Charisse
1945: Russians troops are now in control of Prague after five days of fierce street fighting between German and Czech Partisans comes to an end, during which 5,000 civilians have been killed.
1945: The Fourteenth Army moves South in central Burma and links up with troops from Arakan in the west, trapping all Japanese to the west of the river Irrawaddy.
Cyd Charisse
*Charisse was born as Tula Ellice Finklea in Amarillo, Texas, the daughter of Lela (née Norwood) and Ernest Enos Finklea, Sr., who was a jeweler. Her nickname "Sid" was taken from a sibling trying to say "Sis". (It was later spelled "Cyd" at MGM to give her an air of mystery.) She was a sickly girl who started dancing lessons at six to build up her strength after a bout with polio. At 12, she studied ballet in Los Angeles with Adolph Bolm and Bronislava Nijinska, and at 14, she auditioned for and subsequently danced in the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo as "Felia Siderova" and, later, "Maria Istomina". During a European tour, she met up again with Nico Charisse, a handsome young dancer she had studied with for a time in Los Angeles. They married in Paris in 1939. They had a son, Nicky, born in 1942.
The outbreak of World War II led to the break-up of the company, and when Charisse returned to Los Angeles, David Lichine offered her a dancing role in Gregory Ratoff's "Something to Shout About". This brought her to the attention of choreographer Robert Alton who had also discovered Gene Kelly and soon she joined the Freed Unit at MGM, where she became the resident MGM ballet dancer.
Charisse was principally celebrated for her on-screen pairings with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. She first appeared with Astaire in a brief routine in "Ziegfeld Follies" (produced in 1944 and released in 1946). Her next appearance with him was as lead female role in "The Band Wagon" (1953), where she danced with Astaire in the acclaimed "Dancing in the Dark" and "Girl Hunt Ballet" routines. Another early role cast her opposite Judy Garland in the 1946 film "The Harvey Girls".
Cyd Charisse
As Debbie Reynolds was not a trained dancer, Gene Kelly chose Charisse to partner him in the celebrated "Broadway Melody" ballet finale from "Singin' in the Rain" (1952), and she co-starred with Kelly in 1954's Scottish-themed musical film "Brigadoon". She again took the lead female role alongside Kelly in his penultimate MGM musical "It's Always Fair Weather" (1956).
In 1957, she rejoined Astaire in the film version of "Silk Stockings", a musical remake of 1939's "Ninotchka", with Charisse taking over Greta Garbo's role. In his autobiography, Astaire paid tribute to Charisse, calling her "beautiful dynamite" and writing: "That Cyd! When you've danced with her you stay danced with."
In her autobiography, Charisse reflected on her experience with Astaire and Kelly: "As one of the handful of girls who worked with both of those dance geniuses, I think I can give an honest comparison. In my opinion, Kelly is the more inventive choreographer of the two. Astaire, with Hermes Pan's help, creates fabulous numbers for himself and his partner. But Kelly can create an entire number for somebody else ... I think, however, that Astaire's coordination is better than Kelly's ... his sense of rhythm is uncanny. Kelly, on the other hand, is the stronger of the two. When he lifts you, he lifts you! ... To sum it up, I'd say they were the two greatest dancing personalities who were ever on screen. But it's like comparing apples and oranges. They're both delicious."
Cyd Charisse
After the decline of the Hollywood musical in the late 1950s, Charisse retired from dancing but continued to appear in film and TV productions from the 1960s through the 1990s. She had a supporting role in "Something's Got To Give", the last, unfinished film of Marilyn Monroe. She made cameo appearances in Blue Mercedes's "I Want To Be Your Property" (1987) and Janet Jackson's "Alright" (1990) music videos.
Her last film appearance was in 1994 in "That's Entertainment! III" as one of the onscreen narrators of a tribute to the great MGM musical films.
Charisse was married to singer Tony Martin from 1948 until her death. The marriage lasted almost 60 years, a notable length among Hollywood marriages, matched in 2008 amongst living American actors by only Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson (also married in 1948). Her first husband, whose surname she kept, was Nico Charisse (March 1906 - April 1970); they were married from 1939 to 1947.
She had two sons, Nico "Nicky" Charisse from her first marriage, and Tony Martin, Jr., born 1950, from her second. One of her daughters-in-law is Liv Lindeland, who was Playboy magazine's Playmate of the Year for 1972. A niece of hers by marriage is actress Nana Visitor.
Charisse wrote a joint biography with Martin (and Dick Kleiner) entitled "The Two of Us" (1976). She was featured in the 2001 Guinness Book of World Records under "Most Valuable Legs", since a $5 million insurance policy was reportedly accepted on her legs in 1952. MGM was reputed to have insured her legs for a million dollars each, but Charisse later revealed that that had been an invention of the MGM publicity machine.
Cyd Charisse
Her daughter-in-law, Sheila Charisse, was a victim of the crash of American Airlines Flight 191 in 1979.
In 1990, following similar moves by MGM colleagues Debbie Reynolds and Angela Lansbury, Charisse produced the exercise video "Easy Energy Shape Up", targeted for active senior citizens.
In her eighties, Charisse made occasional public appearances and appeared frequently in documentaries spotlighting the golden age of Hollywood. She made her Broadway debut in 1992 in the musical version of "Grand Hotel" as the aging ballerina, Elizaveta Grushinskaya.
Publicist Gene Schwam said Charisse was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, on June 16, 2008 after suffering an apparent heart attack. She died the following day, aged 86. She was buried at Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City on June 22, 2008.
TRIVIA:
Measurements: 34 1/2B-22-37
Although one of the greatest female dancers in the history of the movie musical, her singing in films was almost always dubbed, most notably by Carol Richards in Brigadoon (1954) and a young Vikki Carr in The Silencers (1966).
Lost out on two of MGM's biggest movie musical roles. She fell and injured her knee during a dance leap on a film which forced her out of the role of Nadina Hale in Easter Parade (1948). Ann Miller replaced her. She also had to relinquish the lead femme role in An American in Paris (1951) due to pregnancy. Leslie Caron took over the part and became a star.
Said her husband could tell who she had been dancing with that day on an MGM set. If she came home covered with bruises on her, it was the very physically-demanding Gene Kelly, if not it was the smooth and agile Fred Astaire.
One of the few actresses to have danced with both Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly in the movies, other actresses that have also done this includes Judy Garland, Rita Hayworth, Vera-Ellen, Debbie Reynolds, and Leslie Caron.
Camel Cigarette Ad - May 1945
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49 minutes ago, Stans said:
What have I been doing for the past weeks?
Drinking heavily is what I was thinking.
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Morning all. 40F under cloudy skies. Morning rain showers will clear out by noon with partly clearing skies and a high of 59F.
Sorry to hear about your new PC Stans.
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Fisher Body Ad - May 1943
1940: The French submarine Doris is sunk by U-9 off the Dutch coast.
1940: Age for conscription in Britain is raised to 36.
1940: Hitler orders 'Operation Yellow', the great offensive in the West, to begin at 5:35 a.m. the next day.
*Janis Paige
1941: The Luftwaffe launches a massive night raid (507 bombers) against London which causes many fires and cripples the rail system in the city. Liverpool has its 7th consecutive night air raid. Belfast, Clydeside and Humberside also suffer in a heavy week of raids. The RAF attacks Bremen and Hamburg, but with little effect.
1941: U-110 (Kptlt. Lemp) is forced to the surface by depth-charges of HMS Aubretia. A top-secret Enigma cipher machine is recovered before she sinks while being towed back to port.
Janis Paige
1941: A British Brigade sized column (Habforce), moves across the Iraqi border from Palastine.
1941: A peace treaty is signed between Vichy France and Thailand, which cedes back portions of Indochina that had been lost by Thailand 40 years earlier.
Janis Paige
1942: Another 60 Spitfires are landed in Malta by the aircraft carriers USN Wasp and HMS Eagle.
1943: The unconditional surrender of all axis troops in Tunisia takes at 11am.
Janis Paige
1944: Allied air forces begin a campaign of large scale raids against German airfields and rail communications in France in preparation for D-Day.
1944: The Russians capture Sevastopol as Hitler finally changes his mind and orders evacuation of the city.
Janis Paige
1945: The German garrison in the Channel Islands agree to surrender to British troops after five years of occupation. The surrender terms are signed aboard the destroyer HMS Bulldog, which is moored off St. Hellier.
1945: The German garrisons at Lorient, St Nazaire and La Rochelle on the French Atlantic Coast finally surrender. Reich Marshal Goring and his wife, children and staff, surrender to Brigadier General Stack, of the U.S. 36th Division, near Salzburg. Field Marshal Kesselring, C-in-C West, is captured by U.S. troops at the village of Saalfelden, in western Austria.
Janis Paige
1945: A British naval squadron arrives in Copenhagen harbor to receive the surrender of the remains of German fleet.
1945: Stalin announces the end of the war. German forces of Army Group Kurland surrender.
1945: German forces in the Greek islands surrender.
Janis Paige
*This joyous scene-stealer started out playing rather bland film ingénues but she never seemed to be comfortable in those roles - she had too much snap, crackle and pop to be confined in such a formulaic way. Born Donna Mae Tjaden on September 16th, 1922 in Tacoma, Washington, Janis Paige was singing in public from age 5 in local amateur shows. She moved to Los Angeles after graduating from high school and earned a job as a singer at the Hollywood Canteen during the war years. The Canteen, which was a studio-sponsored gathering spot for servicemen, is where she was spotted by a Warner Brothers talent scout, who saw potential in her and signed her up. She began co-starring in secondary musicals which often paired her with either Dennis Morgan or Jack Carson. Later she was relegated to rugged adventures and dramas that just seemed out of her element. Following her role in the forgettable Two Gals and a Guy (1951), she decided to leave the Hollywood scene. She took to the Broadway boards and scored a huge hit with the 1951 comedy-mystery play Remains to Be Seen co-starring Jackie Cooper. She also toured successfully as a cabaret singer, performing everywhere from New York to Miami to Las Vegas to Los Angeles. Definitive stardom came in 1954 with the feisty role of Babe in Broadway's The Pajama Game opposite John Raitt. Her old Warner Bros. rival Doris Day, however, was a bigger name and went on to play the role on film with Raitt. After a six-year hiatus, Janis returned to films in tongue-and-cheek support, all but stealing the movie Silk Stockings (1957) from co-stars Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse. She then grabbed her share of laughs in a flashy role with the comedy Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1960) opposite Ms. Day. Janis ventured on in summer stock playing such indomitable roles as Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun, Margo Channing in Applause, Mama Rose in Gypsy and Adelaide in Guys and Dolls. From the mid-50s on Janis also tapped into TV with such series like "It's Always Jan" (1955), "Lanigan's Rabbi" (1977) and "Trapper John, M.D." (1979). In the 90s, among other TV appearances, she had recurring roles on the daytime serials "General Hospital" (1963) and "Santa Barbara" (1984). Married three times, she was the widow of Disney composer Ray Gilbert, who wrote the classic children's song "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah."
TRIVIA:
Measurements: 37 1/2-25-37
Chose her first name in honor of Elsie Janis, beloved entertainer of troops during World War I; Paige was her maternal grandmother's name.
Sperry Corporation Ad - May 1944
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Fickie Fickie Fick. You and your comrades got pretty lonely on the Eastern Front eh? And being high on methamphetamines' didn't help you any. I read about the scarcity of uniforms for the German soldiers but didn't realize it was that bad. Or is that you and your comrades attempt at camouflage?
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Morning all. 43F under partly cloudy skies. Skies will become mostly cloudy with showers developing by late afternoon into the evening. High of 57F.
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Packard Ad - May 1944
1940: Opposition censure motion against Chamberlain's conduct of the war; rejected by 281 to 200, but over 30 government MPs vote for it.
1940: German commandos in Dutch uniforms cross the Dutch border to hold bridges for the advancing German army.
*Nancy Olson
1941: During an attack against convoy OB318, U-110 commanded by Julius Lemp suffers serious damage and is forced to surface and scuttle. Unfortunately for the Germans, the scuttling charges failed to detonate, allowing the British destroyer HMS Bulldog to put across a boarding party and seize an enigma machine and other vital secret material. The British put U-110 under tow, but the damaged U-boat later sinks.
1941: The German raider Penguin is sunk by HMS Cornwall off the Seychelles Islands in the Indian Ocean.
Nancy Olson
1942: The German 11th Army begins its summer offensive in order to clear the Eastern Crimea. The 11th Army has thirteen Infantry, one Panzer, and one Cavalry division. Luftwaffe support is provided by Fliegerkorps 8 and naval support comes from German E-boats and Italian midget submarines, which attack Russian supply ships reinforcing Sevastopol. The Germans hit Gen. D.T. Kozlov's Crimean Front along Feodosiya Bay and crash through the 44th Army's two divisions, relying on Junkers 87 Stukas to do the damage.
1942: The aircraft carriers HMS Eagle and USS Wasp fly off Spitfires from positions in the Western Mediterranean to reinforce the air defences of Malta.
1942: The Battle of the Coral Sea between the Japanese Navy and the U.S. Navy ends. At about 0800 hours both the Japanese and American carrier groups spot each other and send out attack aircraft. The Japanese succeed in torpedoing the Lexington, which severely damaged and later abandoned, while the Americans disable the Shokaku, which is withdrawn to Truk. Later in the day, the Japanese launch more attacks to destroy the remainder of Admiral Fletchers force, but this had withdrawn out of range.
1942: Japanese troops capture Myitkyina in northern Burma.
Nancy Olson
1943: Thousands of Korean-Americans petition to have their status converted from that of enemy aliens to friendly aliens. In December 1943, this is granted.
1943: British forces withdraw from Buthidaung, just inside Burma.
1943: Joint Strategic Plan approved at Cairo: South Pacific to the Philippines (MacArthur); China to Hong Kong (Chiang); Central Pacific to Formosa (Nimitz).
Packard Ad - May 1944
1944: Eisenhower decides that D-Day will be the 5th June.
1944: Rudolf Höss returns to Auschwitz, ordered by Himmler to oversee the extermination of Hungarian Jews.
Nancy Olson
1945: VE-Day (Victory-in-Europe Day). Germany surrenders unconditionally, and the war in Europe ends. The Royal Observer Corps is also stood-down from its war footing and assumes its peacetime role. At this time there were 32,000 observers based at 1,420 posts around the UK. (WATCH VIDEO)
1945: An RAF Catalina damages U-320 near Bergen off the coast of Norway. The boat is then scuttled by the crew, no hands lost, becoming the final German submarine lost as a result of combat action in World War 2. German unconditional surrender signed in Reims, France on 7th May takes effect fifty-nine minutes before midnight this date (VE Day--Victory in Europe Day). Allied merchant shipping sunk to U-boats, world-wide from January to the end of hostilities is 103 ships, equaling 403,760 gross tons. 120 U-boats were lost worldwide in the same period. For the entire war the allies lost 3,500 ships. equaling 17,467,818 gross tons, whilst the Germans lost 769 U-boats.
1945: In deference to the Russians, the surrender ceremony to the western allies at Rheims of the previous day is repeated before Marshall Zhukov and other Soviet generals at Karlshorst, a suburb of Berlin. After radio appeals early in the day for protection against heavy German shelling, the Prague resistance reaches an agreement with the Germans for the capitulation of the city, as the U.S. 4th Armoured Division from the West and Koniev's troops from the East approach.
1945: The last convoys of German refugees from Eastern Germany arrive in western Baltic ports, ending the largest rescue operation by sea in history. Since the 25th January, a total of 420,000 civilians and wounded soldiers have been evacuated.
Nancy Olson
*Nancy (Ann) Olson was born on Saturday, July 14 1928 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the daughter of Henry, a physician, and Evelyn Olson, and educated at the University of Wisconsin. She cast such a sunny, positive glow in 1950s and 1960s films that you wonder how her promising career might have turned out had it not taken a sudden family detour. Discovered on stage after transferring to California's UCLA, the pretty, peaches-and-cream blonde was quickly signed by Paramount Studios in 1948 and almost immediately handed co-starring parts after an unbilled bit part in "Portrait of Jennie" (1948).
Earning a prime role in the picture "Canadian Pacific" (1949), the relatively inexperienced starlet was given the role of a lifetime as script girl Betty Schaefer, who attracts ne'er-do-well writer William Holden and irks reclusive diva Gloria Swanson in the towering classic "Sunset Blvd." (1950). A bright and animated presence who held her own in a film rich with scene-stealers, Nancy won a deserved Oscar nomination for "best supporting actress" as one of the more sane characters in the film. Her pairing with Holden, in fact, went over so well they were teamed in a succession of standard features: "Union Station" (1950), "Force of Arms" (1951), and "Submarine Command" (1951), none holding a candle to their "Sunset" pairing. Other male co-stars during this active period included John Wayne as "Big Jim McLain" (1952), Sterling Hayden in "So Big" (1953) (one of her finer post "Sunset" roles), and Will Rogers Jr. in "The Boy from Oklahoma" (1954).
Nancy's increasing status in Hollywood came to a virtual halt in the mid-1950s, after marrying renowned lyricist Alan Jay Lerner (who later wrote "On a Clear Day..." and "Camelot"). She abruptly put her acting on hold in favor of raising their two daughters and her career never fully recovered. While the couple divorced in 1957 and she decided to return full-time to acting, the writing was already on the wall. An actress' prime can be ruefully short; by the late 50s Nancy was perceived as too mature to now play the fresh-faced, girl-next-door type for which she was so identified.
Disney Studios came to the rescue, however, in the early 60s and gave her mid-career an added luster by playing Fred MacMurray love interest in both "The Absent Minded Professor" (1961) and "Son of Flubber" (1963). Her poise, charm and ever-animated appeal was absolutely in sync with the studio's squeaky-clean image, and adding just the right amount of feisty, feminine starch for the light slapstick happenings around her. Other Disney films she sparticipated in included "Pollyanna" (1960) and "Snowball Express" (1972). She also made an unbilled cameo appearance in the "Flubber" (1997) remake starring Robin Williams, which is the last time she has been seen on screen.
Nancy went on to find sunny work on Broadway, notably in the plays "The Tunnel of Love," "Send Me No Flowers" and "Mary, Mary." In the 70s and 80s, she came back with a couple of secondary parts on regular series TV, but the shows were both short-lived. She retired for all intents and purposes in the mid-80s. Her second marriage in 1962 to record executive Alan Livingston, who also created the TV character of Bozo the Clown, was long lasting (he died in 2009) and their son, Christopher Livingston, is a sometime film director.
Packard Ad - May 1945
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I might have missed it, but did they check his blood alcohol levels? I don't recall hearing that. These foundations really need to up their game on their pilots and the maintenance of their aircraft. Right now, I wouldn't spend the money to go on a flight on one of those vintage warbirds.
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Morning all. 50F under partly cloudy skies. Mostly sunny today with a high of 63F.
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Florida Citrus Commission Ad - May 1943
1940: British PM Neville Chamberlain resigns.
1940: All Dutch Army leave suspended.
*Maria Montez
1941: British capture U110 and its Enigma machine.
1941: The Luftwaffe launches the first of two consecutive night raids against the British port of Hull.
Maria Montez
1942: Dutch Jews are forced to wear the yellow 'Star of David' badge.
1942: Vichy French resistance ends in Madagascar.
Dayton Rubber Company Ad - May 1944
1942: The Battle of the Coral Sea begins, as the Japanese Striking Force (Admiral Inouye), which consists of the carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku, 2 cruisers and 6 destroyers make the first strike. This is against the oiler Neosho and her escorting destroyer, which are on their way to rendezvous with Admiral Fletchers Task Force 17, which includes the carriers Yorktown and Lexington, 8 cruisers and 11 destroyers. The Neosho takes serious damage and eventually has to be scuttled. Admiral Fletcher then orders a cruiser squadron consisting of HMAS Australia, Hobart, USN Chicago and 2 destroyers to attack the Port Moresby invasion force, but this soon comes under Japanese air attack, although it did divert Japanese attention away from the American carriers. At the same time, Admiral Inouye orders the Invasion Force to turn away from the Jomard Passage until the American carriers have been dealt with. Admiral Fletcher now launched a strike from the Yorktown against what he thought was a major Japanese task force, but which turned out to be only 2 light cruisers and 2 gunboats. However, aircraft from the Lexington spotted the Japanese carrier Shoho and sank her. Later that afternoon the Japanese launched 27 aircraft against the US carrier Task Force, but they failed to locate their targets and only 6 returned safely. At midnight, Admiral Inouye decided to postpone the invasion of Port Moresby for two days.
Maria Montez
1943: The last major German strongholds in North Africa--Tunis and Bizerte--fall to Allied forces.
1943: In a speech to Nazi Party Reichsleiters and Gauleiters in Berlin, Hitler says that U-boat warfare will be stepped up as the surest way to "cut the arteries of the enemy." Even as the Fuhrer speaks, however, the calamity of "Black May" for the U-boat force is unfolding in the Atlantic.
Florida Citrus Commission Ad - May 1944
1944: The US 8th Air Force launches a 1,500-bomber raid against Berlin.
1944: 300,000 Japanese troops begin their preliminary moves prior to an offensive from the Canton and Hankow area in eastern China, with the aim of capturing allied airfields.
Maria Montez
1945: U-2336 sinks the last allied merchant ships of the war off the Firth of Forth, these are the Norwegian vessels Sneland I and the British Avondale Park.
1945: General Böhne announces the unconditional surrender of German troops in Norway.
Maria Montez
1945: The German Chief-of-Staff, General Jodl, signs Germany's unconditional surrender to the western allies and Russia at 2:41am. Operations are to cease at 1 minute after midnight (GMT) on the 8th May. General Böhne announces the unconditional surrender of German troops in Norway. British troops enter Utrecht to a tumultuous reception.
1945: The British Eighth Army crosses the Italian/Austrian border.
Maria Montez
*Born María África Gracia Vidal on June 6, 1912 in Barahona, Dominican Republic, she was the second daughter of ten children born to Isidoro Gracia Garcia Vidal born in La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain and mother Regla Teresa Maria Vidal from Bani, Dominican Republic. Her father, an exporter of wood and textiles, was also the Spanish Consul to the Dominican Republic. At a young age, she taught herself to speak English. Montez was educated in a Catholic convent in her father's native Canary Islands. Maria's brothers and sister were Isidoro, Aquilino, Joaquín, David, Ada, Consuelo, Luz, Luis, Jaime and Teresita.
In 1932, she married William McFeeters, an American banker working in her seaside home town of Barahona. Her marriage lasted several years but in 1939 she ended up in New York City where her exotic looks landed her a job as a model. Determined to become a stage actress, she hired an agent and created a résumé that made her several years younger by listing her birth as 1917 in some instances and 1918 in others. Eventually she accepted an offer from Universal Pictures, making her film debut in a Johnny Mack Brown B western, "Boss of Bullion City" (1940).
Her beauty soon made her the centerpiece of Universal's Technicolor costume adventures, notably the six in which she was teamed with Jon Hall "Arabian Nights" (1942), "White Savage" (1943), "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" (1944), "Cobra Woman" (1944), "Gypsy Wildcat" (1944), and "Sudan" (1945). Montez also appeared in the Technicolor western "Pirates of Monterey" (1947) with Rod Cameron and the sepia-toned swashbuckler "The Exile" (1948), directed by Max Ophuls and starring Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
Maria Montez
While working in Hollywood, she met and married French actor Jean-Pierre Aumont, who had to leave a few days after their wedding to serve in the Free French Forces fighting against Nazi Germany in the European Theatre of World War II. At the end of World War II, the couple had a daughter, Maria Christina (also known as Tina Aumont), born in Hollywood in 1946. They then moved to a home in Suresnes, Île-de-France in the eastern suburb of Paris under the French Fourth Republic. There, Maria Montez appeared in several films and a play written by her husband. She also wrote three books, two of which were published, as well as penning a number of poems.
The 39-year-old Montez died in Paris, France on September 7, 1951 after apparently suffering a heart attack and drowning in her bath. She was buried in the Cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris where her tombstone displays her theatrical year of birth, 1918.
TRIVIA:
Measurements: 36-25-36 1/2
The international airport at Barahona, Dominican Republic, is named the Maria Montez International Airport in her honor.
Electric Boat Company Ad - May 1944
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Morning all. Cloudy and 47F. Skies will clear some late this morning. Partly cloudy skies will dominate our day, with light NW winds. High today of 61F.
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Lockheed Aircraft Ad - May 1942
1940: Hitler again delays X-Day, this time till the 10th May.
1940: Francis Sayre is sent to Tokyo for talks with Foreign Minister Arita.
*Phyllis Coates
1941: Bob Hope gives his first USO show at California's March Field.
1941: US Secretary for War advocates US Navy protection for British supply convoys.
Phyllis Coates
1941: Stalin declares himself 'Chairman of the Council of Peoples Commissars'.
1941: The last Brigade of the British 10th Indian Division arrives at Basra with its commander Major General Bill Slim. Axis aircraft begin to land at the Mosul airfield in northern Iraq.
North American Aviation Ad - May 1944
1942: Corregidor surrenders after five months resistance, with 15,000 prisoners taken by 1,000 Japanese.
1942: B-17's from Australia spot the Port Moresby Invasion Fleet south of Bougainville. They attack the Japanese Carrier Shoho but miss. Admiral Fletcher is now convinced that the main Japanese force would make for the Jomard Passage between Papua and the Louisiade Archipelago and so organizes his forces for the coming battle.
1943: Hitler makes one of his increasingly rare visits to Berlin for Viktor Lutze's funeral.
Champion Spark Plugs Ad - May 1944
1945: The last U-boats of the war sunk with all hands: U-853 and U-881 in the North Atlantic by US destroyer escorts, and U-3523 in the Baltic by the RAF.
1945: Axis Sally makes her final propaganda broadcast to Allied troops.
Phyllis Coates
1945: The U.S. Fifth Army enters Austria from Italy.
1945: Breslau surrenders after an 82-day siege, during which the Russians inflicted 29,000 civilian and military casualties and took more than 40,000 prisoners.
Phyllis Coates
*Born Gypsie Ann Evarts Stell on January 15, 1927 on her family's cattle ranch in Texas, American actress Phyllis Coates left home to attend UCLA. Shortly afterward she secured a dancing job with Ken Murray's Blackouts, a long-running LA-based stage review. She later danced for producer Earl Carroll and in a USO tour of "Anything Goes". Through the auspices of her first husband, director Richard Bare, Phyllis entered films in 1948 as leading lady of Warner Bros.' "Behind the Eight-Ball" short subjects series, playing Mrs. Joe McDoakes (George O'Hanlon). Coates stayed with the Eight-Ball series even after her marriage to Bare ended, and also appeared in supporting parts in such Warners features as "Look for the Silver Lining" (1949). In 1951, Coates was cast as reporter Lois Lane in Lippert Productions' "B"-feature "Superman and the Mole Men", wherein George Reeves played the dual role of Superman and Clark Kent for the first time. This week-long assignment led to both Reeves and Phyllis being cast in the subsequent Superman TV series. Coates played a strong-willed Lois Lane in the first 26 episodes of "Adventures of Superman", where she was given equal billing with George Reeves, even for episodes she did not appear in. Her powerful "damsel in distress" scream was used to good effect in several episodes. After shooting for the first season, the Superman producers suspended production until they found a national sponsor. When it came time to film more Superman episodes, Coates had already committed herself elsewhere. Noel Neill, who had played Lois Lane in the 1948-1950 serials opposite Kirk Alyn's Superman, succeeded her and became far more identified with the role. (George Reeves is said to have requested Coates to return to the role in 1959; his untimely death ended the series permanently.)
Phyllis Coates as Lois Lane with George Reeves as Superman (1951)
Phyllis remained in films until the early 1960s, mostly in westerns "Marshall of Cedar Creek" [1953] and "Blood Arrow" [1958]) and also as the lead in one of the last Republic serials, "Panther Girl of the Kongo" (1953). She appeared in quite a few sci-fi and horror films as well; in "Invasion USA" (1952) one of her fellow cast members was Noel Neill, the actress who'd replaced her as Lois Lane on Superman. Phyllis remained active in television throughout her career, co-starring on the short-lived 1958 sitcom "This is Alice" and playing good guest roles in a multitude of series like "Perry Mason", "The Untouchables" and "The Patty Duke Show". Long in retirement, Phyllis Coates returned to films and TV in the early 1990s; one of her best latter-day roles was on the newest Superman TV incarnation, "Lois and Clark" where she plays Lois Lane's mother.
North American Aviation Ad - May 1945
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Morning all. 43F under clear skies. A sunny start to Wednesday with clouds slowly building by afternoon. Overnight, a weak cold front will attempt to generate a few isolated showers. High today of 64F.
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Chevrolet Truck Ad - May 1944
1940: Germans advance north to Trondheim.
1940: Norwegian government-in-exile established in London.
*Mala Powers
1941: Major General Bernard Freyberg VC, is appointed by General Wavell to command approximately 40,000 British, New Zealand, Australian and Greek troops which are stationed on Crete. While a strong force on paper, these troops have virtually no artillery or tanks and are very disorganised after their hurried evacuation from Greece.
1941: Emperor Haile Selassie returns to Addis Ababa 5 years after his country was occupied by the Italians.
Mala Powers
1942: Convoy PQ-15 arrives at Murmansk.
1942: British forces land at Diego Suarez and Antsirene on Vichy French held Madagascar in an pre-emptive strike to stop the Japanese from using it as an advanced base.
1942: The Japanese advance into China along the Burma Road.
International Harvester Ad - May 1944
1942: Japanese troops make amphibious landings against the US-Filipino garrison on Corregidor.
1942: The main Japanese striking force which is built around the carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku, enters the Coral Sea and bombs Port Moresby.
1942: Japanese begin preparations to invade Midway and the Aleutian Islands.
Mala Powers
1943: British forces break through the defenses of the 5th Panzerarmee to the South of Tunis.
1944: The Russians launch their attack the fortress city of Sevastopol in the Crimea.
Mala Powers
1945: The U.S. Third Army prepares to drive on to Prague.
1945: German troops in Holland surrender to Canadian army.
1945: German forces in Denmark surrender.
Mala Powers
1945: A civilian uprising begins in Prague and is aided by defecting units of the anti-Bolshevist Vlasov Army.
1945: Admiral von Friedeburg arrives at General Eisenhower's HQ in Rheims. General Blaskowitz, the German C-in-C of the Netherlands, surrenders at a ceremony in the small Dutch town of Wagenungen in the presence of Prince Bernhard. The first British victory salvo of war is fired at 3pm from Montgomery's HQ. Amsterdam is liberated. Eisenhower announces the capitulation of German Army Group 'C', which was covering the front from Linz to Swiss frontier. The U.S. Third Army takes Pilsen, Karlsbad and prepares to drive towards Prague.
Mala Powers
1945: Mauthausen concentration camp is liberated.
1945: Reverend Archie Mitchell and his wife and five children discover a deflated Japanese balloon containing a bomb that had been let loose in the West Winds traveling over the pacific to land in Oregon. It killed the wife and children, the only civilian casualties of the war on the continental United States.
Mala Powers
*Mary Ellen "Mala" Powers was born in San Francisco, California on December 20, 1931. In 1940 her family moved to Los Angeles. Her father was an executive with United Press. In the summer of her relocation, Powers attended the Max Reinhardt Junior Workshop where she enjoyed her first role in a play before a live audience. She continued with her drama lessons, and a year later she auditioned and won a part in the 1942 "Dead End Kids" film "Tough as They Come".
At the age of 16 she began working in radio drama, before becoming a film actress in 1950. Her first roles were in "Outrage" and "Edge of Doom" in 1950. That same year, Stanley Kramer signed Powers to star opposite Jose Ferrer in what may be her most remembered role as Roxane in "Cyrano de Bergerac". She was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for her part in this movie. Under contract with RKO,, and while on a USO Christmas entertainment tour in Korea in 1951, she acquired a blood disease and almost died. She was treated with chloromycetin, but a severe allergic reaction resulted in the loss of much of her bone marrow. Powers barely survived, and her recovery took nearly nine months.
She began working again in 1952 and 1953, including a part in "City Beneath the Sea" and "City That Never Sleeps", although she was still taking medication. Following her recovery, she appeared in B-movie westerns, such as "Rage at Dawn" (1955), and science fiction films, among them "The Colossus of New York" (1958), "Flight of the Lost Balloon" (1961), and "Doomsday Machine" (1972). She also had a large role in "Tammy and the Bachelor" (1957).
She appeared on over 100 TV shows, including episodes of "The Restless Gun", "Maverick", "Bonanza", "Wild Wild West", "Bewitched" and "Perry Mason", and she co-starred opposite Anthony Quinn in the TV movie "The Man and the City".
Mala Powers
Mala was married to Monte Vanton in 1954, but they later divorced; they had a son, Toren Vanton, who survived his mother. Powers remarried in 1970 to M. Hughes Miller, a book publisher. Ms. Powers was a successful children's author of "Follow the Star" and "Follow the Year" and of "Dial a Story". She was a master teacher for the past 14 years in the summer program at the University of Southern Maine for the Michael Chekhov Theatre Institute, training actors and teachers of acting. Mala Powers co-founded the National Michael Chekhov Association with teaching colleagues Wil Kilroy and Lisa Dalton, who continue to teach the curriculum developed by the trio in Maine. Powers was the executrix of the Michael Chekhov estate and instrumental in publishing Chekhov's books On the Technique of Acting, To the Actor, and The Path of the Actor. She also published Chekhov's audio series "On Theatre and the Art of Acting", to which she added a 60 page study guide. She co-narrates with Gregory Peck a documentary on Chekhov entitled "From Russia To Hollywood". She was patron of the Michael Chekhov Studio London and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Powers died from complications of leukemia on June 11, 2007, at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California.
TRIVIA:
Dated Ross Martin. Ross Martin is known for his most famous acting role as Secret Service agent Artemus Gordon in "The Wild Wild West".
Became very close friends with Ida Lupino, who directed Mala in her first big film, Outrage. When Lupino died in 1995, Mala was the executrix of her estate.
Chevrolet Truck Ad - May 1945
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Morning all. 47F under clear skies. Today will be a cooler one when compared to yesterday. Look for north wind to occasionally gust over 20 mph with lingering clouds around this morning. Those clouds will likely thin out somewhat through the day, allowing for a return to highs around 60 in many areas. High of 61F.
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American Meat Institute Ad - May 1943
1942: The United States begins food rationing.
1942: Akyab on the Burmese coast is abandoned by the British.
*Gale Storm
1942: The Japanese Port Moresby invasion force leaves Rabaul, in New Britain.
1942: With its naval support stripped away, the Japanese invasion fleet at Tulagi is attacked by aircraft from the American carrier Yorktown. 1 destroyer is disabled, while 3 minesweepers and 4 landing barges are sunk for the loss of just 3 US aircraft. Admiral Fletcher, now doubled back to meet up with the Lexington in the Coral Sea.
Gale Storm
1943: Italian Torpedo Boat Perseo is sunk off the coast of Tunisia by British destroyers
1943: Hitler decides to postpone Operation 'Citadel' in order that more Tiger and Panther tanks can be deployed in the offensive. This is against the advice of a number of leading Generals who fear that the Russian defenses will become too strong if the offensive is delayed any further.
Gale Storm
1944: The RAF carries out a night raid against Budapest.
1944: The British counter-attacks at Kohima, are repulsed by the Japanese.
Gale Storm
1945: The last day of air operations in north-west Europe; 2nd TAF aircraft claim to have shot down 141 enemy aircraft during anti-shipping operations in the Baltic.
1945: Grand Admiral Dönitz, now the newly designated leader of the Reich, orders all U-boats to cease offensive operations and return to their bases (to go into effect fully at 0800 on 5th May): "You have fought like lions!"
Maytag Ad - May 1943
1945: Admiral von Friedeburg arrives at Montgomery's HQ on Lüneburg Heath with German plenipotentiaries. At 8.15pm SHAEF announce that 'Field Marshal Montgomery has reported to the supreme allied command that all enemy forces in Holland, Northwest Germany and Denmark, have surrendered. The U.S. Ninth Army breaks up the German Ninth and Twelfth Armies. The U.S. Seventh Army takes Innsbruck, Salzburg and Berchtesgarten, which is still smoking after an RAF raid. Field-Marshal von Kleist gives himself up to the U.S. Third Army near Straubing.
Gale Storm
1945: The U.S. Fifth Army reaches the Brenner Pass.
1945: SEAC announces that Rangoon was taken so quickly that the Japanese had no time to destroy the installations there.
1945: Kamikaze flyers sink 17 U.S. ships in 24 hours off Okinawa.
Gale Storm
*Born with the drab, unlikely name of Josephine Owaissa Cottle on April 5, 1922, this pleasantly appealing, Texas-born, auburn-haired beauty was only seventeen months old when her father William passed away. The family moved from Bloomington (her home town) to McDade (between Austin and Houston) where her mother Minnie made ends meet as a seamstress and milliner. The youngest of five children, the family eventually settled in Houston where Gale took dance and ice skating lessons, developed a strong interest in acting and performed in high school dramatics. Encouraged by her teachers, Gale by chance entered and was chosen the winner of local radio talent contest called Jesse L. Lasky's "Gateway to Hollywood" in 1939. This took her and her mother to Hollywood where she captured the national contest title.
Handed the more exciting stage moniker of "Gale Storm," she was soon put under contract to RKO Pictures. Although she was dropped by the studio after only six months, she had established herself enough to find work elsewhere, including Monogram and Universal. Appearing in a number of "B" musicals, mysteries and westerns, her wholesome, open-faced prettiness made her a natural for filming. The programmers, however, that she co-starred in were hardly the talk of the town. Making her inauspicious debut with "Tom Brown's School Days" (1940), her 40s movies bore such dubious titles as "Let's Go Collegiate" (1941), "Freckles Comes Home" (1942), "Revenge of the Zombies" (1943), "Sunbonnet Sue" (1945), "Swing Parade of 1946" (1946), and "Curtain Call at Cactus Creek" (1950), indicates the hardships of finding suitable worthy of her talent. Arguably, her better movies include the family Christmas tale "It Happened on Fifth Avenue" (1947) which co-starred Don DeFore; the overlooked western comedy "The Dude Goes West" (1948) opposite Eddie Albert; and the film noir piece "The Underworld Story" (1950) with Dan Duryea.
After years of toiling in films, Gale finally turned things around at age 30 by transplanting herself to the small screen. Her very first TV series vehicle "My Little Margie" (1952), which was only suppose to be a summer replacement series for "I Love Lucy," became one of the most watchable sitcoms in the early 50s while showing up in syndicated reruns for decades. Co-starring the popular film star Charles Farrell as her amiable dad, Gale's warmth and ingratiating style suited TV to a tee, making her one of the most popular light comediennes of the time. She segued directly into her second hit series as a cruise ship director in "The Gale Storm Show" (1956), which was better known as "Oh! Susannah" after it went into syndication. Co-starring woebegone Zasu Pitts as the ship's manicurist and her Ethel Mertz counterpart, this show lasted a season longer than her first.
In the midst of all this, the (gasp) thirty-something star dared to launch her own Las Vegas nightclub and pop recording careers. Always looking much younger than she was, she produced a number of Billboard chart makers including "I Hear You Knocking" (her first hit), "Memories Are Made of This," "Ivory Tower" and her own cover of "Why Do Fools Fall in Love." Her most successful song of the decade was "Dark Moon," which peaked at #4.
Gale's film career took a sharp decline following the demise of her second series in 1960. Most of her focus was placed modestly on the summer stock or dinner theater circuit, doing a revolving door of tailor-made comedies and musicals such as "Cactus Flower," "Forty Carats," "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" and "South Pacific." She finally appeared again on TV in a "Love Boat" segment in 1979 after nearly a two-decade absence. It was later revealed in Gale's candid autobiography "I Ain't Down Yet" (1981) and on the talk show circuit that the disappearance was triggered by a particularly vicious battle with alcohol. Years later Gale became an outspoken and committed lecturer in helping to remove the stigma attached to such a disease, particularly as it applied to women.
Fully recovered, she has been widowed twice -- by actor Lee Bonnell in 1986 and Paul Masterson in 1996. Storm continued to make personal appearances and autographed photos at fan conventions, along with Charles Farrell from the My Little Margie series. She also attended events such as the Memphis Film Festival, the Friends of Old-Time Radio and the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention.
Storm lived alone in Monarch Beach, California, near two of her sons and their families, until failing health forced her into a convalescent home, near San Francisco in Danville, California. She died there on June 27, 2009 (aged 87) from natural causes.
Autocar Ad - May 1944
Thursday
in Ready Room
Posted
Morning all. 41F under clear skies. Some scattered clouds will develop this afternoon along with light winds from the south at 5 - 15 MPH. High of 66F.