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Charlie Parker, sax player, composer and music visionary, was born 100 years ago today, on 29-August-1920. Charlie Parker and his friend Dizzy Gillespie were two of the founding fathers of bebop. Bird influenced everyone.
Bird had an addiction to heroin and other opioids, but it didn't rule his life right away. He made many recordings and influenced young musicians like Miles Davis and Jackie McLean. Parker tried to tell young musicians not to copy his drug use, but many wound up addicted to heroin.
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Clint Eastwood made a movie called Bird, which starred Forrest Whitacker as Parker. The movie showed him as being screwed up his whole life. That is an exaggeration.
People often say that Bird With Strings is one of their favorite albums.
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Motion Picture News, 21-August-1920 |
After serving in the US Army Air Service during World War I, Ormer Locklear became a barnstormer who specialized in wing walking. He and his partner Skeets Elliot toured the country thrilling audiences. While shooting their second starring movie, The Skywayman (great title), pilot Elliot was blinded by spotlights during a night dive and both men were killed. The producers left the scene in the movie.
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Motion Picture News, 21-August-1920 |
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Motion Picture News, 07-August-1920 |
Henry (Pathé) Lehrman started out at Biograph, then went to Keystone with Mack Sennett, then left Sennett to found L-KO (Lehrman Knock-Out) Komedies. He left L-KO to produce Sunshine Comedies for Fox. Sunshine Comedies frequently featured pretty girls and lions. Lehrman left Fox to make comedies released by First National. Fox Sunshine still had plenty of pretty girls.
Bud Fisher's Mutt and Jeff was the most popular comic strip in America for many years. Augustus Mutt and Jeff had many timely adventures.
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Motion Picture News, 07-August-1920 |
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Bottineau, ND Courant, 12-August-1920 |
In his wonderful book The Silent Clowns, Walter Kerr suggested that Lloyd Hamilton was one of the great silent comics whose reputation has diminished. This is because many of the solo movies Hamilton made for Educational during the 1920s are lost. Perhaps this is also because he was not able to succeed as a star in feature films.
In "A Twilight Baby," Ham appeared with Virginia Rappe, the poor young woman who is mostly remembered for dying the day after a party with Roscoe Arbuckle in San Francisco's Saint Francis Hotel. People told a lot of ugly stories about her, but I doubt that any of them were true.
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She appeared in many great movies, like The Night of the Hunter and A Place in the Sun.
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Motion Picture News, 07-August-1920 |
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I was surprised to learn that comedian Steve Martin and director Wim Wenders were born on the same day, 14-August-1945, so they both turn 75 today.
I remember seeing Steve Martin in the 1970s and thinking he was too undisciplined, but I am a Buster Keaton fan, so I have high standards. He is a writer, an actor and a heck of a banjo player.
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Motion Picture News, 07-August-1920 |