JANE T. CURTIN, THE AMERICAN 'QUEEN OF DEADPAN'

Today, The Grandma has been watching some TV Series. She has chosen The Librarians and Unforgettable, two interesting works that have in common the same actress, the American Jane Curtin, well-known as the Queen of Deadpan, who was born on a day like today in 1947.

Jane Therese Curtin (born September 6, 1947) is an American actress and comedian.

First coming to prominence as an original cast member on the hit TV comedy series Saturday Night Live in 1975, she went on to win back-to-back Emmy Awards for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy Series on the 1980s sitcom Kate & Allie portraying the role of Allison "Allie" Lowell. Curtin later starred in the hit series 3rd Rock from the Sun (1996–2001), playing the role of Dr. Mary Albright.

Curtin has also appeared in many film roles, including Charlene in The Librarian series of movies (2004–2008). She reprised one of her Saturday Night Live characters, Prymaat (Clorhone) Conehead, in the 1993 film Coneheads.

She is sometimes referred to as the Queen of Deadpan. The Philadelphia Inquirer once called her a refreshing drop of acid. She was included on a 1986 list of the Top Prime Time Actors and Actresses of All Time.

More information: Television Academy

Curtin was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the daughter of Mary Constance and John Joseph Curtin, who owned an insurance agency.

She grew up in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and graduated from Newton Country Day School of the Sacred Heart in Newton in 1965.

Curtin holds an associate degree from Elizabeth Seton Junior College in New York City, class of 1967. She then attended Northeastern University from 1967 to 1968.

She has served as a U.S. Committee National Ambassador for UNICEF.

In 1968, Curtin decided to pursue comedy as a career and dropped out of college. She joined a comedy group, The Proposition, and performed with them until 1972. She starred in Pretzels, an off-Broadway play written by Curtin, John Forster, Judith Kahan, and Fred Grandy, in 1974.

One of the original Not Ready For Prime Time Players of NBC's Saturday Night Live (1975), Curtin remained on the show through the 1979–1980 season.

Unlike many of her fellow SNL cast members who ventured successfully into film, Curtin chose to stay mainly in television, with a few sporadic film appearances. To date, she has starred in two long-running television sitcoms. First, in Kate & Allie (1984–89), with Susan Saint James, she played a single mother named Allie Lowell and twice won the Emmy Award for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.

She later joined the cast of 3rd Rock from the Sun (1996-2001) playing a human, Dr. Mary Albright, opposite the alien family, composed of John Lithgow, Kristen Johnston, French Stewart, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. As with SNL, her mostly strait-laced character was often confounded by the zany and whimsical antics of the Solomon family.

In 1980, Curtin starred with Susan Saint James and Jessica Lange in the moderate hit How to Beat the High Cost of Living.

In 1993, Curtin and Dan Aykroyd were reunited in Coneheads, a full-length motion picture based on their popular SNL characters. They also appeared together as the voices of a pair of wasps in the film Antz.

In 1997, Curtin narrated two episodes of the documentary television series Understanding, and she has done voice work for Recess and Cyberchase. She guest starred on Sesame Street in 1985.

More information: The New Yorker

Curtin also starred with Fred Savage in the ABC sitcom Crumbs, which debuted in January 2006 and was cancelled in May of that year. She also guest-starred on Gary Unmarried as Connie, Allison's mother.

In 2009, she played Paul Rudd and Andy Samberg's mother in I Love You, Man.

In 2012, she joined Unforgettable as Dr. Joanne Webster, a gifted but crusty medical examiner; in 2014, she occasionally reprised her role as the first Guardian on The Librarians.

In 2013, she took a small role in The Heat as Mrs. Mullins, the mother of Detective Mullins. Curtin played Moira, the Headmistress of the Motherland, in Disney's Godmothered.

In 2020, she had a co-starring role as a quirky mother-in-law on the ABC sitcom United We Fall.

Curtin has also performed on Broadway on occasion. She first appeared on the Great White Way as Miss Proserpine Garnett in the play Candida in 1981. She later went on to be a replacement actress in two other plays, Love Letters and Noises Off, and was in the 2002 revival of Our Town, which received huge press attention as Paul Newman returned to the Broadway stage after several decades away.

She also has narrated several audiobooks, including Carl Hiaasen's novel Nature Girl.

On May 7, 2010, Curtin placed second in the Jeopardy! Million Dollar Celebrity Invitational, winning $250,000 for the U.S. Fund for UNICEF. Michael McKean won the tournament, while Cheech Marin came in third.

She presented Emmy Awards in 1984, 1987, and 1998; the 11th Annual American Comedy Awards in 1997; and the 54th Annual Golden Globe Awards in 1997.

Curtin has guest hosted several episodes of Selected Shorts produced by Symphony Space and distributed by Public Radio International.

More information: Parade

 I never really marketed myself,
so each job I was given was a new marketing tool,
and that would be the way I marketed myself.

Jane Curtin

PETER ALEXANDER VON USTINOV, CINEMA & UNICEF

Today, The Grandma is relaxing at home. She has been watching some films interpreted by Peter Ustinov, one of her favourite actors who was born on a day like today in 1921.

 

The Grandma admires Ustinov and loves all his roles, especially Hercule Poirot ones.

Peter Alexander von Ustinov (16 April 1921-28 March 2004) was an English actor, writer, and filmmaker.

He was a fixture on television talk shows and lecture circuits for much of his career. An intellectual and diplomat, he held various academic posts and served as a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF and president of the World Federalist Movement.

Ustinov was the winner of numerous awards during his life, including two Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor, Emmy Awards, Golden Globes, and BAFTA Awards for acting, and a Grammy Award for best recording for children, as well as the recipient of governmental honours from, amongst others, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.

In 2003, Durham University changed the name of its Graduate Society to Ustinov College in honour of the significant contributions Ustinov had made as chancellor of the university from 1992 until his death.

Peter Alexander Freiherr von Ustinov was born in London, England. His father, Jona Freiherr von Ustinov, was of Russian, Polish Jewish, German, and Ethiopian descent. Peter's paternal grandfather was Baron Plato von Ustinov, a Russian noble, and his grandmother was Magdalena Hall, of mixed German-Ethiopian-Jewish origin.

Ustinov's great-grandfather Moritz Hall, a Jewish refugee from Kraków and later a Christian convert and collaborator of Swiss and German missionaries in Ethiopia, married into a German-Ethiopian family. Peter's paternal great-great-grandparents were the German painter Eduard Zander and the Ethiopian aristocrat Court-Lady Isette-Werq in Gondar.

Ustinov's mother, Nadezhda Leontievna Benois, known as Nadia, was a painter and ballet designer of French, German, Italian, and Russian descent. Her father, Leon Benois, was an Imperial Russian architect and owner of Leonardo da Vinci's painting Madonna Benois. 

Jona or Iona worked as a press officer at the German Embassy in London in the 1930s and was a reporter for a German news agency. In 1935, two years after Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, Jona von Ustinov began working for the British intelligence service MI5 and became a British citizen, thus avoiding internment during the war. The statutory notice of his application for citizenship was published in a Welsh newspaper so as not to alert the Germans. He was the controller of Wolfgang Gans zu Putlitz, an MI5 spy in the German embassy in London, who furnished information on Hitler's intentions before the Second World War.

More information: Legacy

Ustinov was educated at Westminster School and had a difficult childhood because of his parents' constant fighting. One of his schoolmates was Rudolf von Ribbentrop, the eldest son of the Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. While at school, Ustinov considered anglicizing his name to Peter Austin, but was counselled against it by a fellow pupil who said that he should Drop the 'von' but keep the 'Ustinov'.

In his late teens he trained as an actor at the London Theatre Studio. While there, on 18 July 1938 he made his first appearance on the stage at the Barn Theatre, Shere, playing Waffles in Chekhov’s The Wood Demon, and his London stage début later that year at the Players' Theatre, becoming quickly established. He later wrote, I was not irresistibly drawn to the drama. It was an escape road from the dismal rat race of school.

In 1939, he appeared in White Cargo at the Aylesbury Rep, where he performed in a different accent every night. Ustinov served as a private in the British Army during the Second World War, including time spent as batman to David Niven while writing the Niven film The Way Ahead.

After the war, he began writing; his first major success was with the play The Love of Four Colonels (1951). He starred with Humphrey Bogart and Aldo Ray in We're No Angels (1955).

His career as a dramatist continued, his best-known play being Romanoff and Juliet (1956). His film roles include Roman emperor Nero in Quo Vadis (1951), Lentulus Batiatus in Spartacus (1960), Captain Vere in Billy Budd (1962), Captain Blackbeard in the Disney film Blackbeard’s Ghost (1968), and an old man surviving a totalitarian future in Logan's Run (1976).

Ustinov voiced the anthropomorphic lions Prince John and King Richard in the 1973 Disney animated film Robin Hood. He also worked on several films as writer and occasionally director, including The Way Ahead (1944), School for Secrets (1946), Hot Millions (1968), and Memed, My Hawk (1984).

In half a dozen films, he played Agatha Christie's detective Hercule Poirot, first in Death on the Nile (1978) and then in 1982's Evil Under the Sun, 1985's Thirteen at Dinner (TV film), 1986's Dead Man's Folly (TV film), 1986's Murder in Three Acts (TV film), and 1988's Appointment with Death.

Ustinov won Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor for his roles in Spartacus (1960) and Topkapi (1964). He also won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor for the film Quo Vadis. Ustinov was also the winner of three Emmys and one Grammy and was nominated for two Tony Awards.

More information: The Guardian

His autobiography, Dear Me (1977), was well-received and had him describe his life (ostensibly his childhood) while being interrogated by his own ego, with forays into philosophy, theatre, fame, and self-realization.

From 1969 until his death, his acting and writing took second place to his work on behalf of UNICEF, for which he was a goodwill ambassador and fundraiser. In this role, he visited some of the neediest children and made use of his ability to make people laugh, including many of the world's most disadvantaged children. Sir Peter could make anyone laugh, UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy is quoted as saying.

Ustinov died on 28 March 2004 of heart failure in a clinic in Genolier, near his home in Bursins, Switzerland, aged 82. UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy spoke at his funeral, representing United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. 

Ustinov was the president of the World Federalist Movement (WFM) from 1991 to 2004, the time of his death. WFM is a global nongovernmental organization that promotes the concept of global democratic institutions. WFM lobbies those in powerful positions to establish a unified human government based on democracy and civil society. The United Nations and other world agencies would become the institutions of a World Federation. The UN would be the federal government and nation states would become similar to provinces.

Until his death, Ustinov was a member of English PEN, part of the PEN International network that campaigns for freedom of expression.

More information: UNICEF

It is our responsibilities, not ourselves,
that we should take seriously.

Peter Ustinov

JOAQUÍN SALVADOR LAVADO: THE MAFALDA'S CREATOR

Joaquín Salvador Lavado aka Quino

Joaquín Salvador Lavado, better known by his pen name Quino is an Argentine cartoonist. His comic strip Mafalda, which ran from 1964 to 1973, is very popular in Latin America and many parts of Europe.

Joaquín Salvador Lavado was born in Mendoza, Argentina, on 17 July 1932. He was called Quino since childhood, to distinguish him from his uncle, the illustrator Joaquín, who helped to awaken his vocation of cartooning at an early age. 

In 1945, after the death of his mother, he enrolled and started his studies at Escuela de Bellas Artes de Mendoza. Shortly after, his father died when Quino was 16 years old; a year later he abandoned his studies, with the intent to become a cartoonist. Soon he would sell his first illustration, an advertisement for a fabric store.

More information: Time Travel Turtle

His first humor page was published in the weekly magazine Esto Es, which led to the publication of other works in many other magazines: Leoplán, TV Guía, Vea y Lea, Damas y Damitas, Usted, Panorama, Adán, Atlántida, Che and el diario Democracia.

Quino and his creation, Mafalda

In 1954, his cartoons became regulars in Rico Tipo, Tía Vicenta and Dr. Merengue. 

His first compilation book, Mundo Quino, was published in 1963, while he was developing pages for a covert advertising campaign for Mansfield, an electrical household appliance company, for which he created the character of Mafalda.

The advertising campaign was never executed, which led to the publication of Mafalda’s first story to be published in Leoplán, after this, it started to be published regularly in the weekly magazine Primera Plana, since the director of the magazine was a friend of Quino. Between 1965 and 1967 it was published in the newspaper El Mundo; soon after the first compilation book is published, it starts to be edited in Italy, Spain, due to the censorship, it is tagged as only for adults, Portugal and many others.

After abandoning the story of Mafalda on 25 June 1973, due to a lack of new ideas, according to him, Quino moved to Milan, Italy, from where he continued to create humor pages. 

Quino and Mafalda

In 1976, the character Mafalda was chosen by UNICEF to be a spokesperson for the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Mafalda is still translated in book collections. Argentine director Daniel Mallo translated 260 Mafalda strips into 90-second cartoons that aired in Argentina, starting in 1972.

In 2008, by initiative of the Museo del Dibujo y la Ilustración and under the curator Mercedes Casanegra, the company Subterráneos de Buenos Aires created two murals of Mafalda in the estación Perú in the Plaza de Mayo. 

In 2009, Quino participated with an original work of Mafalda, created for El Mundo, in the Bicentennial: 200 years of Graphic Humor that the Museo del Dibujo y la Ilustración held in the Museo Eduardo Sívori of Buenos Aires.

Download Mafalda Comics (Spanish Version)

Nobody reaches a fortune without convert the others in flour.

Mafalda

UNICEF: 70 YEARS HELPING CHILDREN

UNICEF School

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) is a United Nations (UN) programme headquartered in New York City that provides humanitarian and developmental assistance to children and mothers in developing countries. 
It is one of the members of the United Nations Development Group and its executive committee.

UNICEF was created by the United Nations General Assembly on 11 December 1946, to provide emergency food and healthcare to children in countries that had been devastated by World War II.

More information: UNICEF

The Polish physician Ludwik Rajchman is widely regarded as the founder of UNICEF and served as its first chairman from 1946. On Rajchman's suggestion, the American Maurice Pate was appointed its first executive director, serving from 1947 until his death in 1965.In 1953, UNICEF's mandate was extended to address the needs of children in the developing world and became a permanent part of the United Nations System. At that time, the words international and emergency were dropped from the organization's name, making it simply the United Nations Children's Fund, or popularly known as UNICEF.

UNICEF's Supply Division is based in Copenhagen and serves as the primary point of distribution for such essential items as vaccines, antiretroviral medicines for children and mothers with HIV, nutritional supplements, emergency shelters, family reunification,and educational supplies. 

A 36 member executive board establishes policies, approves programmes and oversees administrative and financial plans. The executive board is made up of government representatives who are elected by the United Nations Economic and Social Council, usually for three-year terms.

On 7 September 2006, an agreement between UNICEF and the Catalan association football club FC Barcelona was reached whereby the club would donate 1.5 million Euros per year to the organization for five years. As part of the agreement, FC Barcelona will wear the UNICEF logo on the front of their uniform. This was the first time a football club sponsored an organization rather than the other way around. It was also the first time in FC Barcelona's history that they have had another organization's name across the front of their uniform.

More information: Fundació Futbol Club Barcelona

Over the next two years UNICEF will focus on improving access to and the quality of education to provide children who have dropped out of school or who work during school hours the opportunity to gain a formal education! 

Roger Moore

MONTSE, AUDREY & HÉRCULE: BREAKFAST IN BELGIUM

Audrey Hepburn

Montse (aka The Second) is our farmer. 

She was born in Belgium as Audrey Hepburn and she wanted to be an actress and a UNICEF ambassadress as her but one day, in a scholar visit to the country lands she discovered her real passion: the animals and the agriculture. 

She’s vegetarian, of course, and belongs to an undefined number of Protective Animal Associations. She has three Maltese dogs which escort her everywhere. 

Moreover, she is a fanatic of Hércule Poirot, the Belgian detective created by Agatha Christie.

More information: UNICEF