Today, The Grandma has been reading about Madeleine Stowe, the American actress, who was born on a day like today in 1958.
Madeleine Marie Stowe Mora is an American actress. She appeared mostly on television before her role in the 1987 crime-comedy film Stakeout. She went on to star in the films Revenge (1990), Unlawful Entry (1992), The Last of the Mohicans (1992), Blink (1993), 12 Monkeys (1995), TheGeneral's Daughter (1999), and We Were Soldiers (2002). For her role in the 1993 independent film Short Cuts, she won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress.
From 2011 to 2015, Stowe starred as Victoria Grayson, the main antagonist of the ABC drama series Revenge. For this role, she was nominated for the 2012 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress-Television Series Drama.
Stowe, the first of three children, was born at the Queen of Angels Hospital, in Los Angeles, California, and raised in Eagle Rock, a section of Los Angeles. Her father, Robert Stowe, was a civil engineer from Oregon, while her mother, Mireya (née Mora Steinvorth), came from a prominent family in Costa Rica.
Not being especially interested in her college classes, she volunteered to do performances at the Solaris, a Beverly Hills theater, where a movie agent saw her in a play and got her several offers of appearances in TV and films.
In 1978, she made her debut in an episode in the police drama series Baretta, followed by a string of TV work with guest appearances on The Amazing Spider-Man, Barnaby Jones and Little House on the Prairie.
In 1978, she played a leading role as Mary in the television movie, The Nativity (1978). She starred in two NBC miniseries: Beulah Land (1980) and The Gangster Chronicles (1981), which starred Brian Benben, her future husband. She also starred in several television films, such as Amazons (1984) and Blood & Orchids (1986).
In 1987, Stowe appeared in her first breakthrough role in the feature film Stakeout with Richard Dreyfuss and Emilio Estevez. The film debuted at No.1 at the box office.
Stowe postponed her acting career in 1996 to concentrate on her family life. She settled for several years in a Texas ranch, with her daughter May and husband Brian Benben.
In 1998, she came back with The Proposition and Playing by Heart, and then The General's Daughter, opposite John Travolta in 1999.
In 2011, Stowe announced her return and began playing Victoria Grayson, the glamorous and powerful matriarch of the Grayson family, on ABC's television drama series Revenge.
In 2019, she returned to acting starring as actress Margot Weston in the Netflix musical drama series, Soundtrack.
In 2008, Stowe traveled to Haiti and helped found Artists for Peace and Justice. She is on the board of directors of the foundation.
I love the life of an actor because you spend brief amounts of time with other people and then you just leave. I need to be alone a lot, and I need the outdoors.
Desperta, és un nou dia, la llum del sol llevant, vell guia pels quiets camins del fum. No deixis res per caminar i mirar fins al ponent. Car tot, en un moment, et serà pres.
Today, The Grandma has been reading one of her favourite magazines, Sports Illustrated, the American one whose first issue was published on a day like today in 1954.
Sports Illustrated (SI) is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954.
Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with a circulation of over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twice. It is also known for its annual swimsuit issue, which has been published since 1964, and has spawned other complementary media works and products.
Owned until 2018 by Time Inc., it was sold to Authentic Brands Group (ABG) following the sale of Time Inc. to Meredith Corporation. The Arena Group (formerly theMaven, Inc.) was subsequently awarded a 10-year license to operate the Sports Illustrated–branded editorial operations, while ABG licenses the brand for other non-editorial ventures and products.
In January 2024, The Arena Group missed a quarterly licensing payment, leading ABG to terminate the company's license. Arena, in turn, laid off the publication's editorial staff.
In March 2024, ABG licensed the publishing rights to Minute Media in a 10-year deal, jointly announcing that the print and digital editions would be revived by rehiring some of the editorial staff.
In May 2024, Sports Illustrated failed to deliver a print copy of the publication for the month to its subscribers for the first time in the magazine's 70-year history, according to the New York Post’s Josh Kosman (May 17, 2024).
There were two previous magazines named Sports Illustrated before the current magazine was launched on August 9, 1954.
In 1936, Stuart Scheftel created Sports Illustrated with a target market of sportsmen. He published the magazine monthly from 1936 to 1942. The magazine focused on golf, tennis, and skiing with articles on the major sports. He then sold the name to Dell Publications, which released Sports Illustrated in 1949 and this version lasted six issues before closing. Dell's version focused on major sports (baseball, basketball, boxing) and competed on magazine racks against Sports and other monthly sports magazines.
During the 1940s, these magazines were monthly, which prevented them from cover current events. There was no large-base, general, weekly sports magazine with a national following on actual active events. It was then that Time patriarch Henry Luce began considering whether his company should attempt to fill that gap. At the time, many believed sports was beneath the attention of serious journalism and did not think sports news could fill a weekly magazine, especially during the winter. A number of advisers to Luce, including Life magazine's Ernest Havemann, tried to kill the idea, but Luce, who was not a sports fan, decided the time was right. The early issues of the magazine seemed caught between two opposing views of its audience. Much of the subject matter was directed at upper-class activities such as yachting, polo and safaris, but upscale would-be advertisers were unconvinced that sports fans were a significant part of their market.
In 1965, offset printing began. This allowed the color pages of the magazine to be printed overnight, not only producing crisper and brighter images, but also finally enabling the editors to merge the best color with the latest news.
By 1967, the magazine was printing 200 pages of fast color a year; in 1983, SI became the first American full-color newsweekly. An intense rivalry developed between photographers, particularly Walter Iooss and Neil Leifer, to get a decisive cover shot that would be on newsstands and in mailboxes only a few days later.
On November 27, 2023, Futurism published an article alleging that SportsIllustrated was publishing AI-generated articles credited to authors who were also AI-generated; the latter practice apparently extended to their profile photos, which the website alleged were sourced from online marketplaces selling such photos.
After Futurism reached out to The Arena Group, the magazine purportedly removed some of the implicated writers and republished their articles under other AI-generated authors with notes disclaiming its staff's involvement. In response to the report, a spokesperson for Sports Illustrated claimed that the affected articles were product reviews written without the involvement of AI by AdVon Commerce, a third-party company who they claimed used pseudonyms to protect author privacy and had already severed ties with; meanwhile, writers and editors at the magazine sharply criticized the alleged practices.
On January 5, 2024, The Arena Group missed a $3.75 million quarterly licensing payment to Authentic Brands Group. Two weeks later, on January 19, Authentic Brands Group terminated its licensing agreement. As a result, The Arena Group fought back by announcing that it would lay off the entire Sports Illustrated staff.
In March 2024, Authentic Brands Group licensed the publishing rights to Minute Media in a 10-year deal, jointly announcing that the print and digital editions would be revived by rehiring some of the editorial staff.
Today, The Grandma has been watching The Wizard of Oz, the American film, thatpremiered at Grauman'sChineseTheater in Los Angeles, California, on a day like today in 1939.
The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). An adaptation of L. Frank Baum's 1900 children's fantasy novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,it was primarily directed by Victor Fleming, who left production to take over the troubled Gone with the Wind.
It stars Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Jack Haley, Billie Burke and Margaret Hamilton. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, while others made uncredited contributions. The music was composed by Harold Arlen and adapted by Herbert Stothart, with lyrics by Edgar "Yip" Harburg.
The Wizard of Oz is celebrated for its use of Technicolor, fantasystorytelling, musical score, and memorable characters.
It was a critical success and was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, winning Best Original Song for Over the Rainbow and Best Original Score for Stothart; an Academy Juvenile Award was presented to Judy Garland.
While the film was sufficiently popular at the box office, it failed to make a profit for MGM until its 1949 re-release, earning only $3 million on a $2.7 million budget, making it MGM's most expensive production at the time.
The 1956 television broadcast premiere of the film on CBS reintroduced the film to the public. According to the U.S. Library of Congress, it is the most seen film inmovie history.
In 1989, it was selected by the Library of Congress as one of the first 25 films for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant; it is also one of the few films on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register.
The film was ranked second in Variety's inaugural 100 Greatest Movies of All Time list published in 2022. It was among the top ten in the 2005 BFI (British Film Institute) list of 50 films to be seen by the age of 14 and is on the BFI's updated list of 50 films to be seen by the age of 15 released in May 2020.
The Wizard of Oz has become the source of many quotes referenced in contemporary popular culture. The film frequently ranks on critics' lists of the greatest films of all time and is the most commercially successful adaptation of Baum's work.
Production on the film began when Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) showed that films adapted from popular children's stories and fairytales could be successful.
In January 1938, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer bought the rights to L. Frank Baum's popular novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz from Samuel Goldwyn. Goldwyn had considered making the film as a vehicle for Eddie Cantor, who was under contract to Samuel Goldwyn Productions and whom Goldwyn wanted to cast as the Scarecrow.
Several actresses were reportedly considered for the part of Dorothy, including Shirley Temple from 20th Century Fox, at the time, the most prominent child star; Deanna Durbin, a relative newcomer, with a recognised operatic voice; and JudyGarland, the most experienced of the three. Officially, the decision to cast Garland was attributed to contractual issues.
The Wizard of Oz is famous for its musical selections and soundtrack. Its songs were composed by Harold Arlen, with lyrics by E. Y. "Yip" Harburg. They won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for Over the Rainbow. The song ranks first in the AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs and the Recording Industry Association of America's 365 Songs of the Century.
MGM composer Herbert Stothart, a well-known Hollywood composer and songwriter, won the Academy Award for Best Original Score.
The film premiered at the Orpheum Theatre in Green Bay, Wisconsin on August 10, 1939. The first sneak preview was held in San Bernardino, California. The film was previewed in three test markets: in Kenosha, Wisconsin and Dennis, Massachusetts on August 11, 1939, and at the Strand Theatre in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, on August 12.
The Hollywood premiere was on August 16, 1939, following a preview thenight before at Grauman's Chinese Theatre.
The New York City premiere, held at Loew's Capitol Theatre on August 17, 1939, was followed by a live performance with Garland and her frequent film co-star Mickey Rooney. They continued to perform there after each screening for a week. Garland extended her appearance for two more weeks, partnered with Rooney for a second week and with Oz co-stars Ray Bolger and Bert Lahr for the third and final week. The film opened nationwide on August 25, 1939.
'The Wizard of Oz' is my favourite. It explains what life on this planet is about. Although Dorothy reaches Oz, she finds she had what she needed to go back to Kansas all along, but the Good Witch tells her that she had to learn it for herself. All of the answers to the meaning of life are there.
Today, The Grandma has received very sad news. Gena Rowlands, the American actress has passed away.
Virginia Cathryn "Gena" Rowlands (June 19, 1930-August 14, 2024) wasan American actress, whose career in film, stage, and television spanned nearly seven decades.
A four-time Emmy and two-time Golden Globe winner, she collaborated with her actor-director husband John Cassavetes in ten films, including A Woman Under the Influence (1974) and Gloria (1980), both of which earned her nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She also won the Silver Bear for Best Actress for Opening Night (1977). She appeared in Woody Allen's Another Woman (1988), and her son Nick Cassavetes's film, The Notebook (2004).
In 2021, Richard Brody of The New Yorker said, The most important and original movie actor of the past half century-plus is Gena Rowlands.
In November 2015, Rowlands received an Honorary Academy Award in recognition of her unique screen performances.
Rowlands was born on June 19, 1930, in Madison, Wisconsin. Her mother, Mary Allen (née Neal), was a housewife who later worked as an actress under the stage name Lady Rowlands. Her father, Edwin Myrwyn Rowlands, was a banker and state legislator. He was a member of the Wisconsin Progressive Party, and was of Welsh descent. She had an elder brother, David Rowlands.
Her family moved to Washington, D.C., in 1939, when Edwin was appointed to a position in the United States Department of Agriculture; moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1942, when he was appointed branch manager of the Office of Price Administration; and later moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota.
From 1947 to 1950, she attended the University of Wisconsin, where she was a popular student already renowned for her beauty. While in college, she was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma. She left for New York City to study drama at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
In the early 1950s, Rowlands performed with repertory theatre companies and at the Provincetown Playhouse. She made her Broadway debut in The Seven Year Itch and toured in a national production of the play.
Rowlands died at her home in Indian Wells, California, on August 14, 2024,at the age of 94.
The thing about acting is you don't want to let on how enjoyable it is or then everybody would want to become an actress. But it really is. It's a pleasure to go and exchange your identity.
Today, The Grandma has been reading about the referendum, where Norwegians vote to endtheunion with Sweden, on a day like today in 1905.
A referendum on dissolving the union with Swedenwas held in Norway on 13 August 1905.
Dissolving the union, which had been in place since 1814, was approved by almost 100% of voters, with just 184 voting against the proposal out of over 371,000 votes cast. On 27 May 1905, the Storting passed a bill supported by the government of Christian Michelsen calling for the establishment of separate Norwegianconsulates.Under the terms of the union, Norway and Swedenshared a common foreign policy.
King Oscar II vetoed the bill. Rather than countersign it as the King demanded, the government resigned. Oscar refused to accept the resignations, claiming he could not form a replacement government.
On 7 June, the Storting declared the union dissolved on the grounds that Oscar had effectively abandoned his functions as King of Norway by failing to appoint a new government. The Swedish government was prepared to dissolve the union, provided that the Norwegian people agree to it in a referendum.
The question put to the voters, only men had suffrage in Norway at the time) was whether they approved of the already completed dissolution of the union, den stedfundne Opløsning af Unionen. The wording of the question was carefully considered to make it clear that the Storting considered the union to be out of force even if the Swedish government insisted that it could be dissolved only upon mutual consent.
The Storting announced the referendum on 27 July, in anticipation of the Swedish demands, thereby avoiding the appearance that it had been scheduled in response to demands from Stockholm.
Although women did not have a vote, Norwegian suffragists started a campaign to collect signatures in favor of the dissolution and were able to present 244,765 signatures in favor of the dissolution within two weeks.
The referendum was followed by negotiations in Karlstad. The two countries reached an agreement on 23 September, which was approved by the Norwegianand Swedish parliaments on 9 October and 13 October respectively. Oscar gave up all claims to the Norwegian throne on 26 October.
In November Prince Carl of Denmark was elected as Norway's first independent king in over five centuries, assuming the throne as Haakon VII.
Today, The Grandma has been reading about IsaacSinger, the American inventor and businessman, who was granted a patent for his sewing machine, on a day like today in 1851.
Isaac Merritt Singer (October 27, 1811-July 23, 1875) was an American inventor, actor, andbusinessman. He made important improvements in the design of the sewing machine and was the founder of what became one of the first American multi-national businesses, the Singer Sewing Machine Company.
Many others, including Walter Hunt and Elias Howe, had patented sewing machines before Singer, but his success was based on the practicality of his machine, the ease with which it could be adapted to home use and its availability on an installments payment basis.
Singer died in 1875, dividing his $13 million fortune unequally among 20 of his living children by his wives and various mistresses, although one son, who had supported his mother in her divorce case against Singer, received only $500. Altogether, he fathered 26 children.
Isaac Merritt Singer was born on October 27, 1811, in Pittstown, Schaghticoke, New York.
In 1839, Singer obtained his first patent, for a machine to drill rock, selling it for $2,000 (or over $150,000 in 2024 dollars) to the I & M Canal Building Company. With this financial success, he opted to return to his career as an actor. He went on tour, forming a troupe known as the Merritt Players, appearing onstage under the name Isaac Merritt, with Mary Ann Sponsler (one of his mistresses) also appearing onstage, calling herself Mrs. Merritt. The tour lasted about five years.
He developed and patented a machine for carving wood and metal on April 10, 1849.
At 38, with Mary Ann and eight children, he packed up his family and moved back to New York City, hoping to market his wood-block cutting machine. He obtained an advance to build a working prototype, and constructed one in A. B. Taylor & Co shop, where he met G. B. Zieber, who became Singer's financier and partner. However, not long after the machine was built, the steam boiler blew up at the shop, destroying the prototype. Zieber persuaded Singer to make a new start in Boston, a center of the printing trade. The Singer went to Boston in 1850 to display his invention at the machine shop of Orson C. Phelps. Orders for Singer's wood cutting machine were not, however, forthcoming.
Lerow & Blodgett sewing machines were being constructed and repaired in Phelps' shop. Phelps asked Singer to look at the sewing machines, which were difficult to use and produce. Singer concluded that the sewing machine would be more reliable if the shuttle moved in a straight line rather than a circle, with a straight rather than a curved needle. Singer was able to obtain US Patent number 8294 for his improvements on August 12, 1851.
In 1856, manufacturers Grover & Baker, Singer, Wheeler & Wilson, all accusing each other of patent infringement, met in Albany, New York to pursue their suits. Orlando B. Potter, a lawyer and president of the Grover and Baker Company, proposed that, rather than squander their profits on litigation, they pool their patents. This was the first patent pool, a process which enables the production of complicated machines without legal battles over patent rights.
They agreed to form the Sewing Machine Combination, but for this to be of any use, they had to secure the cooperation of Elias Howe, who still held certain vital uncontested patents. Terms were arranged; Howe received a royalty on every sewing machine manufactured.
Sewing machines began to be mass-produced. I. M. Singer & Co manufactured 2,564 machines in 1856, and 13,000 in 1860 at a new plant on Mott Street in New York. Later, a massive plant was built near Elizabeth, New Jersey.
Up to then, sewing machines had been industrial machines, made for garments, shoes, bridles and for tailors, but in 1856, smaller machines began to be marketed for home use. However, at the then enormous price of over $100 ($3,391 in 2023 dollars), few sold. Singer invested heavily in mass production utilizing the concept of interchangeable parts developed by Samuel Colt and Eli Whitney for their firearms. He was able to cut the price in half, while at the same time increasing his profit margin by 530%.
Singer was the first who put a family machine, the turtle back, on the market. Eventually, the price came down to $10 ($339 in 2023 dollars). According to PBS, His partner, Edward Cabot Clark, pioneered installment purchasing plans and accepted trade-ins, causing sales to soar.
Women were able to make items at home for their families or for sale and charitable groups began to support poorer women to find useful skills and respectable employment in sewing, such as The Ladies Work Society (1875), The Association for the Sale of Works of Ladies of Limited Means, The Co-operative Needlewoman's Society and associated magazines, pattern books and group classes began for the better off women who also wanted to have some form of useful, economic activity, which a sewing machine at home now offered.
Even as early as 1880, Singer machines compared favorably with their nearest competitors: information articles becoming marketing tool. By the 1900s, this factory, controlled by the parent company, made 1.5million machines sold around the world, helping the Singer company in becoming one of the first American-based multinational corporations, with agencies in Paris and Rio de Janeiro.
Later as The Singer Manufacturing Company and its competitors expanded, due to its affordability (or purchase plan terms) by the 1940s there were 24,000 sewing classes a year running in the UK alone, and the 1944 Education Act made practical dressmaking a compulsory subject for girls in all state schools.
By the 1950s, there were Singer Teen-Age Sewing Classes and advertising campaigns to encourage girls to make their own fashions to attract boys' interest.
In 1863, I. M. Singer & Co. was dissolved by mutual consent with Edward Cabot Clark seeing Singer's reputation as a risk to growth; but the business continued with Singer owning 40% of shares and still on the board, as TheSinger Manufacturing Company, in 1887.
In 1871, Singer purchased an estate and settled with Isabella in Paignton, Devon, England. He commissioned the 110-roomed Oldway Mansion as his private residence, with a hall of mirrors, maze and grotto garden; it was rebuilt by Paris Singer, his third son from Isabella, in the style of the Palace of Versailles. And the area became known locally as Singerton. It has been named by the Victorian Society as a heritage building at risk of disrepair.
Singer's prototype sewing machine became the first to work in a practical way. It could sew 900 stitches per minute, far better than the 40 of an accomplished seamstress on simple work. This started the industrialisation of garment and textile manufacturing, as a shirt took an hour to make compared to fifteen hours previously, but these still needed finishing by hand, and the finishers worked alone on piecework terms at home, but mass over-production by factories' machines, led to pressure on wages and to unemployment.
Isaac Singer died in 1875, shortly after the wedding of his daughter by Mary Eastwood Walters, Alice, whose dress had cost as much as a London apartment.
In 1911, most of the mainly female workforce at the Clydebank Singer factory went on strike in support of 12 workers who had objected to increased workload and lower pay conditions imposed (by this time there were 11,500 employees). Although the strike did not succeed, Singer fired 400 workers including the union leaders. The Singer Strike was one of the key actions leading to protests known as Red Clydeside.
In the 1960s, Japanese production efficiency brought aluminium body machines and products at lower pricing which outsold the cast iron Singer machines. The symbolic tower was knocked down as the Singer Clydebank factory was modernised, but it closed in 1980 and was demolished in the late 1990s.
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