Sir Hannibal Anthony Lecter Hopkins

On 31 December, 1937 in Margam, Port Talbot, Wales was born a kid who became a sir: Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins best known as the actor Anthony Hopkins.

This Welsh actor of film, stage, and television, is considered as one of the greatest living actors.  Hopkins is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs, its sequel Hannibal and the prequel Red Dragon. But his movies have spanned a wide variety of genres, from family films to horror.

Retaining his British citizenship, he became a U.S. citizen on 12 April 2000. As well as his Academy Award, Hopkins has also won three BAFTA Awards, two Emmy Awards and the Cecil DeMille Golden Globe Award.

The son of Muriel Anne (née Yeats) and Richard Arthur Hopkins that he was a baker was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1993 for services to the arts. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2003, and was made a Fellow of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 2008.

It’s really hard to tell just couple of things about this actor…

Enjoy the paper memorabilia with his scary and his soothing face.

Some paper ideas from the same date from the past!

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Hit the Ball Tiger!

On December 30, 1975 in Cypress, California was born a kid that was going to win 74 official PGA Tour events including 14 majors titles in …GOLF! This guy is known as “Tiger” Woods!

This American professional golfer whose achievements to date rank him among the most successful golfers of all time he is the highest-paid athlete in the world according to Forbes for several years.

Woods turned professional in 1996, and by April 1997 he had already won his first major, the 1997 Masters in a record-breaking performance. He first reached the number one position in the world rankings in June 1997. Through the 2000s, Woods was the dominant force in golf.

After some problems in his personal life he lost form, and his ranking gradually fell to a low of No. 58 in November 2011. But “Tiger” was born a golfer! He is coming back and as of November 25, 2012, he is ranked No. 3!

Woods has broken numerous golf records. He has been world number one for the most consecutive weeks and for the greatest total number of weeks of any other golfer

He is the synonym of golf nowadays and we love to see more…

Happy Birthday Tiger!

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You’ll Never Know Barbra…

On December 29, in 1955 a thirteen year old girl sung a beautiful song: You’ll Never Know

She was an American actress and singer that her discography consists of 117 singles, 33 studio albums, and numerous compilations, live albums and soundtracks and she is the second best-selling female recording artist of all time and has sold more than 240 million records worldwide. Barbra Streisand!

“You’ll Never Know” is a popular song with music written by Harry Warren and the lyrics by Mack Gordon. The song is based on a poem written by a young Oklahoma war bride named Dorothy Fern Norris.

The song was first introduced in the 1943 movie Hello, Frisco, Hello where it was sung by Alice Faye. The song won the 1943 Academy Award for Best Original Song, one of nine nominated songs that year. It was also performed by Faye in the 1944 film Four Jills in a Jeep but she never released a record of the ballad. Then follows an outstanding history for this song!

It was recorded in 1943 by, among others, Frank Sinatra and Dick Haymes, (Sinatra’s version spent two weeks at number 2), in Britain, was recorded by Vera Lynn and it was popular during the ongoing Second World War, than Rosemary Clooney recorded the song with Harry James in 1952, and a version was recorded in 1954 by Big Maybelle. Bette Midler performed the song for the Bette Midler Sings the Rosemary Clooney Songbook. Quite a few…

The song was the opening song on Barbra Streisand 4-CD box-set Just for the Record (1991).

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The Night of the Iguana by Tennessee Williams

On December 28, 1961 it was The Night of the Iguana in New York City on Broadway at the Royal Theater!

A stage play written by American author Tennessee Williams, based on his 1948 short story premieres in NYC and ran for 316 performances. It starred Patrick O’Neil as Rev. Shannon, two-time Oscar winner Bette Davis as Maxine and Margaret Leighton as Hannah. The play was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play. Leighton, as Hannah, won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play.

Two film adaptations of this play have been made, including the Academy Award winning 1964 film of the same name.

This film was directed by John Huston, it featured Richard Burton, Ava Gardner, and Deborah Kerr. The Night of the Iguana drew considerable attention for stories around its production, since Richard Burton had brought his soon-to-be-wife Elizabeth Taylor to the location set.

The preface to the story shows Episcopal priest Reverend Dr. T. Lawrence Shannon having a “nervous breakdown” after being ostracized by his congregation for having an inappropriate relationship in Virginia with “a very young Sunday school teacher.” Two years later, Shannon is a tour guide for bottom-of-the-barrel Texas company Blake Tours, is taking a group of Baptist School teachers by bus to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Well don’t expect to tell you the whole story! You should seed this wonderful movie!

Go to the theater mate!

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Marlene Dietrich – an American Star from Germany

As in today on 27 December, in 1901 a blonde star was born: Marie Magdalene Dietrich 

She was born in Berlin, Germany and was the younger of two daughters (her sister Elisabeth being a year older). Dietrich’s mother was from a prosperous Berlin family who owned a clock making firm and her father was a police lieutenant.

Around the age of 11, she contracted her two first names to form her famous name “Marlene”.

Dietrich was known to have strong political convictions and the awareness to speak them. In interviews, Dietrich stated that she had been approached by representatives of the Nazi Party to return to Germany, but had turned them her back. Dietrich, a loyal anti-Nazi, became an American citizen in 1939.

From the early 1950’s until the mid-1970’s, Dietrich worked almost completely as a highly paid cabaret artist, performing live in large theaters in major cities worldwide. Her show business career largely ended on 29 September 1975, when she fell off the stage and broke her thigh during a performance in Sydney, Australia.

Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films. Her performance as “Lola-Lola” in The Blue Angel, directed by Josef von Sternberg, brought her international fame and provided her a contract with Paramount Pictures in the US. Hollywood films such as Shanghai Express and Desire exploited on her glamour looks, making her one of the highest-paid actresses of the era.

In 1999, the American Film Institute named Dietrich the ninth-greatest female star of all time.

I let you enjoy the exotic view of Marlene through paper memorabilia…

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Baby Ruth goes to Yankees!

On December 26, 1919, a bid star was sold to … New York Yankees!

Frazee had a huge financial concern and he sold Babe Ruth!!!

Ruth between 1915 and 1917 had been used in just 44 games in which he had not pitched. After the 1917 season, in which he hit .325, albeit with limited at bats, teammate Harry Hooper suggested that Ruth might be more valuable in the lineup as an everyday player.

In 1918, he began playing in the outfield more and pitching less, making 75 hitting-only appearances. And during the 1919 season, Ruth pitched in only 17 of his 130 games. He also set his first single-season home run record that year with 29 (passing Ned Williamson’s 27 in 1884. This was Babe Ruth’s last season with the Red Sox.

After the 1919 season, Ruth demanded a raise to $20,000 ($230,000 in current dollar terms)—double his previous salary. Frazee finally lost patience with Ruth, and decided to trade him.

Frazee, and the Yankees side with Ruppert and Huston quickly agreed to a deal and Ruth officially became property of the Yankees on December 26. The deal was announced ten days later.

After moving to the Yankees, Ruth’s evolution from a pitcher to a power-hitting outfielder became complete. In his fifteen year Yankee career, consisting of over 2,000 games, Ruth re-wrote the record books in terms of his hitting achievements, while making only five widely scattered token appearances on the mound, winning all of them.

His .847 slugging average was a Major League record until 2001. Aside from the Yankees, only the Philadelphia Phillies managed to hit more home runs as a team than Ruth did as an individual!

In 1921, Ruth improved to arguably the best year of his career, while leading the Yankees to their first league championship.

No doubt about Ruth’s legend. It is still alive! On paper too…

Some paper ideas from the same date from the past!

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Christmas day along with Isaac Newton

On Christmas Day, the 25^th of December in 1642 the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived was born: Sir Isaac Newton!

He was born at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth out in English countryside. He was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Although it was claimed that he was once engaged, Newton never married.

He was a physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist and theologian. His monograph Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, laid the foundations for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation (the known apple theory) and the three laws of motion, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries.

The Principia is generally considered to be one of the most important scientific books ever written because assisted in setting standards for scientific publication down to the present time.

Albert Einstein kept a picture of Newton on his study wall alongside ones of Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell. Newton remains influential to today’s scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain’s Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton).

It’s really hard to describe and choose few things about a life so full of great success and so meaningful for the humanity. We give you the paper memorabilia, some of them very difficult to own, to show to you that he was a great person in all aspects.

Merry Christmas to every one!!!

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Aristocats against butler Edgar

On December 24 right on Christmas Eve, in 19970 an animated feature produced and released by Walt Disney Productions is released: The Aristocats!

This film is very important because is noted for being the last film project to be approved by Walt Disney himself, as he died in late 1966, before the film was released. It gained positive reviews on first release and was a box office success.

The story is about a mother cat named Duchess and her three kittens, Marie, Berlioz, and Toulouse, live in a mansion in Paris in 1910.  The landlady was a retired opera singer Madame Adelaide Bonfamille, along with her English butler Edgar. She early on settles her will with her lawyer Georges Hautecourt, an aged, eccentric old friend of hers, stating that she wishes for her fortune to be left to her cats, who will retain it until their deaths, upon which her fortune will revert to Edgar. Edgar hears this and is unwilling to wait for the cats to die naturally before he inherits Madame Adelaide’s fortune, and plots to remove the cats from a position of inheritance. An alley cat acquaintance helps the kidnapped kittens from the butler.

You can hear the voices of Eva Gabor, Phil Harris, and Roddy Maude-Roxby as Edgar the butler, the anti-hero of the story.

By watching this film you get to love the cats more…

Another wonderful animated movie from the master of the art.

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The Mousetrap by mystery author Agatha Christie

On 23 December, in 1970 a record took place in a theater: it was the day that the 7,511th performance of Agatha Christie’s “The Mousetrap” was performed!

The Mousetrap is a murder play by the great mystery author Agatha Christie. The Mousetrap opened in a theater in the West End of London in 1952, and has been running continuously since then. It has the longest initial run of any play in history, with its 25,000th performance taking place on 18 November 2012. It is the longest running show (of any type) of the modern era.

By tradition, at the end of each performance, audiences are asked not to reveal the identity of the killer to anyone outside the theater, to ensure that the end of the play is not spoiled for future audiences.

The play is based on a short story, itself based on the radio play began broadcast on 30 May 1947 called Three Blind Mice.  Christie asked that the story not be published as long as it ran as a play in the West End of London. The short story has still not been published within the United Kingdom but it has appeared in the United States in the 1950 collection Three Blind Mice and Other Stories.

When she wrote the play, Christie gave the rights as a birthday present to her grandson Matthew Prichard. Outside of the West End, only one version of the play can be performed annually and under the contract terms of the play, no film adaptation can be produced until the West End production has been closed for at least six months. Mrs. Christie’s vagaries!

The suggestion to call it The Mousetrap came from Christie’s son-in-law, Anthony Hicks.

What’s out! A mouse Trap!

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Christmas Jewelries by Thomas Edison

During the 1880 Christmas season, Thomas Edison strung a line of electric lights outside his Menlo Park, N.J. laboratory, enchanting travelers on passing trains. And on December 22, in 1882, Edison’s partner in the Edison Illumination Company, Edward H. Johnson, hung the first string of 80 electric Christmas tree lights, an Edison’s creation, from a spinning tree it the parlor of his mansion!

This is the first time that the Christmas gained their lights!

A century and some years ago, Christmas lights were an extravagance item! They were equivalent to Tiffany windows and Faberge eggs, mainly due to the high price of electricity. Some estimation put the cost of lighting a Christmas tree at $2,000 in today’s dollars. The public could enjoy the lights, but only at a distance.

A visitor in the mansion told Detroit Post and Tribune paper the following: “all encased in these dainty glass eggs, and presented a most uncanny and picturesque aspect; the result was a continuous twinkling of dancing colors—red, white, blue, white, red, blue – all the evening, like the tree laden with lambent splendor that sparkles above the fountains in Aladdin’s palace. I need not tell you that the scintillating evergreen was a pretty sight – one can hardly imagine anything prettier.”

Of course it would be couple decades later before Christmas tree lights became affordable for ordinary Americans.

Well, sometimes it is a lot of work, but the Christmas lights have to be finally up!!!

Some paper ideas from the same date from the past!

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