Calendar: July 20

A Year: Day to Day Men: 20th of July

A World of Blue Tiles

July 20, 1938 was the birthdate of English actress, Dame Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg in Yorkshire, England.

Diana Rigg’s career in film, television and theater has been wide-ranging. Her professional debut was in the production of “The Caucasian Chalk Circle” at the York Festival in 1957. She made her Broadway debut with the play “Abelard and Heloise” in 1971, earning the first of three Tony Award nominations for Best Actress in a Play. She received her second nomination in 1975 for her role in “The Misanthrope”.

In the 1990s, Diana Riggs had triumphs with roles at the Almeida Theater in Islington, England, including “Medea” in 1992, which moved to Broadway where she received the Tony Award for Best Actress, “Mother Courage” at the National Theater in 1995, and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” at the Almeida Theater in 1997. In 2011 Riggs played Mrs. Higgins in “Pygmalion” at the Garrick Theater in the West End of London; in February of 2018 she returned to Broadway in a non-singing role of Mrs. Higgins in “My Fair Lady”.

Diana Rigg appeared in the British 1960s television series “The Avengers” from 1965 to 1968 opposite Patrick McNee as John Steed, playing the secret agent Emma Peel in 51 episodes. Rigg auditioned for the role on a whim, without ever having seen the program. Although she was hugely successful in the series, she disliked the lack of privacy that it brought. Also, she was not comfortable in her position as a sex symbol, She also did not like the way that she was treated by the Associated British Corporation (ABC).

In 2013, Diana Rigg secured a recurring role in the third season of the HBO series “Game of Thrones”, portraying Lady Olenna Tyrell, a witty and sarcastic political mastermind popularly known as the Queen of Thorns, the grandmother of regular character Margaery Tyrell. Her performance was well received by critics and audiences alike, and earned her an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for the 65th Primetime Emmy Awards in 2013.

Diana Rigg reprised her role in season four of “Game of Thrones” and in July 2014 received another Guest Actress Emmy nomination. In 2015 and 2016, she again reprised the role in seasons five and six in an expanded role from the books. The character was finally killed off in the seventh season, with Rigg’s final performance receiving critical acclaim.

Calendar: July 19

A Year: Day to Day Men: 19th of July

Sailing Away

The steamship SS Great Britain is launched on July 19, 1843.

The SS Great Britain was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, an English mechanical and civil engineer, for the Great Western Steamship Company’s transatlantic service between Bristol and New York. While other ships had been built of iron or equipped with a screw propeller, SS Great Britain was the first to combine both features in a large ocean-going ship.

The ship’s design team, led by Brunel, were initially cautious in the adaptation of their plans to iron hulled-technology. With each successive draft however, the ship grew ever larger and bolder in conception. By the fifth draft, the vessel had grown to 3,400 tons, over 1,000 tons larger than any ship then in existence. The ship was originally designed to use paddle-wheels for propulsion: however, after testing a number of different screw propellers over several months, Brunel persuaded the company directors to build completely new engines suitable for powering the new propeller.

The launching or, more accurately, the “floating out” took place on 19 of July, 1843. Conditions were generally favorable and diarists recorded that, after a dull start, the weather brightened with only a few intermittent showers. Following the launch ceremony, the builders had planned to have Great Britain towed to the Thames for her final fitting out. Unfortunately, the harbor authorities had failed to carry out the necessary modifications to their facilities in a timely manner. This dilemma was to result in another costly delay for the company. After being trapped in the harbor for more than a year, SS Great Britain was at last floated out in December 1844.

When completed in 1845, Great Britain was a revolutionary vessel—the first ship to combine an iron hull with screw propulsion, and at 322 feet in length and with a 3,400-ton displacement. She had four decks, including the spar upper deck, a crew of 120, and was fitted to accommodate a total of 360 passengers, along with 1,200 tons of cargo and 1,200 tons of coal for fuel. An innovative feature was the lack of traditional heavy bulwarks around the main deck; a light iron railing both reduced weight and allowed water shipped in heavy weather to run unimpeded back to sea.

On 26 July 1845, seven years after the Great Western Steamship Company had decided to build the ship, and five years overdue, SS Great Britain embarked on her maiden voyage, from Liverpool to New York under Captain James Hosken, with 45 passengers. The ship made the passage in 14 days and 21 hours, at an average speed of 9.25 knots, almost 1.5 knots slower than the prevailing record. She made the return trip in thirteen and a half days, again an unexceptional time. In her second season of service in 1846, Great Britain successfully completed two round trips to New York at an acceptable speed, but was then laid up for repairs.

Calendar: July 18

A Year: Day to Day Men: 18th of July

Stylized Flowers

July 18, 1937 was the birthdate of American journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson.

Hunter S. Thompson carved out his niche in creative writing early in life. He was born in 1937, in Louisville, Kentucky, where his fiction and poetry earned him induction into the local Athenaeum Literary Association while he was still in high school. Thompson continued his literary pursuits in the United States Air Force, writing a weekly sports column for the base newspaper. After two years of service, Thompson endured a series of newspaper jobs, all of which ended badly, before he took to freelancing from Puerto Rico and South America for a variety of publications. The vocation quickly developed into a compulsion.

In 1967, Thompson published his first nonfiction book, “Hell’s Angels”, a harsh and incisive firsthand investigation into the infamous motorcycle gang then making the heartland of America nervous. He spent a year of research living and riding with the motorcycle gang to write the account of their experiences.

In 1970 he wrote an unconventional magazine feature entitled “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved” for Scanlan’s Monthly magazine which both raised his profile and established him as a writer with counter-culture credibility. It also set him on a path to establishing his own sub-genre of New Journalism which he called “Gonzo,” which was essentially an ongoing experiment in which the writer becomes a central figure and even a participant in the events of the narrative.

“Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”, which first appeared in Rolling Stone in November 1971, sealed Thompson’s reputation as an outlandish stylist successfully straddling the line between journalism and fiction writing. The book tells of a savage journey to the heart of the American Dream in full-tilt gonzo style, Thompson’s hilarious first-person approach, and is accented by British illustrator Ralph Steadman’s appropriate drawings.

Thompson completed “The Rum Diary”, his only novel published to date, before he turned twenty-five. Bought by Ballantine Books, the novel was finally published to glowing reviews in 1998. The story, written when Thompson was twenty-two, involves a journalist who, in the 1950s, moves from New York to work for a major newspaper in Puerto Rico. It was Thompson’s second novel, preceded by the still-unpublished “Prince Jellyfish”.

Calendar: July 17

A Year: Day to Day Men: 17th of July

Two Birch Trees

July 17, 1889 was the birthdate of American detective writer Erle Stanley Gardner.

Erle Stanley Gardner, as a lawyer, enjoyed litigation and the development of trial strategy but was otherwise bored by legal practice. In his spare time, he began writing for pulp magazines; his first story was published in 1923. Gardner created many series characters for the pulps, including the ingenious Lester Leith, a parody of the “gentleman thief”; and Ken Corning, crusading lawyer, crime sleuth, and archetype for his most successful creation, Perry Mason.

While the Perry Mason novels did not delve into their characters lives very much, the novels were rich in plot detail which was reality-based and drawn from Gardner’s own experience. In his early years writing for the pulp magazine market, Gardner set himself a quota of 1,200,000 words a year. With the success of the Perry Mason book series, which eventually ran to over 80 novels, Gardner gradually reduced his contributions to the pulp magazines until the medium itself died in the 1950s.

Gardner created Perry Mason as a recurring character in a series of Hollywood films of the 1930s, and then for the radio program “Perry Mason” which ran from 1943 to 1955. In 1954, CBS proposed transforming the radio program into a television soap opera; but Gardner opposed the idea. In 1957, “Perry Mason” became instead a long-running CBS-TV drama series, starring Raymond Burr in the title role. Burr had auditioned for the role of the district attorney Hamilton Burger; but Gardner reportedly declared he was the embodiment of Perry Mason. The series’ last episode was “The Case of the Final Fade-Out” in 1966 with a cameo appearance of Gardner as a judge.

Gardner devoted thousands of hours to “The Court of Last Resort”, in collaboration with his many friends in the forensic, legal, and investigative communities. The project sought to review, and when appropriate, reverse miscarriages of justice against criminal defendants who had been convicted because of poor legal representation, abuse, misinterpretation of forensic evidence, or careless or malicious actions of police or prosecutors. The resulting 1952 book earned Gardner his only Edgar Award, in the Best Fact Crime category, and was later made into a TV series.

Gardner died in March of 1970 at his ranch in Temecula- the best-selling American writer of the 20th century at the time of his death. The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin holds Gardner’s manuscripts, art collection, and personal effects. From 1972 to 2010, the Ransom Center featured a full-scale reproduction of Gardner’s study that displayed original furnishings, personal memorabilia, and artifacts.

Calendar: July 16

A Year: Day to Day Men: 16th of July

Summer Heat

July 16, 1911 was the birthdate of actress, dancer and singer Ginger Rogers.

Ginger Rogers had two films in the 1933 that have now become classics. The public was enamored by her in the song and dance “Gold Diggers of 1933”, She did not have top billing but the public remembered her beauty and voice. One song she popularized in the film was the now famous “We’re in the Money”. Rogers played the character of Ann Lowell in “42nd Street”, a musical film with big stage choreography by Busby Berkeley. The film became one of the most profitable ones of the year and received two Academy Award nominations.

Ginger Roger’s real stardom occurred when she was teamed up with actor and dancer Fred Astaire becoming one of the best cinematic couples ever to hit the silver screen. They first appeared in the 1933 “Flying Down to Rio”, a film with marvelous dance numbers, including a breathtaking dance number on the exterior of a formation of airplanes flying over the audience.

Rogers and Astaire did two films in 1935. The first was “Roberta”, an RKO production costarring Irene Dunne and Randolph Scott. The second film of that year was probably the best remembered of her films, “Top Hat”, a screwball musical comedy with a music score by Irving Berlin and the famous dance scene with Rogers wearing a white ostrich-feather dress.

Ginger Rogers made several dramatic pictures; but it was the 1940 “Kitty Foyle” that won her an Academy Award for portrayal in the title role of Kitty Foyle, a working girl facing life-changing decisions. Rogers followed this film with a comedy in 1941 “Tom, Dick, and Harry”. playing a woman who has to decide which of three men she wants to marry. Through the rest of the 1940s and early 1950s she continued to make movies but none of them near the caliber of those before World War II.

After “Oh Men, Oh Women” with David Niven in 1957, Ginger Rogers didn’t appear on the silver screen for seven years. In 1965, she had appeared for the last time in the film “Harlow”, a Paramount production about the life of Jean Harlow. Afterward, she appeared on Broadway and other stage plays traveling in Europe, the U.S. and Canada. After 1984, she retired and wrote an autobiography in 1991 entitled, “Ginger, My Story” recounting her more than sixty films including those with Fred Astaire. On April 25, 1995, Ginger Rogers died of natural causes in Rancho Mirage, California. She was 83.

Calendar: July 15

A Year: Day to Day Men: 15th of July

Sunflowers in Blue Vase

On July 15, 1799, French Captain Pierre-Francois Bouchard finds the Rosetta Stone.

The Rosetta Stone is a granodiorite stele, inscribed with three versions of a decree issued at Memphis, Egypt in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V. The top and middle texts are in Ancient Egyptian using the Hieroglyphic script and the Demotic script, respectively, while the bottom is in Ancient Greek. As the decree had only minor differences between the three versions, the Rosetta Stone proved to be the key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs.

The Rosetta Stone is a fragment of a larger stele; no additional fragments were found in later searches. Owing to its damaged state, none of the three texts is absolutely complete. This fragment of the stele is 3 feet 8 inches high at its highest point, 2 feet 6 inches wide and 11 inches thick. It weighs approximately 1,680 pounds. The front surface is polished smooth with the incised text; the sides are smooth; and the back is only roughly worked as this would not have been visible when erected.

The stone, carved in black granodiorite, similar to granite, is believed to have been originally in a temple, possibly at nearby Sais. It was moved during the medieval period, and was eventually used as building material in the construction of Fort Julien near the town of Rashid in the Nile Delta. During the Napoleonic campaign in Egypt, Pierre-Francois Bouchard discovered the stone and was immediately convinced of its importance. It was the first Ancient Egyptian bilingual text recovered in modern times; it aroused widespread interest with its potential to decipher previously untranslated hieroglyphic language.

Study of the decree was already under way when the first full translation of the Greek text appeared in 1803. It took another 20 years, however, before the transliteration of the Egyptian scripts was announced by Jean-Francois Champollion in Paris in 1822. It took longer still before scholars were able to read the Ancient Egyptian inscriptions and literature confidently.

The major advances in the decoding of the Rosetta Stone were: The recognition in 1799 that the stone offered three versions of the same text; It became known in 1802 that the demotic text used phonetic characters to spell foreign names; Thomas Young recognized in 1814 that the hieroglyphic text did so as well, and had pervasive similarities to the demotic text; Champollion saw in his 1822-1824 studies that. in addition to being used for foreign names, the phonetic characters were also used to spell native Egyptian words.

Calendar: July 14

A Year: Day to Day Men: 14th of July

Black Pants and Gray Cap

Ingmar Bergman, the Swedish director and writer, was born on July 14, 1918.

Ingmar Bergman’s film career began in 1941 with his work rewriting scripts. His first major accomplishment was in 1944 when he wrote the screenplay for “Torment”, a film directed by Alf Sjöberg. Along with writing the screenplay, he was also appointed assistant director of the film. The international success of this film led to Bergman’s first opportunity to direct a year later. During the next ten years he wrote and directed more than a dozen films, including “Prison” in 1949, as well as “Sawdust and Tinsel” and “Summer with Monika”, both from 1953.

Bergman first achieved worldwide success with his 1955 “Smiles of a Summer Night”, which won for “Best Poetic Humor” and was nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes the following year. This was followed by “The Seventh Seal” and “Wild Strawberries” released in Sweden ten months apart in 1957. “The Seventh Seal” won a special jury prize and was nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes, and “Wild Strawberries” won numerous awards for Bergman and its star, Victor Sjöström. Bergman continued to be productive for the next two decades.

Bergman usually wrote his films’ screenplays, thinking about them for months or years before starting the actual process of writing, which he viewed as somewhat tedious. His earlier films are carefully constructed and are either based on his plays or written in collaboration with other authors. Bergman stated that in his later works, when on occasion his actors would want to do things differently from his own intention, he would let them. As his career progressed, Bergman increasingly let his actors improvise their dialogue. In his latest films, he wrote just the ideas informing the scene and allowed his actors to determine the exact dialogue.

Bergman’s films usually deal with existential questions of mortality, loneliness, and religious faith. In addition to these cerebral topics, however, sexual desire features in the foreground of most of his films, whether the central event is a medieval plague as in “The Seventh Seal”, the upper-class family activity of early twentieth century Sweden in “Fanny and Alexander”, or contemporary alienation in 1963’s “The Silence”. His female characters are usually more in touch with their sexuality than the men, and unafraid to proclaim it, sometimes with breathtaking overtness.

Ingmar Bergman retired from filmmaking in December 2003. He had a hip surgery in October of 2006 and was making a difficult recovery. He died in his sleep at the age of 89; his body was found at his home on the island of Fårö, on July 30, 2007. (It was the same day another renowned film director, Michelangelo Antonioni, also died.) The interment was private, at the Fårö Church on Fårö Island, Sweden, on August 18, 2007.

Calendar: July 13

A Year: Day to Day Men: 13th of July

Shades

July 13, 1793 marks the murder of French political theorist, scientist, and radical journalist, Jean-Paul Marat.

The first of Jean-Paul Marat’s large-scale publications detailing his experiments was “Research into the Physics of Fire”. It described 166 experiments conducted to show that fire was not, as widely held, a material element but an “igneous fluid”. The Academy of Sciences appraised his work and endorsed Marat’s methods but did not agree with its conclusions. This marked the beginning of worsening relations between Marat and many of the Academy’s members.

Jean-Paul Marat’s second biggest work was “Discoveries on Light”, focusing on an error in Newton’s light theory. Marat showed through experiments that white light was broken down into colors by diffraction, and not by refraction as Newton proposed. Once again Marat asked the Academy of Sciences to review his work. From June 1779 to January of 1780, Marat performed experiments in the presence of the Academy’s commissioners showing his conclusions. Their repost was only three paragraphs stating that while there were a lot of experiments, the commission did not believe that Marat proved his theory. Goethe described Marat’s rejection by the Academy as a glaring example of scientific despotism.

On the eve of the French Revolution , Jean=Paul Marat left his career as a doctor and scientist and took up his pen on behalf of the Third Estate, devoting himself entirely to politics. On September 12, 1789, Marat began his own newspaper, “The People’s Friend”, attacking influential groups in Paris, the Constituent Assembly, and Louis XVI’s Finance Minister, Jacques Necker. Between 1790 and 1792, Marat was often forced into hiding, sometimes in the Paris sewers. He only emerged publicly on the August 10 Insurrection, when the Palace was invaded and the royal family was forced to shelter in the Legislative Assembly.

Forced to retire from the French Convention as a result of a worsening skin disease, Marat continued to work at home, where he soaked in a medicinal bath. Marat was in his bathtub on July 13, 1793, when a young woman, named Charlotte Corday, appeared at his flat claiming to have vital information for Marat. Their interview lasted about fifteen minutes, with him writing details on an improvised desk of a board across the tub. After he finished his writing, Corday rose from her chair, drawing out a five inch knife, driving it hard into Marat.s chest. It opened the carotid artery, close to his heart; the massive bleeding was fatal within seconds. Charlotte Corday was guillotined on July 17, 1793 for the murder.

Calendar: July 12

A Year: Day to Day Men: 12th of July

Small Flowers

July 12, 1908 was the birthdate of American comedian Milton Berle.

Milton Berle, born Mendel Berlinger, appeared as a child actor in his first silent film “The Perils of Pauline, filmed in Fort Lee, New Jersey, and released in 1914. He continued to play child roles in many other films: “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm” with Mary Pickford; “The Mark of Zorro” with Douglas Fairbanks Sr.: and “Tillie’s Punctured Romance” with Charlie Chaplin and Marie Dressler.

By the early 1930s, Milton Berle was a successful stand-up comedian. Berle was hired in 1933 by producer Jack White to star in the short musical theatrical film, “Poppin’ the Cork”, about the repeal of Prohibition. Berle co-wrote the musical score for that film and also the title song for the RKO 1940 “Lil Abner”, starring Buster Keaton. The Philip Morris company sponsored “The Milton Berle Show” which aired on NBC starting March 11, 1947. It teamed up Berle with comedian Arnold Stang, later a familiar face as Berle’s sidekick. This show, which lasted until April 13, 1948, became a major stepping stone for Berle’s television career.

His first television series was “The Texaco Star Theater” on ABC, showcasing Berle’s highly visual style, characterized by vaudeville slapstick and outlandish costumes. After the show moved to NBC, it dominated Tuesday night television for years and won two Emmy Awards the first year. Berle’s autobiography notes that in Detroit, “an investigation took place when the water levels took a drastic drop in the reservoirs on Tuesday nights between 9 and 9:05. It turned out that everyone waited until the end of the Texaco Star Theatre before going to the bathroom.” Television set sales doubled after Texaco Star Theater’s debut.

Like his contemporary Jackie Gleason, Milton Berle proved a solid dramatic actor and was acclaimed for several such performances, most notably his lead role in “Doyle Against the House” on the Dick Powell Show in 1961, a role for which he received an Emmy nomination. He also played the part of a blind survivor of an airplane crash in “Seven in Darkness”, the first in ABC’s popular Movie of the Week series.

During this period, Berle was named to the Guinness Book of World Records for the greatest number of charity performances made by a show-business performer. Unlike the high-profile shows done by Bob Hope to entertain the troops, Berle did more shows, over a period of 50 years, on a lower-profile basis. Berle received an award for entertaining at stateside military bases in World War I as a child performer, in addition to traveling to foreign bases during World War II and the Vietnam War. The first charity telethon was hosted by Berle in 1949. A permanent fixture at charity benefits in the Hollywood area, he was instrumental in raising millions for charitable causes.

In 1979, Milton Berle was awarded a special Emmy Award, titled “Mr. Television” He was in the first group of inductees into the Television Hall of Fame in 1984. Milton Berle has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, placed on February 8, 1960, for his work in television and radio.

Calendar: July 11

A Year: Day to Day Men: 11th of July

State of Equilibrium

July 11, 1931 was the birthdate of actor Tab Hunter.

Tab Hunter, born Arthur Kelm in New York City, grew up in California. His fetching handsomeness and trim, athletic body eventually steered him toward the idea of acting. An introduction to talent agent Henry Wilson, specializing in “beef cake” male stars, had Tab Hunter signing a contract and receiving the stage name of Tab Hunter. With no previous experience, Hunter had his first film debut, though a minor one, in the 1950 drama “The Lawless” with only one line in the film (cut upon release of the film). He co-starred two years later in the British-made film “Island of Desire”, set in WWII on a deserted tropical island, playing opposite Linda Darnell.

Signed by Warner Brothers, Tab Hunter achieved stardom with another WWII epic, the 1955 “Battle Cry”, in which he played a boyish soldier sharing torrid scenes with Dorothy Malone, playing an older already married, love=starved Navy wife. He appeared in three more military films, keeping his fans, male and female, satisfied: “The Sea Chase” in 1955; a western army fort drama in 1956 titled “The Burning Hills”; and the 1956 “The Girl He Left Behind” opposite Natalie Wood,

The most notable success in Tab Hunter’s film career was his leading role as baseball fan Joe Hardy in the 1958 classic Faustian musical “Damn Yankees”, playing opposite Gwen Verdon and Ray Walston. Musically Tab Hunter was overshadowed; but he brought with him major star power and the film became a big hit in the theaters. He starred next in the WWI military movie “Lafayette Escadrille”, again playing a wholesome soldier. This was followed in 1959 with an adult comedy-drama “That Kind of Woman” with Sophia Loren.

Tab Hunter eventually left his Warner Brothers contract and appeared in several television series. He starred in 1961 with Debbie Reynolds in the film comedy “The Pleasure of His Company”; however after that, his film roles were in minor “beach films” and other popular light movies. They included “Operation Bikini”, “Ride the Wild Surf”, “City in the Sea” and “Birds Do It”.

In the 1980s, Tab Hunter bounced back- more mature, less wholesome, but still the handsome guy. He gamely spoofed his old clean-cut image in 1981, appearing as the romantic dangling carrot to heavyset Divine in the John Water’s delightfully tasteless “Polyester”, the first mainstream hit for Waters. Hunter went on to team up with Alan Glaser to co-produce and co-star a Waters-like western spoof “Lust in the Dust”, released in 1985.

In 2005, Tab Hunter released his memoir, “Tab Hunter Confidential”. He had met his partner Alan Glaser in 1983, together producing two movies: “Lust in the Dust” and Hunter’s final film, the 1992 “Dark Horse”, the plot revolving around a horse ranch, a passion of Hunter’s life. He died on July 8, 2018 at his Santa Barbara residence in California, three days shy of his eighty seventh birthday. Hunter and Glaser were together as a couple for thirty-five years.

Calendar: July 10

A Year: Day to Day Men: 10th of July

Wet Patterns on Tile and Skin

July 10, 1926 was the birthdate of American actor, Fred Gwynne.

New York City born, Fred Gwynne joined the Brattle Theater Repertory company after graduating from Harvard in 1951. He worked as a copywriter for the advertising agency J. Walter Thompson, leaving the company after being cast in a play. Gwynne appeared as a gangster for his first Broadway role in the comedy “Mrs. McThing”, starring Helen Hayes.

In 1954, Fred Gwynne had an uncredited role, playing “Slim” in the Oscar-winning drama “On the Waterfront”. Shortly afterwards, actor Phil Silvers, impressed by Gwynne’s role in “Mr. Mc thing”, sought him out for his television show. Gwynne portrayed Corporal Ed Honnergar in the “Phil Silvers Show”, a military based comedy, gaining him national recognition for his comedic acting.

Writer and producer Nat Hiken from Warner Brothers Studio cast Fred Gwynne in the situation comedy show “Car 54, Where are You?” as Patrolman Francis Muldoon, opposite comic actor Joe E. Ross. The series which ran for two years was about two New York City police officers based in the fictional 53rd precinct of the Bronx. Car 54 was their squad car. The show was nominated for four Primetime Emmy Awards, and won one. During this series Gwynne met and established a longtime friendship with Al Lewis, a co-star in the near future.

In September of 1964, “The Munsters” started on television. It was a sitcom depicting the home life of a family of benign monsters and starred Fred Gwynn as the Frankenstein-like monster Herman Munster. The costars were Yvonne De Carlo as his wife and old friend Al Lewis as Grandpa, the aged vampire who pines for “the old days”. For his role, Gwynne had to wear forty pounds of makeup, padding, and four-inch asphalt-spreader boots. After this role, because of its popularity, he found himself typecast for two years.

A talented vocalist, Fred Gwynne sang in a Hallmark Hall of Fame production, “The Littlest Angel”, shown on television in 1969. He also appeared on Broadway in a revival of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” playing big Daddy Pollitt. The following years he appeared in the plays: the 1975 “Our Town” at the American Shakespeare Theater in Stratford and “A Texas Trilogy” on Broadway in 1976. In his last film “My Cousin Vinny” Gwynne played Judge Chamberlain Haller, using a Southern accent in his verbal sparring with Joe Pesci’s character, Vincent “Vinny” Gambini.

On July 2, 1996, Fred Gwynn died of complications from pancreatic cancer at his home in Taneytown, Maryland. He is buried at Sandy Mount United Methodist Church Cemetery in Finksburg, Maryland.

Calendar: July 9

A Year: Day to Day Men: 9th of July

Apollo on the Bed

July 9, 1858, was the birthdate of the German-American anthropologist Franz Uri Boas.

In 1887 Franz Uri Boas emigrated to the United States, where he first worked as a museum curator at the Smithsonian. In 1899 he became a professor of anthropology at Columbia University, where he remained for the rest of his career. Through his students, many of whom went on to found anthropology departments and research programs inspired by their mentor, Boas profoundly influenced the development of American anthropology.

Franz Boas was one of the most prominent opponents of the then-popular ideologies of scientific racism, the idea that race is a biological concept and that human behavior is best understood through the typology of biological characteristics. In a series of groundbreaking studies of skeletal anatomy, Boas showed that cranial shape and size was highly malleable depending on environmental factors such as health and nutrition, in contrast to the claims by racial anthropologists of the day that held head shape to be a stable racial trait.

Boas also worked to demonstrate that differences in human behavior are not primarily determined by innate biological dispositions but are largely the result of cultural differences acquired through social learning. In this way, Boas introduced culture as the primary concept for describing differences in behavior between human groups, and as the central analytical concept of anthropology.

Among Boas’s main contributions to anthropological thought was his rejection of the then-popular evolutionary approaches to the study of culture, which saw all societies progressing through a set of hierarchic technological and cultural stages, with Western European culture at the summit. Boas argued that culture developed historically through the interactions of groups of people and the diffusion of ideas; and that consequently, there was no process towards continuously “higher” cultural forms. This insight led Boas to reject the “stage”-based organization of ethnological museums, instead preferring to order items on display based on the affinity and proximity of the cultural groups in question.

Boas also introduced the ideology of cultural relativism, which holds that cultures cannot be objectively ranked as higher or lower, or better or more correct; but that all humans see the world through the lens of their own culture, and judge it according to their own culturally acquired norms. For Boas, the object of anthropology was to understand the way in which culture conditioned people to understand and interact with the world in different ways. To do this, it was necessary to gain an understanding of the language and cultural practices of the people studied.

Calendar: July 8

A Year: Day to Day Men: 8th of July

Red Towel and Mirror

July 8, 1934 was the birthdate of British comedian, comedy writer, and actor, Martin Alan “Marty” Feldman.

Marty Feldman was born in the East End of London, the son of Jewish immigrants from Kiev, Ukraine. He suffered in childhood from thyroid disease and developed Graves’ ophthalmopathy, causing his eyes to protrude and become misaligned. By the age of twenty, he had decided to pursue a career as a comedian.

In 1954, Marty Feldman first met Barry Took, a West End revue performer, forming an enduring writing partnership with him which lasted for twenty years. Together they wrote most of the shows of “Bootsie and Snudge”, a situation comedy for the ITV Network, and the BBC radio show “Round the Home” from 1964 to 1967. Feldman became chief write and script editor for the 1966-67 “The Frost Report”, which introduce John Cleese, Ronnie Barker, and Ronnie Corbett to television.

Marty Feldman’s appearance on the sketch comedy series “At Last the 1948 Show” as the fourth cast member of the group raised his profile on television. His character, frequently a harassing pest, interacted with fellow comedians John Cleese, Tim Brook-Taylor, and Graham Chapman. Thirteen series were made during the ten-month run, of which eleven complete shows survive.

On film, Marty Feldman is best known for his portrayal of Igor (pronounced Eye-Gore) in the now-comedy classic by Mel Brooks “Young Frankenstein”, released in 1974. The screenplay was written by Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder, who had Feldman in mind when he wrote the part. Feldman improvised many of his scenes’ lines during the shooting.

Feldman later in his career, appeared as a guest on “The Dean Martin Show”, ventured into Italian cinema in the sex comedy “Sex with a Smile”, appeared with Gene Wilder in Wilder’s directorial debut “The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother”, played Marty Eggs in Mel Brook’s “Silent Movie”, starred in his own written and directed comedy “The Last Remake of Beau Geste”, and showed up in a cameo role with the Cookie Monster on “The Muppet Show”.

Marty Feldman died from a heart attack in a hotel room in Mexico City on December 2, 1982 at the age of forty-eight, while filming “Yellowbeard”. He is buried in Forest Lawn- Hollywood Cemetery near his idol, Buster Keaton, in the Garden of Heritage.

Calendar: July 7

A Year: Day to Day Men: 7th of July

Casual Attitude

July 7, 1880 was the birthdate of the American inventor Otto Frederick Rohwedder.

Otto Rohwedder was born in Davenport, Iowa, the son of Claus and Elizabeth Rohwedder, of ethnic German descent. He attended the public schools in Davenport, eventually becoming an apprentice fo a jeweler to learn a trade. He continued his studies, graduating with a degree in optics from the Northern Illinois College of Ophthalmology and Otology in Chicago.

Otto Rohwedder became successful in his career as a jeweler, expanding his business to three locations in Saint Joseph, Missouri, where he had settled with his wife and two children. He used his experience with watches to invent new machines in his spare time. Convinced that he could develop a machine that would slice bread, Rohwedder sold his jewelry stores to fund his efforts. In 1917 a fire broke out in his factory, destroying his prototype and his blueprints. Forced to find new funding for his project, it took several more years before he could bring his machine to market.

In 1927 Otto Rohwedder successfully designed a machine that not only sliced the bread but wrapped it afterwards. He applied for patents and sold the first machine to Frank Bench of the Chillicothe Baking Company in Chillicothe, Missouri, in 1928. The first loaf of automatically sliced bread sold commercially on July 7, 1928, on Rhowedder’s forty-eighth birthday. Sales of the machine to other bakeries increased and sliced bread became available across the country.

In 1930 the Continental Baking Company of New York City introduced their “Wonder Bread” as a sliced bread. Other major companies saw the success of the marketing and followed with their own sliced products. The availability of standardized slices boosted the sales of the 1926 invention, the automatic pop-up toaster. For the first time, American bakeries in the year 1933 sold more sliced than unsliced bread loaves.

Otto Rohwedder was granted seven patents for his bread slicing and handling machines between the years 1927 to 1936. In 1933, he sold his patent rights to the Micro-Westco Company of Bettendorf, Iowa, and joined the company. He became vice-president and sales manager of the Rohwedder Bakery Machine division. His original bread-slicing machine is in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.

Calendar: July 6

A Year: Day to Day Men: 6th of July

Torso Stretch

July 6, 1907 was the birthdate of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.

Considered one of the Mexico’s greatest artist, Frida Kahlo was born in Coyocoan, Mexico City, Mexico. She grew up in the family’s home which was later known as the Blue House or Casa Azul. Frida Kahlo had poor health in her childhood. She contracted polio at age of six and had to be bedridden for nine months.

Frida Kahlo attended the renowned National Preparatory School in Mexico City. It was here that she first met Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, who was working on a mural called “The Creation”. Kahlo reconnected with Rivera in 1928 and the two started a romantic relationship, getting married in 1929. During the following years they moved to San Francisco, New York City and Detroit, based on Diego Rivera’s work.

In 1938, Frida Kahlo became a friend of Andre Breton, who was one of the primary figures of the Surrealism movement. That same year she had an exhibition in New York City and sold some of her paintings and received two commissions for future works. One commission was from Clare Boothe Luce; the result was the 1939 painting “The Suicide of Dorothy Hale” telling the story of Luce’s friend Dorothy’s leap to her death.

In the year of 1944, Frida Kahlo painted one of her most famous portrait, “The Broken Column”. In this painting she depicted herself naked and split down the middle, her spine shattered like a column. She wears a surgical brace in the painting and there are nails all through her body, which is the indication of the consistent pain she went through. During that time, she had several surgeries forcing her to wear special corsets to protect her spine. She sought medical treatment for her chronic pain but treatments were unsuccessful.

In the year of 1953, Kahlo had a solo exhibition in Mexico. Although she had limited mobility at that time, she showed up on the exhibition’s opening ceremony. She arrived by ambulance, welcomed the attendees, and celebrated the ceremony in a bed the gallery had set up for her. Frida Kahlo’s last public appearance was at a demonstration on July 2, 1953, against the overthrow of President Arbenz of Guatemala. One week later, after her 47th birthday, Frida Kahlo passed away at her beloved Blue House.

Frida Kahlo’s fame grew after her death. Her Blue House was opened as a museum in the year of 1958. In 1970s the interest in her work and life was renewed due to the feminist movement, since she was viewed as an icon of female creativity. In 1983, Hayden Herrera published his book on her, “A Biography of Frida Kahlo”, which drew more attention from the public to her works. In 2002, the movie “Frida” was released and was nominated for six Academy Awards, winning Best makeup and Best Original Score.