Today in History: Chuck Berry records ‘Maybellene' for Chess Records
Today in history:
On May 21, 1955, Chuck Berry recorded his first single, 'Maybellene,' for Chess Records in Chicago.
Also on this date:
In 1881, the American Red Cross was founded by nurse and educator Clara Barton in Washington D.C.
In 1924, 14-year-old Bobby Franks was murdered in a 'thrill killing' carried out by University of Chicago students Nathan Leopold Jr. and Richard Loeb (Bobby's distant cousin).
In 1927, Charles A. Lindbergh landed his Spirit of St. Louis monoplane near Paris, completing the first solo airplane flight across the Atlantic Ocean in 33 1/2 hours.
In 1932, Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean as she landed in Northern Ireland, about 15 hours after leaving Newfoundland.
In 1941, a German U-boat sank the American merchant steamship SS Robin Moor in the South Atlantic after the ship's passengers and crew were allowed to board lifeboats.
In 1972, Michelangelo's Pieta, in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, was damaged by a hammer-wielding man. (The sculpture went back on display 10 months later after its damaged elements were reconstructed.)
In 1979, former San Francisco City Supervisor Dan White was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the slayings of Mayor George Moscone and openly gay Supervisor Harvey Milk. Outrage over White's lenient sentence sparked the White Night riots that evening.
In 1991, former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated amid Indian national elections by a suicide bomber.
Today's Birthdays: Baseball Hall of Fame manager Bobby Cox is 84. Singer Ronald Isley (The Isley Brothers) is 84. Singer Leo Sayer is 77. Actor Mr. T is 73. Actor Judge Reinhold is 68. Filmmaker Nick Cassavetes is 66. Actor Lisa Edelstein is 59. Comedian-TV presenter Noel Fielding is 52. Actor Fairuza Balk is 51. Actor Da'Vine Joy Randolph is 39. Country musician Cody Johnson is 38. Actor Hannah Einbinder is 30. NFL quarterback Josh Allen is 29.
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Los Angeles Times
2 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Amy Madigan is bound to win something for playing Aunt Gladys in ‘Weapons'
Which critics group will be the first to give Amy Madigan a prize for 'Weapons'? Might she be the standout of the summer, the one most deserving an award, other than the person who updated this billboard near LAX? I'm Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and host of The Envelope newsletter. A forecast for a cosmic future in these parts? Hope, indeed, comes in many forms. I'm going to tread lightly when it comes to spoilers for Zach Cregger's horror movie 'Weapons,' currently the No. 1 movie at the box office. But I'm also of the mind that you should see 'Weapons' knowing as little as possible about it. So anything I write could be considered a spoiler, though I should also note that I'm someone who never watches movie trailers and will go so far as to close my eyes and cover my ears in a theater to avoid them. Sometimes I think the only reason I'm still writing about movies is that the job allows me to see films in advance and not have them ruined. I love flying blind. You probably know that 'Weapons' follows what happens in an American town after 17 children disappear one night, all of them simultaneously running out the front doors of their homes, arms outstretched, at precisely 2:17 a.m. Cregger unravels the mystery from multiple, often overlapping points of view, calling to mind Paul Thomas Anderson's audacious epic 'Magnolia,' right down to the presence of a clumsy, mustachioed cop. Well into the movie, we meet Madigan's Aunt Gladys in a principal's office at the school that the missing kids attended. All of the children were in the same class. Gladys says she is the aunt of the one child from the class who didn't run off into night. There's some understandable curiosity and concern over this boy, Alex (Cary Christopher, another standout in a very good year for child actors), and Gladys is here to reassure everyone that Alex — and his parents — are doing just fine. Gladys is perhaps not the most reliable messenger. She is wearing a bright-red wig and multiple layers of makeup, a presentation that suggests she has spent a lifetime watching Bette Davis in 'What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?' Something is off, and, hoo boy, are we about to find out what that something is. Madigan is excellent, disarming and adept at concealing, to a point, the hidden core of good ol' Aunt Gladys. Again, I'm treading lightly. If you've seen it, as I'm sure many of you have, you know just how delightfully insane her work in the movie is. Critics groups love to reward the delightfully insane. They also love to champion genres, like horror, that tend to be marginalized at the Oscars. So I'd expect some group — perhaps New York, maybe L.A. — could be eager to plant a flag for Madigan as a much-deserved, out-of-the-box supporting actress choice. She's 74, has enjoyed a fine career on stage and screen and, along with her husband, Ed Harris, made a principled stand (or sit) at the 1999 Academy Awards, refusing to applaud when Elia Kazan took the stage to receive an honorary Oscar. It's easy to get swept up in the success of 'Weapons' and the countless stories sifting through its ending and themes. Once the film leaves theaters and the fall festival awards contenders start dropping, Madigan will need a champion or two to put her back into the conversation. History might be on her side, though: Davis earned a lead actress Oscar nomination for 'Baby Jane.' And Ruth Gordon won the supporting actress Oscar for 'Rosemary's Baby' for the same kind of deliciously diabolical turn that Madigan gives in 'Weapons.' Plus, you know Aunt Gladys was taking notes on Gordon's cosmetic routine in 'Rosemary's Baby.' I'll be back in your inbox Monday. Thanks, as always, for reading.
New York Post
3 hours ago
- New York Post
Liberal comic Marc Maron who helped popularize podcasting explains why he turned down Hillary Clinton interview
Stand-up comedian and podcast host Marc Maron told The Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday why he decided to turn down an interview with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2017. Maron, a podcasting pioneer and host of the popular 'WTF with Marc Maron' podcast, interviewed former President Barack Obama in 2015, which helped open the door to high-level politicians willing to appear on his show, such as Hillary Clinton. When Maron's longtime producer Brendan McDonald pitched Clinton, fresh off her loss to President Donald Trump in the 2016 election, the comedian decided against interviewing the former Secretary of State. ''You're the guy to do this,'' McDonald recalled telling Maron. 'He adamantly disagreed.' Maron told The Hollywood Reporter that 'the success rate of getting to a candid place with politicians is very small,' and that his successful interview with Obama was an exception. 'And this is somebody who's divisive and controversial and has a history that's somewhat sordid, not by any fault of her own, but I just didn't see where I could go with that,' he said of the prospect of interviewing Clinton. 4 Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton walks on stage before her debate against Donald Trump at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas on Oct. 19, 2016. EPA 4 Marc Maron during his HBO show Marc Maron: Panicked. Karolina Wojtasik/HBO Although his 'WTF' podcast continues to maintain cultural relevance, Maron announced in June that he will be ending the long-running show. He told CNN on Thursday that he's just over the medium and noted that the podcast space has become oversaturated. 'I don't want to chase the cultural conversation through clickbait and garbage. You know, I don't want to be tethered,' Maron said. 'And now you're getting out just when everyone's 100% convinced that podcasts are deciding American elections and the future of mankind. Right? So why get out just when everyone catches up to you?' CNN anchor John Berman asked the comedian. 4 Maron told The Hollywood Reporter that 'the success rate of getting to a candid place with politicians is very small,' and that his successful interview with Obama was an exception. CNN 4 Hillary Clinton reacts during her concession speech after losing the 2016 Presidential Election to Donald Trump on Nov. 9, 2025. AFP/Getty Images Maron told the anchor that he never intended for the show to be about politics, and felt that it had run its course. 'And we really chose not to do politics and just do kind of profiles and sort of candid conversation,' he said, describing how he originally set up the show. 'And we were audio, and we remained audio because we believe that's the most intimate, you know, form.' He continued, noting that he's satisfied with how much content the show has produced and that he wants to get out with so many other podcasters competing on the scene. 'And also, if we stop and at this point, you know, we have a body of work that stands on its own. And in terms of, yeah, podcasts being the new medium, that means there's 10,000 podcasts. Everyone's doing one, and it's just, the environment is a little cluttered and oversaturated.' Fox News' Gabriel Hays contributed to this report.
Chicago Tribune
3 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
Today in History: India gains independence
Today is Friday, Aug. 15, the 227th day of 2025. There are 138 days left in the year. Today in history: On Aug. 15, 1947, India gained independence after nearly 200 years of British rule. Also on this date: In 1057, Macbeth, King of Scots, was killed in battle by Malcolm, the eldest son of King Duncan, whom Macbeth had slain. In 1914, the Panama Canal officially opened as the SS Ancon crossed the just-completed waterway between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. In 1935, humorist Will Rogers and aviator Wiley Post were killed when their airplane crashed near Point Barrow in the Alaska Territory. In 1961, as workers began constructing a Berlin Wall made of concrete, East German soldier Conrad Schumann leapt to freedom over a tangle of barbed wire. In 1969, the Woodstock Music and Art Fair opened in upstate New York; more than 460,000 people attended the three-day festival, which would become a watershed event in American music and culture. In 1989, F.W. de Klerk was sworn in as acting president of South Africa, one day after P.W. Botha resigned because of a power struggle within the National Party. In 1998, 29 people were killed by a car bomb that tore apart the center of Omagh, Northern Ireland; a splinter group calling itself the Real IRA claimed responsibility. In 2003, bouncing back from the largest blackout in U.S. history, cities from the Midwest to Manhattan restored power to tens of millions of people. In 2021, the Taliban regained control of the Afghan capital of Kabul after the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the country. Today's Birthdays: Actor Jim Dale is 90. Retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is 87. U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., is 87. Author-journalist Linda Ellerbee is 81. Songwriter Jimmy Webb is 79. Actor Phyllis Smith is 76. Britain's Princess Anne is 75. Actor Tess Harper is 75. Actor Zeljko Ivanek is 68. Celebrity chef Tom Colicchio is 63. Film director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu is 62. Philanthropist Melinda French Gates is 61. Actor Debra Messing is 57. Actor Anthony Anderson is 55. Actor Ben Affleck is 53. Olympic gold medal beach volleyball player Kerri Walsh Jennings is 47. Rock singer Joe Jonas (The Jonas Brothers) is 36. Actor Jennifer Lawrence is 35.
