The ATT & Pinocchio - 8-26

Today's movie poster, adorning a wall in our Music Room, honors a famous film character even if this is not the version everyone knows.  Pinocchio was introduced to American audiences most famously by Walt Disney with his 1940 animated film.  The story has been retold many times since then, including this 1996 version, directed by Steve Baron, starring Martin Landau and Udo Kier:

(Our poster is the image on the left).  

Absent from this version of the story is Jiminy Cricket, replaced if only briefly by a cricket named PePe, but the goal of becoming a real boy remains intact for the wooden puppet and the good-hearted Gepetto, played by Martin Landau.

Question:

Martin Landau's career as an actor traces to the 1950s and one of Alfred Hitchcock's most compelling films, North by Northwest.  His television roles include spots on Mission: Impossible and Space: 1999, but it was not until what movie did he receive an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor:

a)  Crimes and Misdemeanors

b)  Tucker, The Man and His Dream

c)  Frankenweenie

d)  Ed Wood

e)  The Hallelujah Trail

Answer Below

Today's History

Decades of struggle paid off on this date in 1920, when American women finally gained access to the voting booths.    They received the right to vote with the implementation of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution.  Only one of the original attendees of the Women's Rights Conference at Seneca Falls, New York, was still alive to appreciate this momentous event, but she and approximately half of the population were no longer disenfranchised and could now participate in the political process.

Births

Melissa McCarthy is turning 43 today.  A popular television and movie actor, McCarthy began acting in a supporting role in the beloved program Gilmore Girls, and has moved on to a starring role in the situation comedy Mike & Molly and successful films Bridesmaids, Identity Thief and The Heat, the latter co-starring with Oscar winner Sandra Bullock.

Ten years younger than Ms. McCarthy is Macaulay Culkin, who became famous at the age of ten with a starring role in the film Home Alone.  Although he has taken a backseat in the entertainment industry, Culkin remains a quiet presence.

Quote of the Day:

Universal suffrage is the only guarantee against despotism.  -- May Wright Sewall

Answer:  d)

Americna Treasure: Frederick Douglass

Great American Orator Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in Talbot county Maryland circa 1818. After a handful of unsuccessful attempts to escape from slavery, Douglass succeeded on Sept. 3, 1838. He had met and fallen in love with a free African American woman in Baltimore who helped him get identification and a sailor's uniform. He boarded a train for Havre De Grace, MD. as a free sailor, and continued on to a safe house in New York run by David Ruggles

Douglass married the woman who aided his escape, and they participated in the abolitionist movement together. Douglass spoke at meeting halls across the Eastern and Mid-west states. His speeches were powerful, and he was frequently accosted by those who were opposed to his passion for freedom.

The achievements of this man are too many to number, he joined the fight for women's suffrage as well. He wrote autobiographies about his life in slavery and subsequent escape. He became the most famous black man in America before the civil war and conferred with Presidents Lincoln and Johnson on the topic of African American suffrage.

Later in life, Douglass was appointed United States Marshall. At the 1888 Republican National Convention, Douglass became the first African American to receive a vote for President of the United States in a major party's roll call vote

What an amazing American!