Elton John - 9-13

Flamboyant British musician Elton John receives a call-out on today's American Treasure Tour blog for his 1974 album Caribou.

Reginald Kenneth Dwight, a.k.a. Elton John, was born in 1947 and grew up in a fairly strict home.  Despite (or because of) his father's insistence that he take up banking as a career, John embraced a career in music, and he became increasingly associated with the outlandish costumes and sunglasses he wore during the first decades of a highly distinguished and successful career lasting over five decades.  He has won an Oscar, a Golden Globe, a Tony, six Grammys and a British knighthood.  Caribou, a number one album for John, is not considered one of his greatest, despite that the songs "The Bitch is Back" and "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" were introduced on it.

Question:

Elton John re-released his own hit song "Candle in the Wind" in 1997 to celebrate the life of Princess Diana.  It proceeded to become the best selling single in both the United Kingdom and the United States.  The original 1973 version was written to honor what American movie actress?

a)  Charlize Theron

b)  Judy Garland

c)  Elizabeth Taylor

d)  Marilyn Monroe

e)  Veronica Lake

 Answer Below

Today in History

On this date in 1899, Henry Hale Bliss was struck by an electric-powered taxi cab as he disembarked from a streetcar at the intersection of West  74th Street and Central Park West in New York City.  

His death the next day due to complications from the accident made him the first recorded fatality in the western hemisphere due to a automobile collision. A plaque was placed at the intersection during its centennial to promote safety.

A senatorial election in the state of Maine on this day in 1948 found Margaret Madeline Chase Smith the victor, effectively making her the first woman to have held office both in the Senate and the House of Representatives.  She pursued the Republican nomination in the 1964 presidential election as well, becoming the first woman to be officially considered for that post by a major political party.

Births

Walter Reed was born on September 13th, 1851.  He enrolled as a teenager at the University of Virginia, and became the youngest student to graduate from their distinguished medical school prior to his eighteenth birthday, a distinction he still holds to this day.  He eventually joined the U.S. Army Medical Corps, and held positions at different bases across the country prior to joining the U.S. Army Yellow Fever Commission in Cuba.  Although he gives credit to others for the discovery that certain mosquitoes are carriers for yellow fever, Reed traditionally receives credit for this all-important discovery.  He passed away at the age of fifty-one due to complications from a ruptured appendix.

In 1939, American actor Richard Kiel came into the world.  A former cemetery plot salesman, Kiel became

most familiar to movie-going fans as Jaws, a character in two of the Roger Moore James Bond films The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker.  Standing almost 7'2", Kiel is often cast in roles as a villain.

Quote:

To be loved is important as is having a sense of accomplishment, but love is equally important in life especially when it is combined with taking action to do something for someone else to make their life better.  -- Richard Kiel

Answer:  d)

Friday The 13th

Jackie Gleason - 9-12

Best known for his work playing Ralph Kramden in the comedy-favorite television series The Honeymooners, Jackie Gleason was also a popular movie actor and a well-regarded band leader.  How Sweet It Is (For Lovers) was the forty-fourth album Gleason released in a musical career that spanned from the 1950s through to the early-seventies.  He ultimately released fifty-seven albums during his musical career.  How Sweet It Is reached the seventy-first place in the Billboard Top 100.  

Question:

Jackie Gleason was nominated for a Best Supporting Oscar award for what movie:

a)  The Hustler

b)  Smokey and the Bandit

c)  The Color of Money

d)  The Toy

e)  The Honeymooners

Answer Below

Today in History

On September 12th, in the year 1964, the United States Congress designated Canyonlands as a national park.

Located in Southeastern Utah, erosion inspired by the Colorado River created the majestic landscape that makes it comparable to its more-famous neighbor, the Grand Canyon.  Indeed, the sole reason many Americans may be aware of it at all is because of the memorable last scene in the 1991 film Thelma & Louise.

Births

Jesse Owens was born in 1913 in segregated Oakville, Alabama.  A famous African-American sprint runner, Owens won four Olympic Gold Medals at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Germany, famously defeating athletes selected by Hitler's Nazis to show off to the world their "Aryan racial superiority."  

Owens displayed great grace in victory and became a national celebrity after the games.  When asked how he was able to run so quickly, he explained that. "I let my feet spend as little time on the ground as possible.  From the air, fast down, and from the ground, fast up."

Barry White would have celebrated his sixty-ninth birthday today were it not for his untimely death.  The highly-popular, award-winning singer with the resonant voice passed away ten years ago, after a career spanning four decades and many awards.

Quote:

Disco deserved a better name, a beautiful name because it was a beautiful art form.  It made the consumer beautiful.  The consumer was the star. -- Barry White

Answer:  a)

Carpenters - 9-11

The American Treasure Tour blog continues its tour of our record collection.  Yes, the 33-1/3 records that adorn the walls of both the Music Room and the Toy Box are finally getting their just due. Today, we will concentrate on the 1970 album by The Carpenters, Close to You.

Ranked the 175th (out of 500) best album of all time by Rolling Stone magazine, it includes two of the duo's most popular songs, "(They Long to Be) Close to You" and "We've Only Just Begun."  The brother and sister team recorded a handful of songs together the year prior, but in 1970, they skyrocketed to fame with this album, including twelve tracks.  One of them, "We've Only Just Begun," was originally written as a jingle for a bank commercial.  Ten albums were recorded by the band prior to Karen Carpenter's untimely death at the age of 32 due to complications associated with anorexia nervosa.  Her death helped create a national awareness for this disorder.

Question:

In 1987, film director Todd Haynes made a controversial biopic about Karen Carpenter entitled Superstar:  The Karen Carpenter Story.  Haynes did not gain legal license to use  the music Karen and her brother Richard performed and, coupled with Richard's offense at his portrayal in the film, this served as justification to ban its public distribution.  What did Haynes use to portray the characters in the film?

a)  Squirrels

b)  Cartoon animation

c)  Barbie dolls

d)  Stuffed animals

e)  Human actors

Answer below

Today in History

This date in 1978, the pinnacle of United States President Jimmy Carter's foreign affairs policy materialized with the Camp David Accords, which were intended to create a long-term peace in the Middle East, specifically between Egypt and Israel.  

Few dates in American history inspire an emotional reaction.  December 7th is one, when acknowledging the Japanese attack on the American Naval Base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and September 11th is another, for the horrible events of 2001, when terrorists took over three planes and found their targets at the World Trade Center in New York City, as well as the Pentagon in Arlington, VA.  The fourth plane take over crashed outside of Shanksville, Pennsyvania, for which its passengers are justly regarded as heroes.  

Births

Brian De Palma was born today in 1940 in Newark, New Jersey.  Raised in Philadelphia, De Palma became a famous film director, known mostly for the horror film Carrie (1976), the gangster films Scarface (1983) and the superior The Untouchables (1987).  

His 1996 film Mission: Impossible was loosely inspired by the cult television show and began a movie franchise that continues, starring Tom Cruise.  De Palma has accredited Hitchcock and Godard as major influences on his own career, and indeed, some of his films borrow directly from his inspirations.

Kristy McNichols celebrates her 51st birthday today.  Best known for her work as a young actor in the 1970s in the tv series Family and a number of ABC Afterschool Specials, McNichols retired from acting in the 1990s and has maintained a somewhat low profile since then.

Quote:  

It's kinda nice to be remembered by your peers and your fans because you can achieve a lot of success and be a creep too!  But we try to be nice, just normal people.  -- Karen Carpenter

Answer:  c)

Village People - 9-10

The year was 1977.  Disco music was the rage, and Americans were hungry to hear it.  Although a French composer created the band named Jacques Morali, the band was comprised of American musicians and dancers, with the original intention to target a gay audience but soon achieving widespread popularity with their catchy tunes and outlandish costumes.

Macho Man, the Village People's 1977 E.P. release, which is on currently on display on the wall of the ATT Music Room, clocks in at only twenty-seven minutes, and included their first breakout hit, "Macho Man," as well as "Key West," and three other tracks.  Their popularity soared after that for a few years with more hits in "Y.M.C.A." and "In the Navy," before the popularity of disco faded in the 1980s in the shadow of New Wave music and other genres.

The Village People dressed up in costumes designed to reflect something of a global village.  In what city was the village that inspired their name based?

a)  New York City

b)  Paris

c)  Los Angeles

d)  London

e)  Des Moines, IA

Answer below

Today in History

The year was 1846.  The day was September 10th.  The man, Elias Howe, is successful in his application for a patent submitted to the United States Patent Office.  The invention:  the sewing machine.

Despite the common misconception, Howe did not come up with the original conception of the sewing machine.  He did, however, develop the first lockstitch design, and incorporated many elements for his machine that made it the most efficient available, including a needle with the eye at the point, a shuttle operating beneath the cloth to form the lock stitch, and an automatic feed.  Five years after he received this patent, he received another one for the "Automatic, continuous clothing closure," eventually known as the zipper.

Births

98 years ago today, Edmond O'Brien entered the world's stage in his debut performance, that of being born.  He would appear in his first film role twenty-three years later, which would begin a career that would extend into the 1970s, and included such classics as The Killers, D.O.A., The Barefoot Contessa, and The Longest Day, as well as dozens of other classics.  He contracted Alzheimer's Disease in his sixties and passed away in Hollywood in 1985.

Thirteen years after Mr. O'Brien's birth, one of the world's most famous golfers was born.  Arnold Palmer turns eighty-four today, having begun life in modest settings only to gain great fame for his skills on the green.

His fame extends to beverages, as the combination of iced tea and lemonade is now named after him.

Quote:

The road to success is always under construction.  -- Arnold Palmer

Answer:  a) - Greenwich Village

Johnny Paycheck - 9-9

The American Treasure Tour blog strives to shock and surprise at every turn, which is why we are deviating from our now-familiar format of focusing on our substantial collection of movie posters for a little while.  Instead, we are going to concentrate on our even-more-substantial collection of ... record albums!  Yes, the old 33-1/3" records that dominated the music scene for decades and that many young folk (dare I call them hoodlums and nogoodniks?  Nah!!!) don't even know exist.

The first record we will highlight is that of Donald Eugene Lytle, more familiarly known as Johnny Paycheck:

Lytle began singing country music very young, and was participating in talent shows by the age of nine.  His first pseudonym was that of Donny Young, but in 1964, he legally changed his name to Johnny Paycheck, and it was as Paycheck that he reached the pinnacle of his success, reaching the top ten in Billboard and country music popularity in the late-60s and the 1970s.  He ran into trouble with the law in 1985, after injuring a man by shooting him in a bar in Ohio, and was sentenced to seven years in jail, of which he served twenty-two months before being pardoned by the governor.  Upon his release, he returned to recording music, but failing health because of complications associated with drug and alcohol abuse, as well as emphysema and asthma, led to his untimely death at the age of 64.

It is said that Donald Lytle adopted the name Johnny Paycheck because he was inspired by two other performers.  One had been a heavyweight boxing champion.  Who was the other?

a)  Billy Unemployment

b)  Johnny Cash

c)  Eddie Money

d)  George Washington

e)  Johnny Unitas

Answer Below

Today in History

Taking advantage of the population surge inspired by the Gold Rush of 1848 and 1849, California was officially granted statehood on September 9th, 1850.  When Mexico ceded California to the United States at the end of the Mexican-American War, they did not realize the massive quantity of gold that existed in the land when they signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which made it possible for the Americans to claim the gold without greater struggle.

Sutter's Mill, located in Coloma, California, is where gold was first discovered on January 24, 1848, by James Marshall of New Jersey.

In 1926, the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) was established on this day by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), initially as a radio channel, then as what is now the longest-running television station in the United States.

Births

Alf Landon entered the world as a natural-born American citizen in the year 1887 on this date.  Growing up in Indiana, he moved with his family to Kansas as a teenager and stayed there the rest of his career, excepting an interruption during World War I to serve in a detail dealing in chemical warfare.  

Landon amassed his fortune in the Kansas petroleum industry, then turned his sites to politics.  He became Governor of Kansas, then, in 1936, ran as a liberal Republican against the incumbent, Franklin D. Roosevelt.  He was defeated in a landslide, then retired from politics and concentrated on petroleum for the remainder of his career.  He died in his hundredth year.

Colonel Harland David Sanders was born today in 1890, in a shack located outside of Henryville, Indiana.  After misadventures that included the falsification of information to enlist in the army at age fifteen, and later being abandoned by his wife, Sanders moved to Corbin, Kentucky, where in 1930 he opened a service station that offered fried chicken.  His chicken became increasingly popular, and he worked for twenty-two years to brand his product until the first Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise opened.  Although ownership of KFC has changed hands many times since then, the image of Colonel Sanders is still familiar to many lovers of fried chicken.

Quote:

There's no reason to be the richest man in the cemetery.  You can't do any business from there.  -- Colonel Sanders

Answer:  b)

A Sainted Devil - 9-6

The first few decades of the twentieth century brought many exciting advances in technology to the world, including the widespread use of electricity, nickelodeons (of course!), and silent movies.  Movies were produced by the hundreds using a nitrate base that was very flammable and not designed to have longevity.  For those and other reasons, many movies from the silent era do not exist today, although evidence of their production do remain.  One of these movies is A Sainted Devil.

Rudolph Valentino was easily one of the most popular actors of the silent era, along with other notables including Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin.  An Italian by birth, he moved to New York City at the age of eighteen and then went to Hollywood to pursue a career in acting.  In a movie career that lasted only twelve years total, he performed in well over twenty-five movies before dying quite unexpectedly at the age of 31, from complications associated with appendicitis and gastric ulcers in 1926.  Mass hysteria occurred with news of his passing, and suicides by avid fans were reported.  A Sainted Devil was released in 1924, and no known prints of it remain in existence.  The movie poster adorns the walls of the American Treasure Tour's Music Room (big surprise, I know), but the film itself is either lost or hidden in some long-forgotten vault, waiting to be rediscovered.  We can hope it's the latter scenario.

Question:

Rudolph Valentino was an early superstar during the age of silent film.  Without dialogue or a natural soundtrack included in the movie, theaters used any of a number of different techniques to bring sound to the movies, including accompaniment by live musicians or professional organists.  What mechanical music machine was created specifically for theater owners to bring in to compliment the action in films?

a)  Nickelodeons

b)  Music Boxes

c)  Band Organs

d)  Photoplayers

e)  Player Pianos

Answer below.

Today in History

It was September 6th, 1620, when a group of 102 English Pilgrims departed from Plymouth, England for a journey across the Atlantic Ocean to the New World.  They were headed for the colony of Virginia, which had been settled eleven years earlier, but necessity compelled them to set down on the first land they saw, sixty-five days after their departure.  They remained at Provincetown Harbor on Cape Cod for some time prior to settling in at New Plymouth, on the Massachusetts mainland.

Births

Today we celebrate the 1860 birth of Jane Addams, the humanitarian and progressive social worker responsible for the establishment of Chicago's Hull House.  Hull House proved an invaluable resource to poor and uneducated, often immigrant, families that used it as a resource.

In 1931, Addams became the first American woman to receive a Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts.  She became an inspiration for many American women who strove to emulate her good works in their own communities at the time.

Twenty-eight years her junior, Joseph Kennedy was born in Boston, Massachusetts.  Kennedy made his fortune in alcohol and politics, becoming the patriarch for a family of politicians, most notably his sons John and Robert, who became President of the United States and Attorney General, respectively.

Quote:

The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.  -- Jane Addams

Answer:  d)