Michelle Obama, on the arts:

The arts are not just a nice thing to have or to do if there is free time or if one can afford it.

Rather, paintings and poetry, music and fashion, design and dialogue, they all define who we are as a people and provide an account of our history for the next generation.

- Michelle Obama.

Recommended reading - The Getaway

 

The Getaway

by Jim Thompson.
 
First published 1958.
Published by Mulholland Books.
Paperback.

ISBN-10: 0316403970
ISBN-13: 978-0316403979
 
Description:

Doc McCoy is the most skilled criminal alive. But when for the first time in Doc's long criminal career, his shot doesn't hit the mark, everything begins to fall apart. And Doc begins to realize that the perfect bank robbery isn't complete without the perfect getaway to back it up.

THE GETAWAY is the classic story of a bank robbery gone horribly wrong, where the smallest mistakes have catastrophic consequences, and shifting loyalties lead to betrayals and chaos. The basis for the classic Steve McQueen film of the same name, as well as a 1994 remake with Alec Baldwin, Thompson's novel set the bar for every heist story that followed - but as Thompson's proved time and again, nobody's ever done it better than the master.

Recommended reading - A Beautiful Mind

A Beautiful Mind

by Sylvia Nasar.
 
First published 1998.
Published by Simon & Schuster.
Paperback.

ISBN-10: 1451628420
ISBN-13: 978-1451628425
 
Description:
 

Also an Academy Award–winning film starring Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly – directed by Ron Howard.

 

The powerful, dramatic biography of math genius John Nash, who overcame serious mental illness and schizophrenia to win the Nobel Prize.

 

“How could you, a mathematician, believe that extraterrestrials were sending you messages?” the visitor from Harvard asked the West Virginian with the movie-star looks and Olympian manner. “Because the ideas I had about supernatural beings came to me the same way my mathematical ideas did,” came the answer. “So I took them seriously.”

 

Thus begins the true story of John Nash, the mathematical genius who was a legend by age thirty when he slipped into madness, and who—thanks to the selflessness of a beautiful woman and the loyalty of the mathematics community—emerged after decades of ghostlike existence to win a Nobel Prize for triggering the game theory revolution. The inspiration for an Academy Award–winning movie, Sylvia Nasar’s now-classic biography is a drama about the mystery of the human mind, triumph over adversity, and the healing power of love.

Born on this day – Florine McKinney:

Florine McKinney

Actress

December 13, 1909 – July 28, 1975

Credits:

Little Joe, the Wrangler (1942); Pardon My Sarong (1942); Take a Letter, Darling (1942); Brooklyn Orchid (1942); Unholy Partners (1941); Blossoms in the Dust (1941); You're the One (1941); A Night at Earl Carroll's (1940); The Philadelphia Story (1940); Escape (1940); Oklahoma Renegades (1940); Waterloo Bridge (1940); And One Was Beautiful (1940); Blazing Barriers (1937); A Star Fell from Heaven (1936); Muss 'em Up (1936); Cappy Ricks Returns (1935); Dizzy Dames (1935); Strangers All (1935); Night Life of the Gods (1935); David Copperfield (1935); The Merry Widow (1934); Student Tour (1934); Hollywood Party (1934); Riptide (1934); Dancing Lady (1933); Beauty for Sale (1933); It's Great to Be Alive (1933); Blue of the Night (1933); Cynara (1932); The Cabin in the Cotton (1932); Horse Feathers (1932); The Miracle Man (1932); One Hour with You (1932).

Born on this day – Ross Macdonald:

Ross Macdonald

Writer

December 13, 1915 – July 11, 1983

Credits:

Books:

The Lew Archer novel series: The Moving Target (aka Harper) (1949); The Drowning Pool (1950); The Way Some People Die   (1951); The Ivory Grin / Marked for Murder (1952); Find a Victim (1954); The Barbarous Coast (1956); The Doomsters (1958); The Galton Case (1959); The Wycherly Woman (1961); The Zebra-Striped Hearse (1962); The Chill (1963); The Far Side of the Dollar (1965); Black Money (1966); The Instant Enemy (1968); The Goodbye Look (1969); The Underground Man (1971); Sleeping Beauty (1973); The Blue Hammer (1976); The Name is Archer (1955); Lew Archer, Private Investigator (1977); The Archer Files (2007). The Chet Gordon novel series: The Dark Tunnel / I Die Slowly (1944); Trouble Follows Me (1946). Stand-alone novels, short stories and novellas: Blue City (1947); The Three Roads (1948); Meet Me at the Morgue / Experience with Evil (1954); The Ferguson Affair (1967); The Guilty Ones (1952); The Imaginary Blonde (1953); Midnight Blue (2010); Strangers in Town (2001); Dear Dead Days: 1972 Mystery Writers of America Anthology (1972); Mammoth Book of Short Crime Novels (1986); The Mammoth Book of Private Eye Stories (1988); City Sleuths and Tough Guys (1989); Pulp Frictions: Hardboiled Stories (1996); The Oxford Book of American Detective Stories (1996); Writing Los Angeles (2002); Los Angeles Noir 2 (2010); Books to Die For (2012).

Movies and television:

Archer (1975); Blue City (1986); City Detective (1954); Crime Writers (1978); Criminal Behavior (1992); Double Negative (1980); Harper (1966); Harper Days Are Here Again (1975); Le loup de la côte Ouest (2002); Pursuit (1958); Tayna (1992); The Drowning Pool (1975); The Underground Man (1974).

Born on this day – Mark Stevens:

Mark Stevens

Actor

Director

Producer

December 13, 1916 – September 15, 1994

Credits:

Between Midnight and Dawn (1950); Big Town (1954–1956); Bronk (1975); Bus Stop (1962); Celebrity Playhouse (1955); Cry Vengeance (1954); Dancing in the Dark (1949); Decision (1958); Destination Tokyo (1943); Es usted mi padre (1971); Escape from Hell Island (1963); España otra vez (1968); Fate Is the Hunter (1964); Food and Magic (1943); Footlights Theater (1953); From This Day Forward (1946); Frontier Justice (1958); Frozen Alive (1964); General Electric Theater (1953); Ghost Train (1991); God Is My Co-Pilot (1945); Gun Fever (1958); Gunsight Ridge (1957); Gunsmoke in Tucson (1958); Hollywood Canteen (1944); Hollywood contra Franco (2008); Hollywood Opening Night (1952); I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now (1947); Jack Slade (1953); Jane Wyman Presents the Fireside Theatre (1957); Katie Did It (1950); Kojak (1975); La Lola, dicen que no vive sola (1970); Little Egypt (1951); Lux Video Theatre (1954 / 1955); Magnum, P.I. (1987); Martin Kane (1953–1954); Murder, She Wrote (1986); Mutiny (1952); News Gal (1957); Objective, Burma! (1945); Oh, You Beautiful Doll (1949); Our American Heritage (1959); Passage to Marseille (1944); Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall (1956); Place the Face (1953); Please Believe Me (1950); Police Story (1975); Pride of the Marines (1945); Rawhide (1962); Reunion in Reno (1951); Rhapsody in Blue (1945); Roaring Guns (1944); S.W.A.T. (1976); Sand (1949); Scarecrow and Mrs. King (1987); Schlitz Playhouse (1952–1957); September Storm (1960); Simon & Simon (1987); Strike It Rich (1953); Studio 57 (1957); Sunday Showcase (1959); Sunscorched (1965); Target Unknown (1951); The Big Frame (1952); The Dark Corner (1946); The Doughgirls (1944); The Eddie Capra Mysteries (1978); The Ford Television Theatre (1952–1953); The Gisele MacKenzie Show (1958); The Law and Harry McGraw (1987); The Loretta Young Show (1957–1958); The Snake Pit (1948); The Street with No Name (1948); Time Table (1956); Torpedo Alley (1952); Wagon Train (1957–1958); Within These Walls (1945); Your Show Time (1949); Zane Grey Theatre (1957–1960).

Born on this day – Ann Richards:

Ann Richards

Actress

Writer

Artist

December 13, 1917 – August 24, 2006

Credits:

Writing:

Helen of Troy (play written in the 1970s – exact date unknown); The Grieving Senses (poetry) (1971); Odyssey for Edmond (poetry) (1991).

Movies and television:

Don't Call Me Girlie (1984); General Electric Theater (1960); Breakdown (1952); Sorry, Wrong Number (1948); Love from a Stranger (1947); Lost Honeymoon (1947); The Searching Wind (1946); Badman's Territory (1946); Love Letters (1945); An American Romance (1944); Three Hearts for Julia (1943); 100,000 Cobbers (1942); Random Harvest (1942); Dr. Gillespie's New Assistant (1942); The Woman in the House (1942); Come Up Smiling (1939); The Farmer Goes to Town (1938); Vengeance of the Deep (1938); Timberland Terror (1937); It Isn't Done (1937).

Born on this day – Don Taylor:

Don Taylor

Director

Actor

Writer

December 13, 1920 – December 29, 1998

Born on this day – James Wright:

James Wright

Writer

December 13, 1927 – March 25, 1980

Credits:

Poems:

A Blessing; A Note Left In Jimmy Leonard's Shack; A Poem About George Doty In The Death House; A Winter Daybreak Above Vence; As I Step Over A Puddle At The End Of Winter...; At The Executed Murderer's Grave; Autumn Begins In Martins Ferry, Ohio; Beginning; Bologna: A Poem About Gold; Depressed By A Book Of Bad Poetry...; Fear Is What Quickens Me; Goodbye to the Poetry of Calcium; Having Lost My Sons, I Confront The Wreckage Of The Moon...; Hook; In Response To A Rumor That The Oldest Whorehouse In Wheeling...; Lying In A Hammock At William Duffy's; May Morning; Northern Pike; On The Skeleton Of A Hound; Outside Fargo, North Dakota; Rip; Saint Judas; Small Frogs Killed On The Highway; The Jewel; The Journey; The Lambs on the Boulder; The Last Pieta, in Florence; To A Blossoming Pear Tree; To The Muse; Trying To Pray.

Books:

A Wild Perfection: The Selected Letters of James Wright (2005); Above the River, The Complete Poems (1990); Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio—Broadside (1963); Collected Poems (1971); James Wright, In Defense Against This Exile. Letters To Wayne Burns (1985); Moments of the Italian Summer (1976); Saint Judas (1959); Selected Poems (2005); Shall We Gather at the River (1967); The Branch Will Not Break (1963); The Delicacy and Strength of Lace: Letters Between Leslie Marmon Silko and James Wright (2009); The Green Wall (1957); The Temple at Nîmes (1982); This Journey (1982); To a Blossoming Pear Tree (1977); Two Citizens (1973).

Born on this day – Christopher Plummer:

Christopher Plummer

Actor

December 13, 1929 – February 5, 2021

On this day in movie history - Le Doulos (1962)

 

Le Doulos

a.k.a. The Finger Man,

directed and written by Jean-Pierre Melville,

based on the novel by Pierre Lesou,

was released in Italy on December 13, 1962.

Music by Paul Misraki.

 
Cast:

Jean-Paul Belmondo, Serge Reggiani, Jean Desailly, René Lefèvre, Marcel Cuvelier, Philippe March, Fabienne Dali, Monique Hennessy, Carl Studer, Christian Lude, Jacques De Leon, Jack Leonard, Paulette Breil, Philippe Nahon, Charles Bayard, Daniel Crohem, Charles Bouillaud, Michel Piccoli.

Born on this day – Robert Prosky:

 

Robert Prosky

Actor

December 13, 1930 – December 8, 2008

On this day in movie history - The Getaway (1972)

The Getaway

directed by Sam Peckinpah,

written by Walter Hill,

based on the novel by Jim Thompson,

was released in the United States on December 13, 1972.

Music by Quincy Jones.

Cast:

Steve McQueen, Ali MacGraw, Ben Johnson, Sally Struthers, Al Lettieri, Slim Pickens, Richard Bright, Jack Dodson, Dub Taylor, Bo Hopkins, Roy Jenson, John Bryson.

On this day in movie history - Magnum Force (1973)

 

Magnum Force

directed by Ted Post,

written by John Milius and Michael Cimino,

based on a story by John Milius,

was released in the United Kingdom on December 13, 1973.

Music by Lalo Schifrin.

 

Cast:

Clint Eastwood, Hal Holbrook, Mitchell Ryan, David Soul, Tim Matheson, Kip Niven, Robert Urich, Felton Perry, Maurice Argent, Margaret Avery, Richard Devon, Tony Giorgio, Jack Kosslyn, Bob March, Bob McClurg, John Mitchum, Russ Moro, Clifford A. Pellow, Albert Popwell, Christine White, Adele Yoshioka, Clarence 'Buzz' Anderson, Don Anderson, Susheela Asregadoo, Nina B. Blake, Kenneth Boyd, John Bracci, Marcia Brandwynne, Christopher Brooks, Art Brown, Jeff Carter, Willie Carter, Al Cingolani, Reuben Collins, Cab Covay, Paul D'Amato, Michael L. Davis, Brenda Dennis, Cash Earley, Aaron Edwards, Drew Eshelman, Debra A. Estok, Robert Feero, Peter Fitzsimmons, Ray K. Goman, Joseph Gostanian, Nicholas Grabien, Wayne Grace, J. Peter Hanson, Lisa Herman, Barbara Herring, Will Hutchins, Jay Jacobus, George R. Kalange, Gwyn Karon, Craig Kelly, Edgy Lee, John Lester, Lucy Lowry, Bruce Mackey, Ron Magers, Angela May, Linda McClure, Ricci McGee, Terence McGovern, Janet McGrath, Don Michaelian, Joe Miksak, Lynn Mortensen, Niels Mortensen, Bruce Neckels, Eugene A. Nelson, Ben Niems, Tom O'Neill, Rudy Ortega, Tony Piazza, Charles Raino, George Reading, Jack Rosenblaum, Ray Saunders, Jack Schmidt, Robert E. Simpson, Karna Small, Melvina Smedley, Windrim Smith, Suzanne Somers, Owen Spann, William Swan, Steve Treacy, Robert Trebor, Ed Vasgersian, Conni Venturi, John Vick, Robert V.R. Ware, Carl Weathers, Johnny Weissmuller Jr., Joseph Whipp, William L. Williams, Phil Wilson, Jeff Wynne.

On this day in movie history - The Last Boy Scout (1991)

The Last Boy Scout

directed by Tony Scott,

written by Shane Black,

based on a story by Shane Black and Greg Hicks,

was released in the United States on December 13, 1991.

Music by Michael Kamen.

Cast:

Bruce Willis, Damon Wayans, Chelsea Field, Noble Willingham, Taylor Negron, Danielle Harris, Halle Berry, Bruce McGill, Kim Coates, Chelcie Ross, Joe Santos, Clarence Felder, Frank Collison, Billy Blanks, Sara Suzanne Brown, Eddie Griffin.

On this day in movie history - A Beautiful Mind (2001)

 

A Beautiful Mind

directed by Ron Howard,

written by Akiva Goldsman,

based on the book by Sylvia Nasar,

was released in the United States on December 13, 2001.

Music by James Horner.

Cast:

Russell Crowe, Ed Harris, Jennifer Connelly, Christopher Plummer, Paul Bettany, Adam Goldberg, Josh Lucas, Anthony Rapp, Jason Gray-Stanford, Judd Hirsch, Austin Pendleton, Vivien Cardone, Jillie Simon, Victor Steinbach, Tanya Clarke, Thomas F. Walsh, Jesse Doran, Kent Cassella, Patrick Blindauer, John Blaylock, Roy Thinnes, Anthony Easton, Cheryl Howard, Rance Howard, Jane Jenkins, Darius Stone, Josh Pais, Alex Toma, Valentina Cardinalli, Teagle F. Bougere, David B. Allen, Michael Esper, Eva Burkley, Amy Walz, Tracey Toomey, Jennifer Weedon, Yvonne Thomas, Holly Pitrago, Isadore Rosenfeld, Tommy Allen, Dave Bayer, Brian Keith Lewis, Tom McNutt, Will Dunham, Glenn Roberts, Ed Jupp Jr., Christopher Stockton, Gregory Dress, Carla Occhiogrosso, Matt Samson, Lyena Nomura, Kathleen Fellegara, Betsy Klompus, Stelio Savante, Logan McCall, Bob Broder, Michael Abbott Jr., Liche Ariza, Michael Arthur, Reggie Austin, Fileena Bahris, Lloyd Baskin, Sean Bennett, Cade Bittner, James Thomas Bligh, Peter Bonilla, Rich Bryant, Dan Chen, Phil Cirincione, Scott Addison Clay, Ty Copeman, Sean Dillon, Berly Ellis, Jonah Falcon, Fabrizio Fante, Scott Fernstrom, Michael Fiore, Mike Fitzgerald, Todd Fredericks, Seth Gabel, Russell Gibson, Gregory Gordon, Evan Hart, Jason Horton, Bryce Dallas Howard, Ron Howard, Vivian Kalinov, Alex Lorre, Monique Marissa Lukens, Dory Manzour, Tiffany Marz, Charles McClelland, Jon M. McDonnell, Arnold Montey, Robert Myers, Ryan O’Connor, Nick Oddo, Charles Pendelton, Reed Penney, Michael C. Pierce, Mills Pierre, Deborah Rayne, Sean Reid, Colby Ryan, Brian Smyj, Ned Stuart, Dave Sweeney, Alessandro Tanaka, Douglas Taurel, John H. Tobin, Jeffrey Todd, Michael Tota, Jarred Treiber, Ryan Tygh, Erik Van Wyck, James Whalen, Warner Wolf.

On this day in movie history - About Schmidt (2002)

About Schmidt

directed by Alexander Payne,

written by Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor,

based on the novel by Louis Begley,

was released in the United States on December 13, 2002.

Music by Rolfe Kent.

Cast:

Jack Nicholson, Kathy Bates, Hope Davis, Dermot Mulroney, June Squibb, Howard Hesseman, Harry Groener, Connie Ray, Len Cariou, Matt Winston, Phil Reeves, Mark Venhuizen, Cheryl Hamada, James M. Connor, Jill Anderson, Vaughan Wenzel, Judith Kathryn Hart, Marilyn Tipp, Robert Kem, Melissa Hanna, Tung Ha, James J. Crawley, Mary Beth Nelson, Steve Heller, Lester Kills Crow, Thomas Michael Belford, McKenna Gibson, Emily McNaughton, Beth Heimann, Linda Wilmot, Chris Huse, Joe Kunze, Angela Lansbury, Mark J. O'Leary, Robert Kingston Phillips Green, Lonnie Ray Senstock, Michael Tolochko.