Julia Alvarez, on writing:

 

A book does not discriminate against any reader.

All are welcome at the table of literature.
– Julia Alvarez.

On this day in movie and book history - The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (1974 and 1973)

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3

directed by Joseph Sargent,

written by Peter Stone, and based on the novel by John Godey,

was released in the United States on October 2, 1974.

Music by David Shire.

Cast:

Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw, Martin Balsam, Hector Elizondo, Earl Hindman, James Broderick, Dick O'Neill, Lee Wallace, Tom Pedi, Beatrice Winde, Jerry Stiller, Nathan George, Rudy Bond, Kenneth McMillan, Doris Roberts, Julius Harris, Cynthia Belgrave, Anna Berger, Gary Bolling, Carol Cole, Alex Colon, Joe Fields, Mari Gorman, Michael Gorrin, Thomas La Fleur, María Landa, Louise Larabee, George Lee Miles, Carolyn Nelson, Eric O'Hanian, Lucy Saroyan, William Snickowski, Barry Snyder, Walter Jones, Jerry Holland, Robert Weil, Penny Krompier, Christopher Murney, Timothy Meyers, Ruth Attaway, Thomas Barbour, Marvin Silbersher, Neil Brooks Cunningham, Sal Viscuso, Tony Fasce, Burtt Harris, Gene Gross, Walter Lott, Conrad Yama, Sho Onodera, Toru Nagai, Tura Nakamura, Rowena Rollins, Joseph Attles, Willis Pinkett, Michelle Matthow, Isabella Hoopes, Bill Cobbs, Jim Pelham, Joe Seneca, Gino Gennaro, Carmine Foresta, Tony Roberts, Hy Anzell, Ines Hellendall, Jean-Paul Hellendall, Ben Lautman, Carey Loftin, James Mapes, Paul Nuckles, Jay Rasumny, Charles Silvern, Dominique St. Pierre, Dolph Sweet, Frank Ventgen.

Recommended reading:

 

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three

by John Godey.
 
First published 1973.
Published by Penguin Publishing Group.
Paperback.
 
ISBN-10: 0425253309
ISBN-13: 978-0425253304
 
Description:
 
"Chillingly real." – Houston Chronicle.
 
"A cliff-hanger." – The New Yorker.
 
"Harrowing, terrifying, and so, so good." – Business Week.
 
THIS AFTERNOON IN NEW YORK CITY, AFTER A SUBWAY TRAIN LEFT THE PELHAM STATION AT 1:23 P.M., THE EVENTS OF THE DAY TOOK A TERRIFYING DETOUR…
 
“You will all remain seated. Anyone who tries to get up, or even moves, will be shot. There will be no further warning. If you move you will be killed…”
 
Four men, armed with submachine guns, have seized a New York City subway train, holding all seventeen passengers – and the entire city – hostage.
 
The identities of the hijackers are unknown.
 
Their demands seem impossible.
 
Their threats are real.
 
Their escape seems inconceivable.
 
Only one thing is certain: they aren’t stopping for anything.

On this day in movie and play history - Glengarry Glen Ross (1992 and 1983)

 

Glengarry Glen Ross

directed by James Foley,

written by David Mamet,

based on the play by David Mamet,

was released in the United States on October 2, 1992.

Music by James Newton Howard.

Cast:

Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Alec Baldwin, Alan Arkin, Ed Harris, Kevin Spacey, Jonathan Pryce, Bruce Altman, Jude Ciccolella, Paul Butler, Lori Tan Chinn, Neal Jones, Barry Rohrssen, Leigh French, George Cheung, Murphy Dunne, Dana Lee, Julie Payne, Gregory Snegoff, Skipp Lynch.

Recommended reading:

Glengarry Glen Ross: A Play

by David Mamet.
 
Awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1984.
 
Published by Grove Press.
First published 1983.
Paperback.
 
ISBN-10: 0802130917
ISBN-13: 978-0802130914
 
Description:
 
Comic Drama Characters: 7 males.
 
2 interior sets.
 

“Who needs caffeine when you’ve got Glengarry Glen Ross? … David Mamet’s play about a dog-eat-dog real estate office in Chicago feels like having espresso pumped directly into your bloodstream…. Mr. Mamet hears American scheming with an exactitude and delight still surpassed by any other dramatist.” – New York Times.

 

Winner of the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, as well as the New York Drama Critic’s Circle Award for Best American Play and the Drama Desk and Tony Awards for Best American Play and the Drama Desk and Tony Awards for Best Revival of a Play, Glengarry Glen Ross is one of the most celebrated and widely performed plays of recent years. It is a scalding comedy is about small-time, cutthroat real estate salesmen trying to grind out a living by pushing plots of land onto reluctant buyers in a never-ending scramble for their fair share of the American dream. Here, Mamet is at his very best, writing with brutal power about the tough life of tough people who cajole, connive, wheel and deal for a piece of the action an existence where closing a sale can mean a brand-new Cadillac, but losing one can mean losing it everything.

 

“Wonderfully funny … a play to see, remember and cherish.” – New York Post.

Born on this day – Wallace Stevens:

Wallace Stevens

Writer

October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955

Credits:
 
Books:
 

A High-Toned Old Christian Woman; Anecdote of the Jar; Collected poetry and prose; Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock; Earthy Anecdote; Frogs Eat Butterflies. Snakes Eat Frogs. Hogs Eat Snakes. Men Eat Hogs; Gubbinal; Harmonium; How to Live, what to Do; Idées de l'ordre; Infanta Marina; Last Looks at the Lilacs; Letters of Wallace Stevens; Life Is Motion; Lunar Paraphrase; Nomad Exquisite; Of Modern Poetry; Opus posthumous; Palace of the Babies; Peter Quince at the Clavier; Ploughing on Sunday; Poems; Secretaries of the Moon: The Letters of Wallace Stevens & José Rodríguez Feo; Selected Poems; Souvenirs and Prophecies: The Young Wallace Stevens; Sunday Morning; The Auroras of Autumn; The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens; The Collected Poems: The Corrected Edition; The Comedian as the Letter C; The Curtains in the House of the Metaphysician; The Emperor of Ice-Cream; The emperor of ice-cream, and other poems; The Man Whose Pharynx Was Bad; The man with the blue guitar; The Necessary Angel: Essays on Reality and the Imagination; The Palm at the End of the Mind: Selected Poems and a Play; The Paltry Nude Starts on a Spring Voyage; The Place of the Solitaires; The Plot Against the Giant; The Poetry of Wallace Stevens; The Revolutionists Stop for Orangeade; The Worms at Heaven's Gate; Theory; Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird; Transport to summer; Wallace Stevens Reads; Wallace Stevens: Poems.

 

Movies and television:
 

The Emperor of Ice Cream (2015); The Extravagant Shadows (2012); Thirteen Ways... (2001).

Born on this day – Bud Abbott:

Bud Abbott

Actor

Comedian

Producer

October 2, 1897 – April 24, 1974

Credits:

Abbott & Costello (1967); General Electric Theater (1961); Dance with Me, Henry (1956); Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955); Abbott and Costello Meet the Keystone Kops (1955); Fireman Save My Child (1954); The Abbott and Costello Show (1952–1954); Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1953); Abbott and Costello Go to Mars (1953); Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd (1952); Lost in Alaska (1952); Jack and the Beanstalk (1952); Comin' Round the Mountain (1951); Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951); Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion (1950); Bud Abbott Lou Costello Meet the Killer Boris Karloff (1949); Africa Screams (1949); Mexican Hayride (1948); 10,000 Kids and a Cop (1948); Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948); The Noose Hangs High (1948); The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap (1947); Buck Privates Come Home (1947); The Time of Their Lives (1946); Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in Little Giant (1946); Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in Hollywood (1945); The Naughty Nineties (1945); Here Come the Co-eds (1945); Lost in a Harem (1944); In Society (1944); Hit the Ice (1943); It Ain't Hay (1943); Who Done It? (1942); Pardon My Sarong (1942); Rio Rita (1942); Ride 'Em Cowboy (1942); Keep 'Em Flying (1941); Hold That Ghost (1941); In the Navy (1941); The Andrews Sisters in Buck Privates (1941); One Night in the Tropics (1940).

Born on this day – Groucho Marx:

Groucho Marx

Actor

Comedian

Writer

Singer

October 2, 1890 – August 19, 1977

Books:

Beds (1930 / 1976); Groucho and Me (1959); Many Happy Returns (1942); Memoirs of a Mangy Lover (1963); The Groucho Letters: Letters From and To Groucho Marx (1967); The Groucho Phile: An Illustrated Life by Groucho Marx with Hector Arce (1976); The Marx Bros (1973); The Secret Word Is Groucho with Hector Arce (1976).

Movies and television:

100 Years at the Movies (1994); 10 Things You Don't Know About (2012); A Day at the Races (1937); A Girl in Every Port (1952); A Night at the Opera (1935); A Night in Casablanca (1946); A Show Business Salute to Milton Berle (1973); A Tribute to Lucy (1989); AFI Life Achievement Award (1975–1976); All Star Revue (1952); America After Dark (1957); America at the Movies (1976); American Masters (1997–2022); America's Clown: An Intimate Biography of Red Skelton (2014); And the Oscar Goes to... (2014); Animal Crackers (1930); At the Circus (1939); Beatles Diary (1996); Beatles Stories (2011); Becoming Marilyn (2022); Behind the Music (1998); Biography (1993–2012); Birds Do It (1966); Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre (1964); Breaking Bad (2013); Broadway: The American Musical (2004); Brother Can You Spare a Dime (1975); Can We Take a Joke? (2015); Candid Hollywood (1962); Cartola, the Samba Legend (2007); Carville: Winning Is Everything, Stupid (2024); Cavett Remembers the Comic Legends (2006); CBS News Sunday Morning with Jane Pauley (2022); CBS Salutes Lucy: The First 25 Years (1976); Celebrity Billiards (1968); Celebrity Commercials (1987); Charlie Chaplin, le génie de la liberté (2020); Classic Cars of the 50'S & 60'S, Nostalgic Films & TV Commercials (1990); Classic Comedy Teams (1986); Comedy Connections (2004); Copacabana (1947); De dónde salen estos doblajes (2019); De qué te ríes (2006); Dick Cavett und... (1979); Discovering Film (2015); Donyale Luna: Supermodel (2023); Double Dynamite (1951); Duck Soup (1933); E! Mysteries & Scandals (2000); Excavating the 2000 Year Old Man (2012); Film Breaks (1999); Filmmakers vs. Tycoons (2005); Firing Line (1967); Firing Line with Margaret Hoover (2023); From the Ends of the Earth (1939); Funny Business (1992); Game Changers (2018); Game Show Moments Gone Bananas (2005); General Electric Theater (1959–1962); General Foods 25th Anniversary Show: A Salute to Rodgers and Hammerstein (1954); Geno in the Evening (2016); George Jessel Show (1959); George Jessel's Here Come the Stars (1968); Glickman (2013); Go West (1940); Going Hollywood: The '30s (1984); Great Performances (2005); Groucho (1965); Groucho Marx's Home Movies (1933); Gypsy (1967); Hannah and Her Sisters (1986); Hello I Must Be Going (2012); Here's Dick Cavett (1969); History's Greatest Mysteries (2023); Hit Celebrity TV Commercials (2004); Hollywood and the Stars (1963–1964); Hollywood Greats (1979); Hollywood Invasion (2011); Hollywood on Parade (1978); Hollywood on Parade No. 11 (1933); Hollywood on Parade No. A-5 (1932); Hollywood on Parade No. A-6 (1933); Hollywood on Parade No. B-5 (1933); Hollywood Out-takes and Rare Footage (1983); Hollywood Scandals and Tragedies (1988); Hollywood Singing and Dancing: A Musical History - The 1920s: The Dawn of the Hollywood Musical (2008); Hollywood Without Make-Up (1963); Hollywood: Style Center of the World (1940); Hollywood: The Dream Factory (1972); Hollywood: The Gift of Laughter (1982); Hollywood: The Great Stars (1963); Hooray for Hollywood (1982); Horse Feathers (1932); Humor Risk (1921); Hy Gardner Calling (1961); I Dream of Jeannie (1967); Inside Beverly Hills (1956); Inside the Marx Brothers (2003); Irving Thalberg: Prince of Hollywood (2005); I've Got a Secret (1959–1963); Jack (2021); Jonathan Creek (2003); Joys! (1976); Julia (1968); Kraft Theatre (1949); Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time (2021); L'antre du Mea (2018); Le Fossoyeur de Films (2015); Legends of Stand Up Comedy (2024); Les Chroniques du Mea (2021–2022); L'Histoire nous le dira (2019); Life with Linkletter (1970); Life's a Dive (2014); Lipstick & Dynamite, Piss & Vinegar: The First Ladies of Wrestling (2004); Lives Well Lived (2025); Looking for Lenny (2011); Love Happy (1949); Love, Marilyn (2012); Make 'Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America (2009); Marilyn Monroe: Beyond the Legend (1986); Marilyn's Man (2004); Marvin Hamlisch: What He Did for Love (2013); Merrily We Roll Along: The Early Days of the Automobile (1961); MGM: When the Lion Roars (1992); Midi Trente (1972); Mike Wallace Is Here (2019); Milton Berle's Mad Mad Mad World of Comedy (1974); Monkey Business (1931); More of 'The Best of the Hollywood Palace' (1993); Morir de humor (2008); Movie Star Commercials and Important Messages (1983); Moviestar Cartoons (1983); Mr. Music (1950); Muppet Babies (1988); Music Scene (1970); Mwah! The Best of the Dinah Shore Show (2003); My Mom Jayne (2025); NY TV: By the People Who Made It - Part I & II (1998); Omnibus (1972); On Your Marx, Get Set, Go! (2004); Oops, those Hollywood Bloopers! (1982); Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall (1956); Person to Person (1954); Phil Collins: I Wish It Would Rain Down (1990); Pioneers of Television (2008); Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV (2024); Remarks on Marx (2004); Remember ... 1938 (1955); Rodgers & Hammerstein: The Sound of Movies (1996); Room Service (1938); Salsa (1976); Screen Snapshots, Series 16, No. 11 (1937); Screen Snapshots, Series 16, No. 3 (1936); Screen Snapshots, Series 17, No. 1 (1937); Screen Snapshots, Series 21, No. 8 (1942); Screen Snapshots, Series 21, No. 9 (1942); Screen Snapshots, Series 22, No. 5 (1942); Screen Snapshots, Series 22, No. 8 (1943); Screen Snapshots, Series 23, No. 2 (1943); Screen Snapshots, Series 24, No. 9 (1945); Screen Snapshots, Series 29, No. 10: Hollywood's Famous Feet (1950); Screen Snapshots, Series 29, No. 6: It Was Only Yesterday (1950); Screen Snapshots, Series 31, No. 5: Memories of Famous Hollywood Comedians (1952); Screen Snapshots, Series 32, No. 8: Hollywood's Greatest Comedians (1953); Screen Snapshots, Series 35, No. 2: The Great Al Jolson (1955); Screen Snapshots, Series 35, No. 8: Playtime in Hollywood (1956); Showbiz Ballyhoo (1982); Showdown at Ulcer Gulch (1956); Shower of Stars (1954); Skidoo (1968); Special Collector's Edition (2011–2012); Starring Dick Van Dyke (2025); Sunday Night at the Trocadero (1937); Supermensch (2013); Television (1988); Tell It to Groucho (1961–1962); That's Entertainment, Part II (1976); The 22nd Annual Tony Awards (1968); The 45th Annual Academy Awards (1973); The 46th Annual Academy Awards (1974); The 50 Greatest Comedy Films (2006); The 50th Annual Academy Awards (1978); The 57th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards (2005); The Alan Hamel Show (1977); The Arthur Murray Party (1953); The Beatles... Off the Record: Newsreel Footage 1964-1966 (2001); The Bell Telephone Hour (1960); The Big Parade of Comedy (1964); The Big Store (1941); The Bob Hope Show (1964); The Capote Tapes (2019); The Celebrity Game (1964); The Cocoanuts (1929); The Colgate Comedy Hour (1954); The Comedians' Comedian (2005); The Dating Game (1967); The David Frost Show (1970); The David Susskind Show (1960–1963); The Dead Sullivan Show (2017); The Dick Cavett Show (1969–1971); The Dinah Shore Chevy Show (1959); The DuPont Show of the Week (1961); The Ed Sullivan Show (1954); The Fantasy Worlds of Irwin Allen (1995); The Groucho Marx Collector's Classic (1985); The History of Comedy (2018); The Hollywood Palace (1964–1982); The Hollywood Squares (Daytime) (1971); The House That Shadows Built (1931); The Jack Benny Program (1955); The Jackie Gleason Show (1967–1969); The Joey Bishop Show (1967); The King and the Chorus Girl (1937); The Kraft Music Hall (1967–1968); The Last Laugh (2016); The Legend of Marilyn Monroe (1965); The Les Crane Show (1964); The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg (1998); The Life of Riley (1949); The Life of Riley (1953–1958); The Mad, Mad, Mad Comedians (1970); The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine (1971); The Marx Brothers in a Nutshell (1982); The Merv Griffin Show (1967–1976); The Michael Knowles Show (2017); The Mike Douglas Show (1974); The Miracle of Sound (1940); The Movie Orgy (1968); The Movies (2019); The NBC Comedy Hour (1956); The New Steve Allen Show (1963); The One, the Only... Groucho (1991); The Our Gang Story (1994); The Plot Thickens (1963); The Popsicle Parade of Stars (1950); The Project (2025); The Sixties (2014); The Source (1999); The Sparks Brothers (2021); The Steve Allen Show (1956–1958); The Story of Mankind (1957); The Sunday Spectacular: Show Biz from Vaudeville to Video (1955); The Swift Show Wagon with Horace Heidt and the American Way (1955); The Tonight Show (1962); The Tonight Show Starring Jack Paar (1958–1961); The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962–1992); The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson 25th Anniversary Special (1987); The Unknown Marx Brothers (1993); The UnXplained (2020); The Walking Dead (2020); The Wonder Years (1990); These Amazing Shadows (2011); This Is Elvis (1981); This Is Your Life (1955); Today (1963); TV: The Fabulous Fifties (1978); TV's Censored Bloopers #4 (1982); TV's Funniest Game Show Moments (1984); Un jour, une histoire (2014); V.O.S.: Lo que NO te cuentan (2021); Wayne and Shuster Take an Affectionate Look at... (1965); We Remember Marilyn (1996); Welcome to the Basement (2013); Whatever Works (2009); What's My Line? (1959–1967); What's My Line? At 25 (1975); When We Went MAD! (2025); Who Said That? (1953–1955); Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957); Wonderland of California (1933); You Bet Your Life (1950–1961); You Bet Your Life: The Lost Episodes (2003); Yours for the Asking (1936); Zaz: Prends garde à ta langue (2018).

Born on this day – Alice Ernestine Prin:

Alice Ernestine Prin

Stage names: Queen of Montparnasse & Kiki de Montparnasse

Writer

Actress

Singer

Model

Painter

Chanteuse

Actress

October 2, 1901 – April 29, 1953

Book:

Kiki's Memoirs (1929).

Movies and television:

Ballet mécanique (1924); Cette vieille canaille (1933); Compression (2024); Emak-Bakia (1926); Histoire immédiate (2013); Kiki of Montparnasse (2013); La galerie des monstres (1924); Le capitaine jaune (1930); Le doc Stupéfiant (2021); Le lion des Mogols (1924); Legendary Sin Cities (2005); Les heures chaudes de Montparnasse (1963); L'Étoile de mer (1928); L'inhumaine (1924); Paris express (1928); Return to Reason (1923); Return to Reason: Four Films by Man Ray (2023); Révolutions surrealists (2024); The Search for Emak Bakia (2012); The Twentieth Century (1960); Walking on Air (1946).