Born on this day – Olivia Hussey:

Olivia Hussey

Actress

April 17, 1951 – December 27, 2024

Credits:

2008 Camie Awards (2008); Acting in the Sixties (1967); All the Right Noises (1970); An Audience with Mel Brooks (1983); Bad English I: Tales of a Son of a Brit (1995); Batman Beyond (2000); Black Christmas (1974); Black Christmas Legacy (2015); Boy Meets World (1997); Chinaman's Chance: America's Other Slaves (2008); Clarkworld (2009); Cup Fever (1965); Dead Man's Island (1996); Death on the Nile (1978); Death on the Nile: Making of Featurette (1978); Distortions (1988); Drama 61-67 (1964); E! True Hollywood Story (1998); El grito (2000); Entertainment Tonight (1986); Fractured Skulls: The Making of Headspace (2006); Greatest Ever Christmas Movies (2013); Halloween: 25 Years of Terror (2006); H-Bomb (1976); Headspace (2005); Hour Magazine (1984); I Married a Princess (2005); Ice Cream Man (1995); Into the Night (1990); Island Prey (2001); It (1990); Ivanhoe (1982); Jesus of Nazareth (1977); Lonesome Dove: The Series (1994); Lost Horizon (1973); Miss Hollywood 1986 (1986); Mother Teresa (2003); Murder, She Wrote (1985); Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! (2008); Now and Then (1967–1968); Our World (1967); Pinky and the Brain (1998); Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990); Quest of the Delta Knights (1993); Romeo and Juliet (1968); Royal Film Performance 1968: "Romeo and Juliet" by Franco Zeffirelli. London (1968); Sammy LaBella: The Real Skip E. Lowe (2025); Save Me (1994); Seven Days of Grace (2006); Shame, Shame, Shame (1999); Social Suicide (2015); Star Wars: Force Commander (2000); Star Wars: Rogue Squadron (1998); Star Wars: The Old Republic (2011); Superman: The Animated Series (1999); Take a Sapphire (1966); Tax Shelter Terrors (2017); That Was the Week We Watched (2004); The 100 Scariest Movie Moments (2004); The 12 Days of 'Black Christmas' (2006); The 21st Annual Genesis Awards (2007); The Actor's Journey (2011); The Actor's Journey for Kids (2011); The Bastard (1978); The Battle of the Villa Fiorita (1965); The Cat and the Canary (1978); The Corsican Brothers (1985); The Donald O'Connor Show (1968); The Gardener (1998); The Girl on the Balcony: The Life and Work of Actress Olivia Hussey (2025); The Great Christmas Movies (1998); The Jeweller's Shop (1988); The Kid Stays in the Picture (2002); The Last Days of Pompeii (1984); The Lord Protector (1996); The Man with Bogart's Face (1980); The Merv Griffin Show (1971); The Pirate (1978); The Psycho Legacy (2010); The Summertime Killer (1972); The Teen-Age Lovers of Verona (1968); The Thirteenth Day: The Story of Esther (1979); The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1963–1973); Three Priests (2008); Today (1984); Tortilla Heaven (2007); Turkey Shoot (1982); Undeclared War (1990); US Against the World (1977); Virus (1980); Welcome to the Basement (2015–2016); Yesterday and Today (1973).

On this day in television history - M Squad (1959)

M Squad
Season 2. Episode 29.

Episode entitled: The Fire Makers.

Released April 17, 1959.

Directed by Don Medford.

Written by Frank Moss.

Music by Benny Carter.

 
Cast:

Lee Marvin, Paul Newlan, James Coburn, Leonard Nimoy, Georgine Darcy, Milton Frome, Steven Ritch, Maida Severn, Helen Conrad, Bud and Travis, Frank O’Connor.

On this day in music history - Desperado and Beyond the Crossroads:

Desperado by the Eagles (1973)

Beyond the Crossroads by Peter Karp & Sue Foley (2012)

 

Desperado

Album by the Eagles,

released April 17, 1973.

Track list: Doolin-Dalton (1999 Remaster); Twenty-One (1999 Remaster); Out of Control (1999 Remaster); Tequila Sunrise (1999 Remaster); Desperado (1999 Remaster); Certain Kind of Fool (1999 Remaster); Doolin-Dalton (Instrumental) [1999 Remaster]; Outlaw Man (1999 Remaster); Saturday Night (1999 Remaster); Bitter Creek (1999 Remaster); Doolin-Dalton / Desperado (Reprise) [1999 Remaster].

 

Beyond the Crossroads

Album by Peter Karp & Sue Foley,

released April 17, 2012.

Track list: We're Gonna Make It; Analyze'n Blues; Beyond The Crossroads; Fine Love; At The Same Time; Take Your Time; More Than I Bargained For; Blowin'; Resistance; Chance Of Rain; Plank Spank; You've Got A Problem.

W. Somerset Maugham, on reading:

 

To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.
- W. Somerset Maugham.

Recommended reading - Blue City

Blue City

by Ross Macdonald.

Published by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
First published 1947.
Paperback.

ISBN-10: 0307740730
ISBN-13: 978-0307740731
 
Description:
 
“[The] American private eye, immortalized by Hammett, refined by Chandler, brought to its zenith by Macdonald.” – New York Times Book Review.
 

“Macdonald should not be limited in audience to connoisseurs of mystery fiction.  He is one of a handful of writers in the genre whose worth and quality surpass the limitations of the form.” – Los Angeles Times.

“Most mystery writers merely write about crime.  Ross Macdonald writes about sin.” – The Atlantic.
 

“Without in the least abating my admiration for Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, I should like to venture the heretical suggestion that Ross Macdonald is a better novelist than either of them.” – Anthony Boucher.

“[Macdonald] carried form and style about as far as they would go, writing classic family tragedies in the guise of private detective mysteries.” – The Guardian (London).

“[Ross Macdonald] gives to the detective story that accent of class that the late Raymond Chandler did.” – Chicago Tribune.

He was a son who hadn’t known his father very well.  It was a town shaken by a grisly murder – his father’s murder.  Johnny Weatherly was home from a war and wandering.  When he found out that his father had been assassinated on a street corner and that his father’s seductive young wife had inherited a fortune, he started knocking on doors.  The doors came open, and Johnny stepped into a world of gamblers, whores, drug-dealers, and blackmailers, a place in which his father had once moved freely.  Now Johnny Weatherly was going to solve this murder – by pitting his rage, his courage, and his lost illusions against the brutal underworld that has overtaken his hometown.

Born on this day – Christine McIntyre:

 

Christine McIntyre

Actress

Singer

April 16, 1911 – July 8, 1984

Credits:

A Blunderful Time (1950); A Knight and a Blonde (1944); A Modern Marriage (1950); A Pinch in Time (1948); All Gummed Up (1947); Back from the Front (1944); Beautiful But Broke (1944); Behind the Mask (1946); Blondie Takes a Vacation (1939); Border Buckaroos (1943); Boston Blackie (1951); Bride and Gloom (1947); Brideless Groom (1947); Bubble Trouble (1953); Cinderella Swings It (1943); Clunked in the Clink (1949); Colorado Ambush (1951); Community Sing: Strauss Waltzes (1939); Crazy Like a Fox (1944); Crime on Their Hands (1948); Dawn on the Great Divide (1942); Defective Detectives (1944); Doctor, Feel My Pulse (1944); Doggie in the Bedroom (1954); Dopey Dicks (1950); Flung by a Fling (1949); Forbidden Trails (1941); French Fried Frolic (1949); From Rogues to Riches (1951); Frontier Feud (1945); Fuelin' Around (1949); Garden of Eatin' (1943); Gasoline Alley (1951); Get Along Little Zombie (1946); Gun Talk (1947); Hectic Honeymoon (1947); He's in Again (1949); His Baiting Beauty (1950); His Hotel Sweet (1944); His Tale Is Told (1944); Honeymoon Blues (1946); Hot Heir (1947); Hot Water (1946); Hugs and Mugs (1950); Innocently Guilty (1950); Jiggers, My Wife (1946); Jitter Bughouse (1948); Kansas City Kitty (1944); Knutzy Knights (1954); Land of the Lawless (1947); Louisiana Hayride (1944); Love at First Bite (1950); Man from Headquarters (1942); Mark Saber (1952); Meet Mr. Mischief (1947); Men in Her Diary (1945); Micro-Phonies (1945); Microspook (1949); Missing Daughters (1939); Mopey Dope (1944); Mr. Wright Goes Wrong (1946); News Hounds (1947); No Dough Boys (1944); Of Cash and Hash (1955); Off Again, on Again (1945); Oh, Say Can You Sue (1953); Open Season for Saps (1944); Out West (1947); Pals and Gals (1954); Pardon My Terror (1946); Parlor, Bedroom and Wrath (1948); Partners of the Trail (1944); Pistol Packin' Nitwits (1945); Punchy Cowpunchers (1950); Racket Squad (1951); Radio Romeo (1947); Riders of the West (1942); Rock River Renegades (1942); Rolling Down to Reno (1947); Scotched in Scotland (1954); Sea Racketeers (1937); She Took a Powder (1951); Shivering Sherlocks (1948); Should Husbands Marry? (1947); Slappily Married (1946); Society Mugs (1946); Squareheads of the Round Table (1948); Studio Stoops (1950); Super Wolf (1949); Swing Fever (1937); Tall, Dark and Gruesome (1948); The Blonde Stayed On (1946); The Blue Danube (1941); The Crimson Canary (1945); The Fire Chaser (1954); The Gentleman from Texas (1946); The Gink at the Sink (1952); The Gunman from Bodie (1941); The Hot Scots (1948); The Mayor's Husband (1945); The Power of God (1942); The Range Rider (1951–1952); The Rangers' Round-Up (1938); The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947); The Sheepish Wolf (1948); The Stranger from Pecos (1943); The Three Troubledoers (1946); They Stooge to Conga (1943); Three Hams on Rye (1950); Three Little Pirates (1946); To Heir Is Human (1944); Trapped by a Blonde (1949); Two Jills and a Jack (1947); Two Nuts in a Rut (1948); Vagabond Loafers (1949); Valley of Fear (1947); Waiting in the Lurch (1949); Wanted: Dead or Alive (1951); Wedded Bliss (1944); Wedding Belle (1947); Wedlock Deadlock (1947); West of the Rio Grande (1944); When the Wife's Away (1946); Where the Pest Begins (1945); Who Done It? (1949); Who's Hugh? (1943); Wife Decoy (1945); Wife to Spare (1947); Wine, Women and Bong (1951); Woo, Woo! (1945).

Born on this day – Catherine Scorsese:

 

Catherine Scorsese

Actress

April 16, 1912 – January 6, 1997

Credits:

After Hours (1985); American Masters (1990); Cape Fear (1991); Casino (1995); China Girl (1987); Cinéma, de notre temps (1990); Easy Money (1983); Goodfellas (1990); Italianamerican (1974); It's Not Just You, Murray! (1964); Martin Scorsese: Back on the Block (1973); Mean Streets (1973); Men Lie (2004); Moonstruck (1987); Taxi Driver (1976); The Age of Innocence (1993); The Godfather Part III (1990); The King of Comedy (1982); The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984); Who's That Knocking at My Door (1967); Wise Guys (1986).