Erin O'Riordan writes smart, whimsical erotica. Her erotic romance novel trilogy, Pagan Spirits, is now available. With her husband, she also writes crime novels. Visit her home page at ko-fi.com.
June 9, 1865: Charles Dickens and his friend/perhaps lover Ellen Lawless Ternan are riding in a train on a voyage home from Paris. The train is near the village of Staplehurst, Kent, when it crosses a bridge. The engineer is unaware, until it's too late, that the bridge is closed for repairs and about 42 feet of track have been removed.
Dickens and Ternan, riding in the first-class car near the front of the train, are carried over the gap by the momentum of the engine. Their car lands on its side, but although they're shaken, they don’t have any serious injuries.
The center and rear cars of the train fall into the river below. Ten passengers are killed. Approximately 50 others are injured. Dickens helps render aid to the victims at the scene; some of them die in front of him. For the rest of his life he suffers flashbacks; in modern terms he could probably be said to suffer from PTSD.
June 9, 1930: Jack Lingle, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, is shot and killed by Leo Brothers, who worked as a bouncer at a club owned by Al Capone. Initially hailed as a martyr for freedom of the press, Lingle is later discovered to have connections to illegal gambling and liquor bootlegging.
May 14, 1998: Frank Sinatra dies of a heart attack. He's 82 years old.
Sinatra was born on December 12, 1915, in Hoboken, New Jersey, to parents who were both immigrants from Italy. He got a ukulele for his 15th birthday and taught himself to play it. He made his first record as a singer in 1939. In November of that year, he became the lead singer of the Tommy Dorsey Band. He recorded his first hit song, "Polka Dots and Stardust," in 1940.
On March 25, 1954, Sinatra won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for playing Maggio in From Here to Eternity.
His 1954 album Songs for Young Lovers includes Cole Porter's "I Get a Kick Out of You" and the George Gershwin song "They Can't Take That Away From Me."
He recorded Porter's "I've Got You Under My Skin," reportedly in 22 takes, for the 1956 album Songs for Swingin' Lovers.
On July 2, 1966, the #1 song in the U.S. is Sinatra's "Strangers In the Night." The melody was composed by Bert Kaempfert, who's got the mad hits. That same year, 50-year-old Sinatra marries 21-year-old Mia Farrow.
On April 15, 1967, the #1 song in the U.S. is "Something Stupid" by Sinatra and his 26-year-old daughter Nancy. Where did I first hear this song? Performed by Kelsey Grammer and Julie Kavner as Sideshow Bob and Selma Bouvier on Simpsons episode 8F20, “Black Widower,” which originally aired April 9, 1992.
Nancy Sinatra is like Mary Wollstonecraft in that mother and daughter have the same name. Frank Sinatra's first wife and eldest child are both called Nancy Sinatra.
On November 13, 1967, NBC gives him a TV special with guest star Ella Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald, Sinatra, Count Basie, and Pat Henry's Orchestra performed a revue together on June 6th through June 18th at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Although allegedly "retired," he recorded two best-selling Duets albums, the first in 1993 and Duets II in 1994. These include the "I've Got You Under My Skin" duet with Bono.
I don't have a source for this, but I remember watching Bono talking on TV about a night of drinking that the two had together. Bono fell asleep with a glass of whiskey in his hand and spilled it on himself in his sleep. He woke up and got terribly embarrassed that the great Frank Sinatra would think he, Bono, had gotten so drunk he pissed himself.
Frank Sinatra had a good, long, musical life. He died in 1998, and his second child Frank Sinatra Jr. died in 2016. Nancy and Tina Sinatra are still with us, as is Ronan Farrow, Mia Farrow's son of whom Sinatra may be the biological father. On paper, the alleged sexual predator Woody Allen is Ronan's father, but Ronan looks a lot more like Sinatra than Allen.
On Wednesday, it's Oh, How Pinteresting! at The Vintage Apple.
Being from the Midwestern United States is hella cool - I think I proved that with my Nebraska post. I'm not from Nebraska; I'm from Indiana. We've got some pretty cool people, too. If you lived through the '80s, you might think of him when you think of Indiana.
http://cheers.wikia.com/wiki/Woody_Boyd
No, this is not young Haymitch; it's the character Woody Boyd from Cheers. Woody Harrelson? Not actually from Indiana. Or even Midwestern - he's a native Texan.
But these people are actually from Indiana.
Probably the coolest, most sophisticated, urbane individual to come from the Hoosier state? Cole Porter. The moment you realize you're from Indiana and so is Cole Porter is a very good moment indeed.
James Dean was from Indiana. Here he's reading The Complete Poetical Writings by James Whitcomb Riley, a 19th century poet also from Indiana.
When I say I hope to die and ascend to bisexual heaven and sit at the right hand of James Dean, amen, you may think I'm being facetious. I'm not. (Religion - it's complicated.) This is Photoshopped, but still - James Dean kissing Marlon Brandon.
Old Hollywood screwball comedy queen - and lost love of Clark Gable's life - Carole Lombard was from Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Fun Fort Wayne fact: its library system has the world's second-largest collection of genealogical records, after the Mormon collection in Salt Lake City, Utah. I visited FW's main downtown library once and had a bagel in its coffee shop.
Steve McQueen, so cool there's a Sheryl Crow song about him, was from Indianapolis. His grandson, Steven R. McQueen, plays Jeremy on The Vampire Diaries.
McQueen's hometown is also the hometown of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. If you can find a greater 20th century American writer, read him or her or them.
Other writers from Indiana include Phillip Jose Farmer (who sometimes wrote as "Kilgore Trout," a fictional writer invented by Kurt Vonnegut), Meg Cabot (The Princess Diaries), and Theodore Drieser. Drieser wrote An American Tragedy, the basis for the movie A Place in the Sun.
Adam Lambert was born in Indianapolis. Probably the most well-known family to come out of Indiana, though? The Jacksons. Michael, Janet and their siblings were raised in Gary, a large city just to the east of Chicago.
Stopping by from the Shameless Summer Giveaway Hop? Please visit Friday's post HERE for a chance to win free books!
My historical American composer crush is George Gershwin. Still, I'm a native of the U.S. Midwest, so I have a certain Midwestern girl's affection for the composer Cole Porter. It's Porter's birthday; he was born June 9, 1891, in the small city of Peru, Indiana. This post was inspired by Cathy Day's post "For Cole Porter's Birthday, My Personal Playlist." Day is a novelist, an essayist, a professor at Indiana's Ball State University, and a Peru native.
These are my personal favorite Cole Porter songs. I would not be much of a '90s girl if I didn't harbor a certain affection for the Bono/Frank Sinatra duet of "I've Got You Under My Skin." If I look hard enough, I'm sure I could still find the CD maxi single I bought when the duet came out.
(As a matter of fact, I was such a big U2 fan, that song may have inspired a brief fascination with Frank Sinatra, which may have led me to want to read From Here to Eternity. Sinatra played Maggio, the buddy of Robert E. Lee "Prew" Prewitt.)
Nor would I be much of a '90s girl if I couldn't remember the version of "I Get a Kick Out of You" that Mel Torme recorded for a Mountain Dew commercial.
I'm not a fan of Mountain Dew, but then again, I'm not a fan of cocaine, either, which is what the real lyrics suggest might give a person a kick. Frank Sinatra sang "I Get a Kick Out of You" in the 1954 version of Anything Goes, which also starred Ethel Merman. It remains the one Cole Porter musical I've ever seen performed live on stage.
If you've ever seen Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (probably the only major Hollywood film with several scenes devoted to the worship of Kali), you may remember Kate Capshaw's version of the title song in the Mandarin language.
When I was a high school student, my local library had this book, featuring Ward Schumaker's artwork based on "Let's Do It (Let's Fall in Love)." According to Goodreads, it was published in November 1993 (and the song is from 1928). I probably checked it out five times; I adored it.
A good pop version of "Let's Do It" is by Alanis Morissette. This is from the soundtrack of De-Lovely, with Kevin Kline and my most feminist girlcrush Ashley Judd.
Another item I repeatedly checked out of my local library before I finally broke down and bought a copy (after another library patron lost the library's copy) was an album called Jazz Divas - Studio. It has two of the loveliest Cole Porter songs: Ella Fitzgerald's version of "Night and Day," and Shirley Horn's "Love For Sale."
This arrangement is upbeat, but as I listen to this song, I can't help but think about Porter trying to express some of the angst of being gay in an era of strict sexual repression.
"Love For Sale," on the other hand, can never be anything by melancholy, in a world-weary sort of way. Very Cole Porter.
Those are the essential Cole Porter tunes for me. What are your favorites?
