The Misfits is a 1961 Contemporary Western film written by
Arthur Miller, directed by John Huston, and starring Clark
Gable, Marilyn Monroe, and Montgomery Clift (above). The
supporting cast includes Thelma Ritter and Eli Wallach.

  
The Misfits was the last completed film for both Clark Gable
and Marilyn Monroe. For Gable, the film was posthumously
released, while Monroe died in August 1962 after its release.

Screenwriter Arthur Asher Miller
(October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005)

MIKE GRACIA

Film director, writer, producer, and actor Quentin Tarantino
is 60 years old today.

Tarantino’s work has been subject to controversy and 
has garnered a cult following, as well as critical and
commercial success. He has received two Academy
Awards and four Golden Globes.

1994

"A Charlie Brown Christmas," a beloved holiday television tradition for generations of American families, debuted to overwhelming popular acclaim despite CBS network fears
of failure on this day in history, Dec. 9, 1965.  (Fox News)         

Charles Monroe "Sparky" Schulz 
(November 26, 1922 – February 12, 2000)

On October 19, 1985, the first Blockbuster video-rental store 
opened in Dallas, Texas. At a time when most video stores
were small-scale operations featuring a limited selection of
titles, Blockbuster opened with some 8,000 tapes displayed
on shelves around the store and a computerized check-out
process.

The first store was a success and Blockbuster expanded
rapidly, eventually becoming one of the world’s largest
providers of in-home movies and game entertainment,
before eventually filing for bankruptcy in 2010.

Blockbuster was founded by David Cook (below), who had
previously owned a business that provided computer
software services to the oil and gas industry in Texas.

On August 30, 2003, the actor Charles Bronson, best known
for his tough-guy roles in such films as The Dirty Dozen
(1967) and  the Death Wish franchise (1974), died at the age
of 81 in Los Angeles.      

Bronson was born Charles Buchinsky on November 3, 1921,
in  Ehrenfeld, Pennsylvania, to Lithuanian immigrants. The
11th of 15 children, he worked in the Pennsylvania coal
mines as a teen and later served in the Army during World
War II. After the war, he worked a series of odd jobs and
took acting lessons. He had an uncredited part in the 1951
film You’re in the Navy Now, starring Gary Cooper, and a
small part (credited as Charles Buchinsky) in 1952’s Pat
and Mike, with Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. In
the mid-1950s, he changed his name to Bronson because
he believed it wasn’t smart for an actor have a Russian-
sounding last name at a time when there was a strong anti-Communist sentiment in America. (history.com)