MIKE GRACIA
Singer John J. (Cougar) Mellencamp is 71 years old today.
Mellencamp has sold over 30 million albums in the US and
over 60 million worldwide.
He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008, followed by an induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame
in 2018.
Unwilling to rest as a one-hit wonder when its first big hit, The
Monkees, went off the air in 1968, the television production
company Screen Gems wasted no time in trying to repeat its
success. On September 25, 1970, in the 8:30 p.m. time slot
immediately following The Brady Bunch, ABC premiered a
program that would give Screen Gems its second TV-to-pop-
chart smash: The Partridge Family.
The musical sitcom starred Shirley Jones and featured David
Cassidy. Jones plays a widowed mother, and Cassidy plays
the oldest of her five children, in a family who embarks on a
music career. It ran from September 25, 1970, until August 24,
1974, on the ABC network as part of a Friday-night lineup, and
had subsequent runs in syndication.
The family was loosely based on the real-life musical family the
Cowsills, a popular band in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
ED DANAHUE
Sofia Loren is 88 years young today.
As of 2022, Loren is one of the last surviving major
stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema and
is the only remaining living person on AFI ‘s list.
Encouraged to enroll in acting lessons after entering
a beauty pageant, Loren began her film career at age
sixteen in 1950.
Loren’s performance as Cesira in the film Two Women
(1961) directed by Vittorio De Sica won her the Academy
Award for Best Actress, making her the first actor to win
an Oscar for a non-English-language performance.
She holds the record for having earned seven David
di Donatello Awards for Best Actress. She has won
five special Golden Globes (including the Cecil B.
DeMille Award), a BAFTA Award, a Laurel Award, a
Grammy Award, the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the
Venice Film Festival and the Best Actress Award at the
Cannes Film Festival. In 1991, she received the Academy
Honorary Award for lifetime achievements.
John R. Cash (February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003)
Cash is one of the best-selling music artists of all time,
having sold more than 90 million records worldwide. His
genre-spanning music embraced country, rock and roll, rockabilly, blues, folk, and gospel sounds. This crossover
appeal earned him the rare honor of being inducted into
the Country Music, Rock and Roll, and Gospel Music Halls
of Fame.
PORTLAND, OREGON (1959)
The King of Rock and Roll teamed up with TV’s reigning variety
program, as Elvis Presley appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show”
for the first time on September 9, 1956.
After earning big ratings for “The Steve Allen Show,” the
Dorsey Brothers “Stage Show” and “The Milton Berle Show,”
Sullivan finally reneged on his Presley ban, signing the
controversial singing star to an unprecedented $50,000 contract
for three appearances.
With 60 million viewers—or 82.6 percent of TV viewers at the time—tuning in, the appearance garnered the show’s best
ratings in two years and became the most-watched TV
broadcast of the 1950s.
Ed Sullivan
