MAY 3 — 1988 — R.I.P. GoodFella Paulie Vario; 1937 Mitchell wins Academy for Gone with the Wind; 1946 Japanese War Trials Begin; 2015 Thousand pounder Monster Pig put down
MAY 3
1937-Margarat Mitchell wins Pulitzer Prize for Gone with the Wind.
… I’m not going to get into the details of this book simply because in 2014 it was named the second most popular book in America, second only to the bible.
I thought some trivia about the movie would be more fun. For instance, Clark Gable didn’t want to be in the movie because he considered it a chick flick. Again, this is movie trivia, not book trivia. The African American cast who starred in the movie was not allowed to attend the premiere screening. Here’s another fact: Scarlett O’Hara’s mom was played by Barbara O’Neil was 28 years old. Vivian Leigh, who of course played Scarlett, was 25. Here’s another one. Clark Gable almost quit when he found how his character would have to cry in the movie. Also did you know that Hattie McDaniel became the first African-American to be nominated for, and win, an Academy Award? It was also the first time an African American was invited as a guest for the awards. Final note about the movie: Clark Gable worked a total of 71 days and received over $120,000, whereas Vivan Leigh worked 125 and only received $25,000.
Yup.
1988 – Rest In Peaces Good Fella Big Paulie!
Paul Vario, mobster, loan shark, hijacker, extortionist, wiseguy.
Arrested at the age of 12 where he spent seven months for truancy from school. He grew up to be 6’3” weighing 250 lbs. with a really mean look. As a kid he joined the Lucchese crime family, running “errands” for them. He and his brothers owned several businesses in Brooklyn, including a cab company, flower front, I mean shop, and a pizzeria. A young man named Henry Hill began working for his cab company. Paulie started hijacking trucks leaving JFK airport to the point to where he ruled the cargo coming into the city. If there was an investigation, he had the clout to stage a union walkout to divert the feds.
During the 60s, gambling in East Brooklyn was only allowed under Paulie’s direction, and you can believe he got his cut, around $25,000 in his pocket every day. By the 1970s, the FBI was onto Paulie, now head of and Italian American Civil Rights Organization, where racketeering and other charges led to three years, a year and a half which Paulie would serve. He and Henry were close, and when Henry got in trouble, Paulie used his influence to get him out early. In the 1980s of course, Henry Hill would rat everyone out, including Paulie, now 73 years old.
Hill would die, according to the legend, of natural causes, miraculously not with a bullet in the head. So why didn’t Paulie take him down, or any of the other 50 mobsters Hill ratted out? Who knows if he didn’t? He was only 69, after all. I’m not pinning Hill’s death on Paulie, but Paulie did like to keep a low profile, something you won’t find in the great Martin Scorcese flick.
RIP, Paulie.
1946 – Japanese War Crimes Trial begin,
…organized by Douglas Macarthur. There were lots of these trials, I’m talking about the ones in Tokyo, specifically. It lasted 2.5 years, and its purpose was to try the leaders of the Empire of Japan for three types of war crimes. Class A crimes were for those involved in a joint conspiracy to start and wage war, and were intended for high ranking cabinet members. Class B crimes were for those who committed conventional atrocities, or crimes against humanity, and Class C were reserved for those in the planning, ordering, authorization, or failure to prevent such transgressions at higher levels in the command structure.
Seven defendants were sentenced to death, sixteen to life terms, two to lesser terms, two died during the trials and one was found to be insane.
2015 Thousand pounder Monster Pig is put down.
Big Bill, the world’s largest pig, weighing 105 1 lbs. and measuring 9 feet.
Mmmmm.
Bacon.
11 year old Jamison Stone, who has spent his young life hunting with his pa, killed his first deer when he was five years old. But on this day in 2015, he ran into Monster Pig, shot him eight times with his 50 cal, and then chased him through the woods for three hours until he shot him dead center.
We Americans take our pigs seriously because we love bacon.
The biggest pig on record would be Big Bill, 2,552 pounds and used to be on display at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1933. I would think you’d need a truck scale to weigh him, not sure how many truck scales existed in 1933 so I don’t know how they weighed it. Big Bill broke its leg and would have to be put down, then was stuffed by a taxidermist, and current whereabouts are unknown. Then there’s Hogzilla, Hogzilla was esti9mated to be 12 feet and over a thousand pounds, but when it died a team of forensic scientists busted out a tape measure and found he was only 8 feet tall.
Anyway, I don’t mean to boar you with this story, haha, but I know I’m going hog wild over here. Just hamming it up, ya know?
1933- Happy birthday to the Godfather of Soul.
James Joseph Brown was born on May 3 in Barnwell, South Carolina. He recorded 16 number-=one singles on the Billboard R&B chart, holds the record as the artist to have charted the most singles on the Billboard Hot 100 which did not reach number one, was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as well as the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Also according to the Billboard R&B songs from 1942 to 2010, James Brown is ranked as number one in the top 500 artists, and ranked seventh in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of 100 greatest artists of all time.
His legacy alone would take me about as long to talk about his personal and drug problems to go over. Mick Jagger made a movie about him and I didn’t even know Mikck Jagger made movies. Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy page noted that James Brown was almost a musical genre in his own right. Like a boss. In other music news…
1903 – Happy birthday Der Bingle,
…aka Harry Lillis Crosby Jr, aka Bing Crosby. He’s one of the best selling artists of the 20th century, selling over a half a billion albums. My man Bing.