This Day in History: 05/23

May 23, 2011 16:05

1810: Margaret Fuller is born
1933: Joan Collins is born
1934: Police kill famous outlaws Bonnie and Clyde



1810: MARGARET FULLER IS BORN

Writer and editor Margaret Fuller, who inspired other Americans to devote themselves to learning, is born on this day.

Fuller was born in Massachusetts and grew up during the Transcendentalist movement. She taught in the Temple School, an educational institution founded by Transcendentalist Bronson Alcott, father of Louisa May Alcott. She later taught in Providence, Rhode Island. In 1839, she published a translation of an important book about the German writer Goethe. She wrote poetry, reviews, and essays for the Transcendentalist magazine The Dial and edited for the magazine from 1840 to 1842. She published an account of frontier life in the Midwest, called Summer on the Lakes in 1843 (1844), which captured the attention of New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley.

Greeley published Fuller's feminist pamphlet Women in the 19th Century (1845), which argued for emotional and intellectual fulfillment for women. Fuller began writing for the Tribune and became America's first female foreign correspondent when she sailed for Europe in 1846. Her letters were published in 1856 as At Home and Abroad. In 1847, she settled in Italy and married an Italian. In 1850, Fuller, her husband, and her infant son were all killed in a shipwreck off the coast of New York.

SOURCE: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/margaret-fuller-is-born

1933: JOAN COLLINS IS BORN

On this day in 1933, Joan Collins, a classically trained actress who will become best known for her role on the 1980s prime-time soap opera Dynasty, is born in London, England.

The daughter of a theatrical booking agent, Collins made her theater debut at the age of nine, in a production of The Dollhouse by Henrik Ibsen. As a teenager, she studied at the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and appeared in nine British films. She headed to Hollywood at the age of 22, and landed sultry roles in several popular films, including Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955). She continued making films in the United States and the United Kingdom through the 1960s, but her career languished in the 1970s, and she was reduced to starring in horror flicks like Fear in the Night (1972). She also starred in two films based on best-selling novels by her younger sister Jackie Collins, The Stud (1978) and The Bitch (1979).

In 1981, Collins landed the plum role of Alexis Carrington (later Colby) in the prime-time soap opera Dynasty, which ran for eight years. Her portrayal of the vindictive ex-wife of the oil tycoon Blake Carrington--and the bitter rival of his current wife and former secretary, the beautiful blonde Krystle (played by Linda Evans)--rejuvenated Collins’ career, as buzz for the show began to grow and the Alexis-Krystle clash became one of its central plotlines. In one of Dynasty’s most memorable scenes, Alexis and Krystle come to blows in a lily pond; in another, Krystle dumps a bowl of mud on Alexis after she overhears her gossiping about her at a spa. After several years of declining ratings, ABC dropped Dynasty from its lineup in 1989. In 1997, Collins reprised the role of Alexis on Aaron Spelling’s Pacific Palisades. She later joined former cast mates in two reunion specials, most recently Caviar and Catfights: The Dynasty Reunion (2006).

By the late 1980s, Collins followed in her sister Jackie’s footsteps and published her first novel, which she sold to Simon and Schuster for a rumored $3 million. Despite critical pans, the book, Prime Time, became a bestseller when it debuted in 1988. Two years later, Random House offered Collins $4 million in a two-book deal, paying a $1.3 million advance, with the rest due on delivery of the manuscripts. When Collins turned in the first of the two manuscripts in 1991, the publishing house claimed the manuscript was unacceptable and sued for the return of the advance. In 1996, the court ruled in favor of Collins and demanded that Random House pay her an additional $1 million for the work she turned in. Her zest for writing was apparently unquenched by the battle--she published the beauty book My Secrets in 1994, followed by Second Act in 1996 and a sequel My Secrets, My Friends’ Secrets, in 1999.

In addition to her writing career, Collins has continued to act, appearing in films such as Kenneth Branagh’s In the Bleak Midwinter (1995) and The Flinstones in Viva Rock Vegas (2000), and television series (Will & Grace, Footballers’ Wives) in the United States and the United Kingdom. Since 2002, Collins has been married to her fifth husband, Percy Gibson, who is more than three decades her junior.

SOURCE: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/joan-collins-is-born

1934: POLICE KILL FAMOUS OUTLAWS BONNIE AND CLYDE

On this day in 1934, notorious criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow are shot to death by Texas and Louisiana state police while driving a stolen car near Sailes, Louisiana.

Bonnie Parker met the charismatic Clyde Barrow in Texas when she was 19 years old and her husband (she married when she was 16) was serving time in jail for murder. Shortly after they met, Barrow was imprisoned for robbery. Parker visited him every day, and smuggled a gun into prison to help him escape, but he was soon caught in Ohio and sent back to jail. When Barrow was paroled in 1932, he immediately hooked up with Parker, and the couple began a life of crime together.

After they stole a car and committed several robberies, Parker was caught by police and sent to jail for two months. Released in mid-1932, she rejoined Barrow. Over the next two years, the couple teamed with various accomplices to rob a string of banks and stores across five states--Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, New Mexico and Louisiana. To law enforcement agents, the Barrow Gang--including Barrow's childhood friend, Raymond Hamilton, W.D. Jones, Henry Methvin, Barrow's brother Buck and his wife Blanche, among others--were cold-blooded criminals who didn't hesitate to kill anyone who got in their way, especially police or sheriff's deputies. Among the public, however, Parker and Barrow's reputation as dangerous outlaws was mixed with a romantic view of the couple as "Robin Hood"-like folk heroes.

Their fame was increased by the fact that Bonnie was a woman--an unlikely criminal--and by the fact that the couple posed for playful photographs together, which were later found by police and released to the media. Police almost captured the famous duo twice in the spring of 1933, with surprise raids on their hideouts in Joplin and Platte City, Missouri. Buck Barrow was killed in the second raid, and Blanche was arrested, but Bonnie and Clyde escaped once again. In January 1934, they attacked the Eastham Prison Farm in Texas to help Hamilton break out of jail, shooting several guards with machine guns and killing one.

Texan prison officials hired a retired Texas police officer, Captain Frank Hamer, as a special investigator to track down Parker and Barrow. After a three-month search, Hamer traced the couple to Louisiana, where Henry Methvin's family lived. Before dawn on May 23, Hamer and a group of Louisiana and Texas lawmen hid in the bushes along a country road outside Sailes. When Parker and Barrow appeared, the officers opened fire, killing the couple instantly in a hail of bullets.

All told, the Barrow Gang was believed responsible for the deaths of 13 people, including nine police officers. Parker and Barrow are still seen by many as romantic figures, however, especially after the success of the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde, starring Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty.

SOURCE: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/police-kill-famous-outlaws-bonnie-and-clyde

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