We're
going to take a brief break from this week's look back on 2014 with the final Tuesday
Timeline of the
year.
And,
as the sands in the 2014 hourglass dwindle down each passing second, it is time
to also take a look back on the thirtieth of December to see what events took
place on this date. We will also take a
look at celebrity birthdates as well.
And, here's a bit of a clue for you...today's Tuesday Timeline spotlight
also happens to be a birthday girl as well.
Of
course, before we go ahead with that, we have some unfinished business to take
care of. Let us see what happened in
the world on the eve before New Years Eve...
1813 - Buffalo, New York is completely destroyed in
fires set by British soldiers during the War of 1812
1816 - The Treaty of St. Louis is proclaimed between the
United States and the Ottawa, Ojibwa, and Potawatomi tribes - and nine years
later...
1825 - The Treaty of St. Louis between the United States
and the Shawnee Nation is proclaimed
1865 - "The Jungle Book" author Rudyard
Kipling (d. 1936) is born in India
1869 - Author/political scientist Stephen Leacock (d.
1944) is born in England
1896 - Ernie McLea scores the first "hat
trick" in a Stanley Cup game
1903 - 605 people lose their lives when fire breaks out
at Chicago's Iroquois theatre
1920 - Actor Jack Lord (d. 1998) is born in
Brooklyn, New York
1928 - American guitarist Bo Diddley (d.
2008) is born in McComb, Mississippi
1931 - Singer Skeeter Davis (d. 2004) is born in Dry
Ridge, Kentucky
1934 - Singer Del Shannon (d. 1990) is born in Grand
Rapids, Michigan
1936 - The United Auto Workers union stages its first
sitdown strike
1945 - Actor/singer/Monkee Davy Jones (d. 2012) is born
in England
1948 - "Kiss Me, Kate" opens at the New
Century Theatre and subsequently becomes the first Broadway musical to win the
Best Musical Tony Award
1977 - Serial killer Ted Bundy escapes from his Colorado
jail cell for a second time
1981 - Hockey player Wayne Gretzky breaks a record
previously held by Mike Bossy and Maurice Richard by scoring fifty goals in
just thirty-nine games
1996 - Services are shut down all over Israel when a
quarter of a million people go on strike to protest budget cuts proposed by
Benjamin Netanyahu
1999 - Sarah Knauss (b. 1880) - who is considered to
have been the second oldest fully documented person ever to have lived, dies in
Allentown, Pennsylvania at age 119
2005 - In what was already a record breaking year for
hurricanes, Tropical Storm Zeta forms in the open Atlantic Ocean, tying the
record for latest tropical cyclone to form around North America
2006 - Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is executed
2009 - Nine people are killed after a suicide bomber
attacks Forward Operating Base Chapman in Afghanistan
Now,
let us wish the following famous faces a happy birthday - Joseph
Bologna, Russ
Tamblyn, Sandy
Koufax, Jack
Riley, James
Burrows, Betty
Aberlin, Michael
Nesmith, Fred
Ward, Concetta
Tomei, Patti
Smith, Jeff
Lynne, Meredith
Vieira, Suzy
Bogguss, Patricia
Kalember, Sheryl
Lee Ralph, Matt
Lauer, Glenn
Robbins, Sean
Hannity, Ben
Johnson, Chandler
Burr, Jay
Kay, Jason
Behr, Tiger
Woods, Laila
Ali, Tyrese
Gibson, Eliza
Dushku, Kristin
Kreuk, Josh
Sussman, Ellie
Goulding, and Kirsty-Leigh
Porter.
And,
as mentioned before, today's Tuesday Timeline subject also is celebrating a
birthday.
And
she was born on December 30, 1959.
But,
who is it? Hmmm? Well, I can tell you this much. If it weren't for this woman, we probably
would not have discovered a slew of comedic talent. If not for her, we may not have been introduced to a pop
singer/choreographer/American Idol judge/jewelry maker. And, I guarantee you that had it not been
for her, we would never have been introduced to one of the most famous sitcom
families to ever grace the small screen!
Maybe
this song will provide a clue?
ARTIST: Tracey Ullman
SONG: They Don't Know
ALBUM: You
Broke My Heart in 17 Places
RELEASE
DATE: September 9, 1983
PEAK
POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS: #8
Ah,
yes...it's all coming back to me! We're
talking about Tracey Ullman! The Tracey
Ullman who was born fifty-five years ago today in England! That Tracey Ullman!
(Or,
should I say Trace Ullman? After all,
that is the name she was born with!)
And
Tracey's venture into showbiz started off with a tragic event - the death of
her father when Tracey was just six.
Her mother sank into a bit of a depression after her husband's death, so
Tracey and her sister would try to cheer her up by performing an impromptu
variety show on their mother's bedroom windowsill. Tracey would also try to mimic celebrity voices as well, which
often helped her fit in with her classmates, as she herself admitted to having
a posh accent. She also won a full
scholarship to the Italia Conti Academy - a school for performing arts. But interestingly enough, when Tracey was in
her teens, she was told by a clairvoyant that she would one day become a huge
star, and that she would eventually grow to be well loved by both British and
American audiences. Little did Tracey
know just how true a prophecy that would be.
Of
course, Tracey took on everything that came her way. She thought she would go into professional dancing and joined a
dance troupe in London, but that dream ended when she forgot to wear panties
during a performance. Yeah, I need go
no further on that one. She also took a
turn at performing in musicals, with Ullman taking on roles in
"Grease" and "The Rocky Horror Picture Show".
But
at some point, Tracey decided that she had become disenchanted with the
entertainment industry, and resigned herself to working full-time at a paper
products distribution company.
Unfortunately, it did not satisfy Tracey, and she ultimately entered a
contest at London's Royal Court Theatre entitled "Four in a Million"
- which was an improvised play about club acts. So, basically, the contest was coming up with the best act, so to
speak. Well, Ullman's decision to pose
as a born-again Christian singer named Beverly wowed the crowd, and ensured
that she would be given a sitcom deal with the BBC.
That
sitcom - "Three of a Kind" - ran from 1981-1983, and was the show
that got Ullman noticed as an actress.
And it was right around that time that Tracey Ullman started her singing
career as well, releasing two albums in 1983 and 1984 respectively. Although the singing career didn't last, her
acting career was just getting good.
And after starring in a couple of other projects in the mid-1980s, she
decided to set her sights on America.
And it is here that we get to play the six degrees of separation game.
For
you see, Tracey's move to America didn't just help herself out...it helped
establish several careers of other famous faces - both real and fictional.
See,
Tracey had the idea to do a sketch comedy show on the newly created FOX
network, and she teamed up with James L. Brooks to bring "The Tracey
Ullman Show" to life. The series
did quite well, running from April 1987 until May 1990.
Now,
in order to have a successful sketch comedy show, you are probably going to
have to have at least one (or all) of your cast members doing some sort of
dancing. And to make the dance moves
flow as smoothly as possible, you are going to want to have a good
choreographer.
Enter
Paula Abdul! Yes, before she made the
world notice her for her pop music following the release of her 1988 album
"Forever Your Girl", she was the official choreographer of "The
Tracey Ullman Show". So, I suppose
you could say that Tracey was one of the people who helped Paula Abdul get
noticed. Good show!
And,
of course, you couldn't have a good sketch comedy show without other
actors. And over the course of the four
season run, there were five actors who contributed to the show, which included
Anna Levine, Sam McMurray, and Joseph Malone.
But
there were two other cast members who seemed to stand out more than the
others. One was Julie Kavner, whose
previous experience on television was playing Brenda Morgenstern - sister of
Rhoda - on the television series "Rhoda". The other was a relative newcomer named Dan Castellaneta, who had
been a member of Second City, and who was hired on the spot after Ullman caught
his stand-up comedy act in Chicago.
Now
those two names may not mean anything to you initially. But what if I showed you this clip?
Yeah,
you see, "The Tracey Ullman Show" was the first place in which Matt
Groening's "The Simpsons" made their debut. They would often appear in the commercial bumpers (just before or
just after a commercial break). Of
course, you know that Kavner plays Marge and Castellaneta plays Homer. Well, the Simpsons sketches grew so popular
that they were given their own spin-off show in December 1989 - which is still
running as of December 2014!
So,
there you have it. Without Tracey
Ullman, there would be no Simpsons. Or,
there would have still been the Simpsons...they just may not have gotten so
popular without that initial exposure.
And,
just to show just how successful of a comedienne that Tracey Ullman was? On her sketch show alone, she is estimated
to have played 108 different characters in just four years! How's THAT for talent?
And,
when "The Tracey Ullman Show" was taken off the air in 1990, was that
the end for her? Heck no!
In
1996, for example, Tracey started a show on HBO entitled "Tracey Takes
On...", which featured Tracey taking on a different subject for each
episode. Because the show aired on HBO,
it allowed Tracey more creative freedom, and allowed her to get away with
things that FOX never would have allowed.
And that show too lasted four seasons.
She also hosted a fashion talk show on Oxygen, created another show
"Tracey Ullman's State of the Union" in 2008 for Showtime, and most
recently played Robin's mother on the television series "How I Met Your
Mother".
That's
not counting the dozens of stand-up comedy specials that aired in both the USA
and the UK over the last thirty years.
In
the end, it all paid off for her.
Believe it or not, her talent and wit has earned her seven Emmy Awards,
and in 2009, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the BAFTA Awards
Ceremony. Now that is making a mark on
the world.
And
the funny thing is that just judging by her interviews on talk shows, as well
as seeing her on television, she continues to be quite humble about everything,
and she seems like the kind of gal you could talk to for hours about
anything.
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