Happy Birthday, Hannah Waddingham

Today, July 28, marks the birthday of star of stage and screen, Hannah Waddingham.  

This year has been pretty good for Ms. Waddingham.  

She has starred in what appears to be a successful series for Amazon Prime, Ride or Die (our post on it will arrive after we've finished the series).  Threads tells me many people did not know of her before, and... welcome to where I've been living since, like, 2021.  

She's got a new season of Ted Lasso set to drop in August and a fanbase primed and ready.  Her Fox show, Krapopolis continues on (I catch it once in a blue moon).  And she's been announced as starring in one movie with Guy Pearce and a separate movie, promisingly titled Jason Statham Stole My Bike, with the eponymous action star.  

And, she's lent her voice to an animated project by Sir Paul McCartney - coming soon.  

Not bad.

Social media tells me she keeps popping up places like Wimbledon and at F1, and that seems like a pretty good way to live one's downtime.  I believe she's also found a suitor who she can stand next to in heels, and that's got to be a bonus.

Happy Birthday, Hannah Waddingham!

Happy Birthday, Lynda Carter

Today is the 75th birthday of Signal Watch patron saint Lynda Carter.  Big milestone!

I'm not sure what Carter has been up to this year.  Hopefully she's off having a grand time somewhere.

Ms. Carter isn't just an actor, advocate and sometimes-superhero.  She's also a singer and performer.

Here she is a few decades back with our friends, The Muppets:

Happy Birthday, Mikaela Hoover

Hey!  It's a second Super Birthday today!  

Happy Birthday to Mikaela Hoover!  She played Cat Grant in our most recent Superman film.  You will remember her in that movie with blonde hair and glasses.  She absolutely nailed the character in a few scenes, so... hats off!

Hoover also played Floor the Rabbit in Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3.  

May Ms. Hoover have a terrific b-day and a fabulous trip around the sun.

Happy Birthday, Rachel Brosnahan

Happy birthday to Rachel Brosnahan, our current Lois Lane, upon whom we can all agree is a pretty good idea.

We've been so lucky with our string of Lois Lanes over the past twenty years, and I love what Brosnahan did with the role, making it her own.  

Here's hoping she has a great year ahead of her.

"Big Trouble In Little China" at 40

Just listen to the ol' "Porkchop Express" and take his advice on a dark and stormy night, alright? When some wild-eyed, eight-foot-tall maniac grabs your neck, taps the back of your favorite head up against the barroom wall, looks you crooked in the eye, and asks you if you paid your dues; you just stare that big sucker right back in the eye, and you remember what ol' Jack Burton always says at a time like that: "Have you paid your dues, Jack?" "Yes, sir, the check is in the mail."

Apparently this week marks 40 years since the release of one of the greatest films ever made, Big Trouble In Little China.

From the previews, I'd been mildly interested in what I saw, and then saw the flick featured in a movie-FX magazine I leafed through in B. Dalton at the mall (did I buy the magazine?  I did not).  Probably they were discussing the big red ape monster and the eyeball guy, and maybe some lightning FX, and that was enough of a sale for me.

Happy Birthday Terri Nunn

Hey!  Today is singer Terri Nunn's birthday!  That's fun.  

Saw her sing with Berlin in like 2018 or 19, and she was *amazing*.*

*amazingly hot

Marilyn Monroe at 100

Today is the 100th birthday of Ms. Norma Jeane Mortensen, better known as Marilyn Monroe.

We're fans of Monroe here at The Signal Watch, and whether that's because of her film work - and she's terrific in most of the work I've seen, or knowing her as an icon of the 20th Century - I don't know.  She was gone more than twenty years before I really understood who she was..  But even when it's a movie I don't love (see: The Seven Year Itch), or something far greater than I expected (Some Like It Hot, The Misfits), she is what they say, and few talents before or since have come anywhere near her place in the zeitgeist.  

There's no one else left, really, from this era of film that I think today's young adults and youths would readily recognize.  And even then, they may not even know she was an actress - she's simply a face on a t-shirt.  I don't know.  But she remains an icon, maybe an ethereal one at this point, but someone still seen as a sign of glamour.  We can save our comments about how some trash celebrities try and tried to steal some of her light.

Happy Birthday Kylie Minogue

Happy Birthday to pop music icon and occasional actor Kylie Minogue.

Kylie is having a good year!  She wrapped up her international Tension tour*, she won Christmas with her poptacular song XMAS, and she has released a documentary on Netflix and I believe a concert film of the Tension tour is also set to debut on Netflix.  

And she's re-releasing four albums on vinyl later this year (lil' heads-up for Jamie) including the much sought-after (by me) Light Years.

You don't really know what else she'll get up to - but maybe she'll get back in the studio for another album.

Anyway - happy birthday to Ms. Minogue.  May she have a grand birthday.

*Yours truly was at an early date on the tour here in sunny Austin, Texas.

Happy Birthday, Vanessa Williams

Today is the birthday of singer, actor and the reason I've watched several movies I otherwise would not, Vanessa Williams.  

Here's a video that will take people of a certain age back to a very certain time and place.

Happy Birthday Cara Buono

 

Happy birthday to Cara Buono, who today's kids will, in about five years, figure out was why their dads were watching Stranger Things with them.

Buono has appeared in Mad Men, Sopranos, and in a truncated (thanks to COVID) season of Supergirl.  

Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight Returns" Turns 40

If you weren't in middle school by 1986 or 1987, I don't care what you think about Frank Miller's four-issue series, The Dark Knight Returns.  Sorry, young reader!     

There was context to when the comic came out, an understanding of what was changing in media and culture and comics, and if you grew up on comics in the wake of Dark Knight Returns, it's like trying to tell people Revolver isn't a breakthrough album after all, or that Citizen Kane doesn't matter (which the internet is always more than happy to do, and seem quite foolish in the process).

I don't do this often - generally I'm a "hey, like what you like, but here's my opinion" guy.  But sometimes The Kids(tm) are just wrong, and I don't think you had to be there at the time - you can just have a reasonable knowledge of recent history, comics history and have read a book somewhere along the line.  And so, in this case, when I have seen 10,000 bad takes by bad take-havers, here is mine.

Mainstream superhero comics have some key years.*  

Happy Birthday, Ida Lupino

Happy birthday, Ida Lupino, born this day in 1918.

She's actually British born, but fine, Google robot.

Happy Birthday, Krypto

Today marks the 71st anniversary of the first appearance of Krypto the Superdog in Adventure Comics 210.  

Krypto appeared 17 years or so after Superman first appeared and 10 years after we'd been introduced to Superboy - tales of Superman when he was a boy.  In short, Superman had been around, had a radio show and had been on television for three years by the time Krypto appeared in a Superboy story.

Until Krypto appeared, four years before Supergirl, Superboy had been really the only survivor of Krypton.  This space-faring dog was Superboy's first real, direct connection to not just his home planet, but his actual parents and home.

While Krypto was shown to be an untrained pest (shades of 2025's Superman movie), he was also a fellow, last Kryptonian.  

His story in this comic was that he was the El family dog who had been sent by Jor-El in a test rocket that got knocked off course and lost in space until the events of this issue, Superboy arriving on Earth and becoming a teen in the interim.

Happy Birthday, Geena Davis

Hey!  It's the birthday of Geena Davis!  Who doesn't like Geena Davis?  

I believe my intro to Davis was as Larry in Fletch.  After that, she was just sort of omnipresent in movies.  But I decided she was *great* (post-Oscar win) when I saw Thelma & Louise and A League of Their Own within a year of each other.  

I didn't see a few of her bigger movies til well after the fact, but I can always say, along with Sigourney Weaver and a few others, if you say "hey, Geena Davis is in it", I'll watch it.  

Davis is less in the spotlight these days - the last thing I saw her in was GLOW, where she crushed it as a casino manager and former showgirl.  But she's not just doing the acting and producing thing (she's a very successful TV and film producer).  She founded the Geena Davis Institute.  

I think she's the right person to have started such an org, and their work is important, bringing research and spotlights to issues of "equitable representation in media" (from their website).  

Here's to Geena Davis - trailblazing and playing my favorite ballplayer in a movie.

Also, she once surprised Stuart at work.

Happy Birthday to Elizabeth "Bitsie" Tulloch

Happy b-day to Bitsie Tulloch, the actor who brought Lois Lane to life on the recent TV show, Superman & Lois.  If you haven't seen it - fix that now.

Tulloch brought exactly the vibe I was looking for in Lois Lane on a show I admit I was deeply skeptical of when it went into production.  But I happily watched all four seasons, and would have continued had WB not hard-rebooted their entire slate the past year.

Tulloch has had plenty of roles, including the lead on the entire run of NBC's show Grimm, but I'm always reminded - she's multi-lingual and a Harvard graduate.  No dummy, this Lois.  

Not sure what her next roles will be, but we'll certainly be paying attention.

Happy Birthday, Dolly Parton

Happy Birthday to singer, song-writer, performer, actor, philanthropist, movie producer, theme park mogul, and all-around American Icon, Dolly Parton.  Today, she turns 80.  

Here's her latest - a Dolly classic, but now with some friends aboard.  This version was released over this weekend, I believe:

Happy Birthday, Barbara Crampton

Happy Birthday to the great Barbara Crampton.  

For eagle-eyed readers of the site here, we've been on a Crampton-aissance for about a year and a half, watching work newer and older. 

Happy Birthday, yesterday, Helen Slater

 

Happy birthday to actor, singer and all-around cool person, Helen Slater.  I missed her birthday yesterday, but what kind of world are we living in if I can't retroactively share a birthday celebration?

Slater was the original live-action Supergirl, and maintains strong ties to the fans and franchise. But she's also appeared in favorites like The Secret of My Success.  

Here's to another trip around the sun for our Girl of Steel.

Dick Van Dyke at 100

 

Dick Van Dyke is now 100.  What a delight to do a "at 100" post and have the person still with us and in terrific shape.

He's easily one of the earliest actors whose names I knew who wasn't a Star War.  As a kid, I remember being taken to a re-release of Mary Poppins, and it was part of how I fell in love with movies.  And, of course, reruns of The Dick Van Dyke Show played well through when I was a young adult - when I feel like I finally got the appeal (no, not just Mary Tyler Moore - it's really funny and now I kind of want to watch it again).  Not bad for a show that ended 9 years before I was born.

Later, I'd see him in Bye Bye Birdie and other films.  The man is an entertainer.  

Here's to lasting a century and somehow remaining universally beloved.  You have a lot of choices of how you want people to think of you at 100, if you're remembered at all.  This may be the absolute best case of all.

Happy Birthday, Tina Turner

 

Today marks the birthday of Tina Turner, one of the greats of R&B and rock.  

Y'all put on her Simply the Best collection and thank me later.