She had nothing to hide on stage, but she certainly did elsewhere in her life. Liz Renay’s Washington Post obituary called her a “Cult Actress, Stripper and Mobster’s Girl.” That only touches on what she was. She was also an author, painter, streaker, charm school instructor, and convict. The latter designation came when a federal judge sent her up for perjury committed during the gangster Mickey Cohen’s 1961 tax evasion trial. Cohen was Renay’s boyfriend, and her bad taste and unshakable loyalty cost her more than two years on Terminal Island, years she says permanently damaged her prospects in Hollywood. After her release she became a professional celebrity, more famous for her associations and striking blonde appearance than anything she did, with her cult status reaffirmed by such people John Waters, who put her in his film Desperate Living, and author James Ellroy, who included her in his explosive 1995 novel American Tabloid. The sultry shot of Renay at top, pre-blonde, pre-Cohen, and pre-prison, dates from the mid-1950s. The second is from around 1960, and the one below shows her in 1961 entering the courtroom during Cohen’s trial.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1939—Batman Debuts
In Detective Comics #27, DC Comics publishes its second major superhero, Batman, who becomes one of the most popular comic book characters of all time, and then a popular camp television series starring Adam West, and lastly a multi-million dollar movie franchise starring Michael Keaton, then George Clooney, and finally Christian Bale. 1953—Crick and Watson Publish DNA Results
British scientists James D Watson and Francis Crick publish an article detailing their discovery of the existence and structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, in Nature magazine. Their findings answer one of the oldest and most fundamental questions of biology, that of how living things reproduce themselves. 1967—First Space Program Casualty Occurs
Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dies in Soyuz 1 when, during re-entry into Earth's atmosphere after more than ten successful orbits, the capsule's main parachute fails to deploy properly, and the backup chute becomes entangled in the first. The capsule's descent is slowed, but it still hits the ground at about 90 mph, at which point it bursts into flames. Komarov is the first human to die during a space mission. 1986—Otto Preminger Dies
Austro–Hungarian film director Otto Preminger, who directed such eternal classics as Laura, Anatomy of a Murder, Carmen Jones, The Man with the Golden Arm, and Stalag 17, and for his efforts earned a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, dies in New York City, aged 80, from cancer and Alzheimer's disease. 1998—James Earl Ray Dies
The convicted assassin of American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., petty criminal James Earl Ray, dies in prison of hepatitis aged 70, protesting his innocence as he had for decades. Members of the King family who supported Ray's fight to clear his name believed the U.S. Government had been involved in Dr. King's killing, but with Ray's death such questions became moot.
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