Above is a photo of American actress Gail Russell from today in 1957, and well, her 4th of July has taken a very bad turn—right through a plate glass window. She's in the midst of failing a field sobriety test after imbibing a few too many cocktails and crashing her convertible through the front of Jan's Restaurant in Los Angeles. You see the aftermath below. She managed to pin an unlucky janitor beneath her car, but all things considered the accident could have been much worse.

This was not the only automotive mishap Russell had. She had been arrested in 1953 for drunk driving, and had also crashed in 1955 and fled the scene. She once said of herself: “I was a sad character. I was sad because of myself. I didn’t have any self-confidence. I didn’t believe I had any talent. I didn’t know how to have fun. I was afraid. I don’t exactly know of what—of life, I guess.” If she was indeed afraid of life she conquered that fear decisively—by dying young at age thirty-six. We'll talk about her more a bit later.