One last roll of the dice. These photos of American actress Nina Mae McKinney certainly capture her beauty, even if they don’t quite capture her complexion. McKinney was actually paler than seen here, however her part black ancestry of course made her an all black actress, a designation that severely limited her commercial prospects. But thanks to her good looks—and quite a bit of talent—she became a star anyway. In Europe, she was even known as the black Garbo. There’s not a ton of material out there on McKinney, but when we saw these photos we had to share them because we’d seen her in both the pre-blaxploitation adventure Sanders of the River, and in her debut role in Hallelujah! In the latter she plays a woman so gloriously wicked that the term femme fatale is inadequate to describe her. She’s dressed up here as her character in that movie, and the fact that’s she’s wearing dice on her chest that show the number seven should be a warning to men that gettting involved with her is a bad gamble. But of course, bad women are irresistible, and in fact, McKinney is such a siren in Hallelujah! that she completely wrecks the leading man’s life not once, but twice. The movie came out in 1929, and that’s the year on these shots. If you’re curious, you can see McKinney performing a song with Eubie Blake here.
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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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