If you shoot him, you better make sure he's dead.
The prop Daily Bugle newspaper we shared a while back from 2002's Spider Man got us thinking about these sorts of items, so we had a look around and found this newspaper made for the 1972 gangster epic The Godfather, which bears a headline about (spoiler alert) Vito Corleone's shooting. The paper is dated today in 1945. Corleone was of course played by Marlon Brando, and it was possibly the crowning achievement of a highly accomplished if occasionally controversial film career. Haven't seen the movie? All we can say is it's in no way overrated. And because realism is key in Hollywood, the paper has a rear cover with a story about boxer Tony Janiro beating Humberto Zavala on points, yesterday in 1945.
What do you get for being a member of the Mickey louse club? A cap... in your ass. Tonight in 1949 just before 4 a.m.—i.e. early in the morning of July 20—L.A. mobster Mickey Cohen was ambushed by unknown gunmen outside a Sunset Boulevard eatery called Sherry’s. The above photo diagram and close-up shows where his assailants hid behind a billboard across the street from the restaurant and opened fire with shotguns. Cohen was hit in the shoulder, three others were seriously wounded, and New York Daily News reporter Florabel Muir was bruised by a ricochet (or shot directly, according to some accounts). The photo just below shows the view the gunmen had from underneath the billboard. And the last two show the immediate aftermath of the shooting, with a surprising number of bystanders and/or restaurant patrons present considering the late hour, and Cohen henchman Edward Herbert on the ground. He would later die from his wounds. The Sherry’s ambush was the second of several attempts on Cohen’s life. None were successful, though as usual, the members of his circle did not fare well. For a look at a cool collection of photo diagrams and an explanation of their use, see here.
A little ingenuity goes a long way. Above, a cover of Master Detective from July 1949, inside of which is a story on Ruth Snyder. In March 1927 Snyder garroted her husband with the help of her lover, a corset salesman named Henry Judd Gray. The couple had been after insurance money, but instead they were caught, tried, and sentenced to death by means of electrocution. On the day of the event, which took place at Sing Sing Prison, a photographer named Tom Howard entered the execution chamber as a witness. He was under assignment for the New York Daily News, but was actually based in Chicago, which meant he was unknown to prison authorities in the New York area. That was important, because Howard’s assignment was to illegally take a photo of Ruth Snyder’s execution, which had considerable tabloid value because she would be the first woman put to death at Sing Sing since 1899. Howard was ingeniously prepared—he had strapped a camera to his ankle, and had fed a shutter release up one pant leg to an accessible point inside his suit jacket. At the moment the executioner threw the switch, Howard lifted his pant leg and snapped the blurry photo below, which appeared the next day in the New York Daily News under a huge header that read simply: Dead! The issue was a sensation, the image became iconic, and Howard became nationally famous.
The day the muse died. Cover of the New York Daily News from today in 1962, the day after Marilyn Monroe was pronounced dead from a drug overdose.
Quintessential child star Garland suffers quintessential child star death. New York Daily News from today, 1969, announcing the death of Judy Garland, one of the most famous and successful child stars ever. Like many child stars that came after her, Garland had problems with her weight, her self-image, along with drugs and alcohol throughout her life. She died of a Seconal overdose at age 47, but a doctor privy to her autopsy results commented that her liver was in such an advanced state of cirrhosis that she was already living on borrowed time.
One of the New York Yankees' greatest heroes runs afoul of the law—again. Former New York Yankee baseball player Jim Leyritz, who is considered a god in the Big Apple for hitting a three-run homer in game 4 of the 1996 World Series, finds himself in legal trouble yet again after a heated domestic incident with his wife last night. The New York Daily News reports that Leyritz dragged his wife Karrie out of bed and hit her twice after learning she had written a check without his permission. Leyritz, whose homer is credited with saving the Yankees ’96 season, has had numerous troubles since retiring from sports. The most serious of those incidents occurred in December 2007 when, after a night of partying with a stripper, he ran a red light and broadsided an SUV driven by a waitress named Fredia Ann Veitch. Veitch was ejected from her vehicle and died at the hospital a short time later. Leyritz was taken into custody after an unsatisfactory field sobriety test, and later charged with DUI manslaughter. His situation got even worse when a police video surfaced that showed his apparent lack of concern when informed by an officer that Veitch had died. We watched the video and don't think there's any way to tell what's really going through Leyritz's mind, and he has strongly maintained that he was not being callous, but was just too shocked by events to show much reaction. He has also maintained he wasn't drunk that night, and the collision was not his fault. Soon a jury will decide whether that’s true, and in the meantime he’ll be arraigned for domestic battery.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1931—Nevada Approves Gambling
In the U.S., the state of Nevada passes a resolution allowing for legalized gambling. Unregulated gambling had been commonplace in the early Nevada mining towns, but was outlawed in 1909 as part of a nationwide anti-gaming crusade. The leading proponents of re-legalization expected that gambling would be a short term fix until the state's economic base widened to include less cyclical industries. However, gaming proved over time to be one of the least cyclical industries ever conceived. 1941—Tuskegee Airmen Take Flight
During World War II, the 99th Pursuit Squadron, aka the Tuskegee Airmen, is activated. The group is the first all-black unit of the Army Air Corp, and serves with distinction in Africa, Italy, Germany and other areas. In March 2007 the surviving airmen and the widows of those who had died received Congressional Gold Medals for their service. 1906—First Airplane Flight in Europe
Romanian designer Traian Vuia flies twelve meters outside Paris in a self-propelled airplane, taking off without the aid of tractors or cables, and thus becomes the first person to fly a self-propelled, heavier-than-air aircraft. Because his craft was not a glider, and did not need to be pulled, catapulted or otherwise assisted, it is considered by some historians to be the first true airplane. 1965—Leonov Walks in Space
Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov leaves his spacecraft the Voskhod 2 for twelve minutes. At the end of that time Leonov's spacesuit had inflated in the vacuum of space to the point where he could not re-enter Voskhod's airlock. He opened a valve to allow some of the suit's pressure to bleed off, was barely able to get back inside the capsule, and in so doing became the first person to complete a spacewalk. 1966—Missing Nuke Found
Off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean, the deep submergence vehicle Alvin locates a missing American hydrogen bomb. The 1.45-megaton nuke had been lost by the U.S. Air Force during a midair accident over Palomares, Spain. It was found resting in nearly three-thousand feet of water and was raised intact on 7 April.
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