DARK ANGELI

Just call her angel of the mourning.

Above is a photo of Italian actress Pier Angeli on the cover on France’s Ciné-Révélation. She was originally Anna Pierangeli, but she split her surname, thus giving herself the last name “angels.” A truer pseudonym has yet to be invented. But for as much excitement as attended her arrival onto the Italian movie scene, her career never quite reached the expected heights once she made the leap to Hollywood. She worked steadily in a series of unimpressive films, and had a few love affairs, including one with James Dean that was reportedly nixed by her mother. After twenty years in movies, and two divorces, she died at age 39 of a barbiturate overdose. Though she was depressed during her final years, it is impossible to know for sure whether her death was an accident or suicide. You see her here at the apex of her fame and beauty, January 1958.

France, Italy, Hollywood, Ciné-Révélation, Pier Angeli, cinema

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

September 6

1901—McKinley Fatally Shot

Polish-born anarchist Leon Czolgosz shoots and fatally wounds U.S. President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. McKinley dies September 12, and Czolgosz is later executed.

September 5

1939—U.S. Declares Neutrality in WW II

The Neutrality Acts, which had been passed in the 1930s when the United States considered foreign conflicts undesirable, prompts the nation to declare neutrality in World War II. The policy ended with the Lend-Lease Act of March 1941, which allowed the U.S. to sell, lend or give war materials to allied nations.

September 5

1972—Munich Massacre

During the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, a paramilitary group calling itself Black September takes members of the Israeli olympic team hostage. Eventually the group, which represents the first glimpse of terrorists for most people in the Western world, kill eleven of the hostages along with one West German police officer during a rescue attempt by West German police that devolves into a firefight. Five of the eight members of Black September are also killed.

September 4

1957—U.S. National Guard Used Against Students

The governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, mobilizes the National Guard to prevent nine African-American students known as the Little Rock Nine from enrolling in high school in Little Rock, Arkansas.

September 3

1941—Auschwitz Begins Gassing Prisoners

Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest of Nazi Germany’s concentration camps, becomes an extermination camp when it begins using poison gas to kill prisoners en masse. The camp commandant, Rudolf HÃ¶ss, later testifies at the Nuremberg Trials that he believes perhaps 3 million people died at Auschwitz, but the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum revises the figure to about 1 million.