 Monroe goes for a joy ride and bums out fifty-one women. 
Above is a page from the Japanese celeb magazine Roadshow of Marilyn Monroe having a laugh in the rear of a convertible while acting as Grand Marshall of The Miss America Pageant. The one she headlined was the 1952 event, held in Atlantic City today that year. You'd think all the contestants would have resigned dejectedly after getting a glimpse of their marshall, who was  pre-superstardom but was still Marilyn Monroe, yet the pageant actually went on and was won by Neva Jane Langley of Georgia. A lot of websites get that last fact wrong, which we think is because of Wikipedia. There the pageant winners are listed according to the year they served, not the year they competed. Since the contests were held the previous summer or autumn to choose the upcoming year's queen, most sites say Colleen Kay Hutchins won the pageant Monroe marshalled. Nope. It was Langley, who beat out contestants from all forty-eight states, plus Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. There she is below wearing her sash, which says 1953, for her reign beginning the first of the next year. But even in victory she's probably thinking, Now that I've seen Marilyn I'm going to lock myself in a cellar for sixteen months and have someone feed me through a slot in the door. 
 Under the circumstances he has no choice but to drink. 
 In the photo at top, sometime during the summer of 1964, a woman at a stunt show in Atlantic City jumps with a horse sporting an LBJ political banner into a tank of water. The leap took place at Steel Pier, and the height, though not discernible in either shot, was about sixty feet. The horse diving attraction at Steel Pier thrilled and appalled onlookers from 1928 into the 1970s. Some accounts claim the specially trained horses learned to enjoy diving so much they often took off before a rider could get mounted. While we don't doubt some horses took off unmounted, the assumption they did it because they loved flying through empty space to an aquatic impact is a bit of a leap, so to speak. One thing's certain, though. The LBJ horse definitely wasn't happy that day—he was a Goldwater supporter.
 In a place like Atlantic City there's always one more chance. 
The poster you see above was painted by the Spanish artist Francisco Fernandez Zarza-Pérez, who signed his work as Jano. As you can see, it was to promote Louis Malle's drama Atlantic City, U.S.A. Most sites call the film just Atlantic City, but we're going with what the opening credits called it. Though the movie starred U.S. performers and tends to be thought of as an American effort, it was French produced and premiered all over Europe in 1980 before reaching the States in 1981. It opened in Spain today in 1980 and tells the story of a sixty-something minor crook who finds himself involved with twenty-something hustlers and their sale of stolen drugs. Circumstances place both the party favors and the profits in his hands, and he suddenly has a chance to be the big time mobster he never was.
Not only did Atlantic City, U.S.A. win the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, it's one of the few movies to be nominated for all five major Academy Awards—Best Actor (Burt Lancaster), Best Actress (Susan Sarandon), Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Screenplay. With a résumé like that we don't have to tell you the movie is good. Watch it. You'll like it. The woman on the poster, by the way, looks nothing like Susan Sarandon, but it was early in Sarandon's career, and we suspect Jano wasn't too invested in getting her likeness correct. It was within his capability, certainly—his Lancaster looks great. We don't know why he got Sarandon wrong. Considering how famous she eventually became, we have a feeling he wished he'd done better.         
 Monroe steps out for the adoring masses.  
Marilyn Monroe appears before movie fans at the U.S. premiere of her comedy Monkey Business, which took place at the Stanley Theater in Atlantic City, New Jersey, today 1952.
 Meet me tonight in Atlantic City. 
A while back we showed you a woodcut print commemorating New York City’s famed Cotton Club. In that same batch was another choice item—a print celebrating New York Airways, Inc., a fledgling airline that operated out of the Big Apple starting in 1927. It was bought by Pan Am in 1928, continued to offer service to Atlantic City, but was finally dissolved in 1931. In case you’re wondering why any airline would run regular service to Atlantic City, we suggest you watch Boardwalk Empire. Basically, what was once a beachside resort town had become a den of vice and gambling, a place where Prohibition was loosely enforced, if at all. Its official nickname was “The World’s Playground.” But as always, the players eventually went elsewhere. Why? The print offers a clue. Atlantic City boomed thanks to rail service, a form of travel that was slow and taxing, prompting many visitors to spend a week or two in town before climbing back aboard another train. With the advent of commercial air travel, visitors could arrive in town in reasonably good shape, stay a night or two, and leave. The loss of revenue triggered a decline—exacerbated by other factors—from which Atlantic City never recovered. But this print is a reminder that, once upon a time, the Jersey Shore was the place to be.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1914—RMS Empress Sinks
Canadian Pacific Steamships' 570 foot ocean liner Empress of Ireland is struck amidships by a Norwegian coal freighter and sinks in the Gulf of St. Lawrence with the loss of 1,024 lives. Submerged in 130 feet of water, the ship is so easily accessible to treasure hunters who removed valuables and bodies from the wreck that the Canadian government finally passes a law in 1998 restricting access. 1937—Chamberlain Becomes Prime Minister
Arthur Neville Chamberlain, who is known today mainly for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938 which conceded the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany and was supposed to appease Adolf Hitler's imperial ambitions, becomes prime minister of Great Britain. At the time Chamberlain is the second oldest man, at age sixty-eight, to ascend to the office. Three years later he would give way to Winston Churchill. 1930—Chrysler Building Opens
In New York City, after a mere eighteen months of construction, the Chrysler Building opens to the public. At 1,046 feet, 319 meters, it is the tallest building in the world at the time, but more significantly, William Van Alen's design is a landmark in art deco that is celebrated to this day as an example of skyscraper architecture at its most elegant. 1969—Jeffrey Hunter Dies
American actor Jeffrey Hunter dies of a cerebral hemorrhage after falling down a flight of stairs and sustaining a skull fracture, a mishap precipitated by his suffering a stroke seconds earlier. Hunter played many roles, including Jesus in the 1961 film King of Kings, but is perhaps best known for portraying Captain Christopher Pike in the original Star Trek pilot episode "The Cage".
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