From Guanajay to Hollywood in a single bound. Estelita Rodriguez was born in Guanajay, Cuba in 1928, signed with MGM at the tender age of fourteen, signed with Republic at seventeen, and appeared in such films as Tropical Heat Wave, Rio Bravo, and the unforgettable Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter. This promo shot dates from 1945 and was made when she was playing the character of Lupita in the musical Mexicana with Tito Guízar and Constance Moore.
Mad scientist cops a cheap fille.
In Frankenstein’s Daughter Victor Frankenstein’s grandson Oliver lives in Los Angeles, but the perfect Southern California weather has done nothing to cure his gloomy familial obsession with creating life from dead body parts. The poor monster he constructs has both male and female chunks, most notably the head of Playboy model Sally Todd. Sally doesn’t look as hot here as she did in her nudie layouts, but that’s because those magazine photos are mostly make-up, lighting and airbrushing—oh, and she got fatally run over by a car, which is why her head is available in the first place. Anyway, Oliver’s creation mainly shuffles confused and inarticulate through a film that is itself confused and inarticulate, and which many claim is the worst Frankenstein flick ever made. We don’t think so and we can tell you why with one word—Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster. Okay, five words. The point is, Frankenstein’s Daughter, filled with rich, creamy badness though it may be, is merely a worthy runner-up. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. It premiered in France and Belgium as La fille de Frankenstein today in 1962.
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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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