Weegee — photographer of realistic scenes from urban life — was born 124 years ago
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Weegee — photographer of realistic scenes from urban life — was born 124 years ago
Weegee in 1963
Photo by Richard Sadler
Arthur Fellig — the photographer known as Weegee — was born 124 years ago today.
A photojournalist, known for his stark black and white street photography, Weegee worked in the Lower East Side of New York City as a press photographer during the 1930s and '40s. He developed his signature style by following the city's emergency services crews and documenting their activity. Much of his work depicted unflinchingly realistic scenes of urban life, crime, injury and death.
Weegee published photographic books and also worked in cinema — initially making his own short films and later collaborating with film directors such as Jack Donohue and Stanley Kubrick.
Weegee emigrated with his family to live in New York in 1909. There he took numerous odd jobs, including working as an itinerant photographer and as an assistant to a commercial photographer.
In 1924, he was hired as a darkroom technician by Acme Newspictures (later United Press International Photos). He left, however, in 1935 to become a freelance photographer. Describing his beginnings, Weegee said: “I didn’t wait ‘til somebody gave me a job or something, I went and created a job for myself — freelance photographer. And what I did, anybody else can do.
“What I did simply was this: I went down to Manhattan Police Headquarters and for two years I worked without a police card or any kind of credentials. When a story came over a police teletype, I would go to it. The idea was I sold the pictures to the newspapers. And naturally, I picked a story that meant something.”
Weegee worked at night and competed with the police to be first at the scene of a crime, selling his photographs to tabloids and photographic agencies. His photographs, centered around Manhattan police headquarters, were soon published by the Herald Tribune, World-Telegram, Daily News, New York Post, New York Journal American, Sun and others.
In 1968, Weegee died in New York on December 26 at the age of 69.
Fellig earned his nickname, a phonetic rendering of Ouija, because of his frequent, seemingly prescient arrivals at scenes only minutes after crimes, fires or other emergencies were reported to authorities. No one is sure where the name Weegee came from. Some say he named himself, while others say he was named by either the staff at Acme Newspictures or by a policeman.
Weegee can be seen as the American counterpart to Brassaï, who photographed Paris street scenes at night. His themes of nudists, circus performers, freaks and street people were later taken up and developed by Diane Arbus in the early 1960s.
In 1980, Weegee’s widow, Wilma Wilcox, Sidney Kaplan, Aaron Rose and Larry Silver formed The Weegee Portfolio Incorporated to create an exclusive collection of photographic prints made from Weegee’s original negatives.
As a bequest, Wilcox donated the entire Weegee archive — 16,000 photographs and 7,000 negatives — to the International Center of Photography in New York.
Gold-plated stripper, 1950
Photo by Weegee
In the driveway outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi, African American civil rights leader Medgar Evers was shot to death by white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith.
It was June 12, 1963 — 60 years ago today.
During World War II, Evers volunteered for the U.S. Army and participated in the Normandy invasion. In 1952, he joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
As a field worker for the NAACP, Evers traveled through his home state encouraging poor African Americans to register to vote and recruiting them into the civil rights movement. He was instrumental in getting witnesses and evidence for the Emmitt Till murder case, which brought national attention to the plight of African Americans in the South.
After a funeral in Jackson, Evers was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. President John F. Kennedy and many other leaders publicly condemned the killing.
In 1964, the first trial of chief suspect Byron De La Beckwith ended with a deadlock by an all-white jury, sparking numerous protests. When a second all-white jury also failed to reach a decision, De La Beckwith was set free. Three decades later, the state of Mississippi reopened the case under pressure from civil rights leaders and Evers' family.
In February, 1994, a racially mixed jury in Jackson found Beckwith guilty of murder. The unrepentant white supremacist, aged 73, was sentenced to life imprisonment. On January 21, 2001, De La Beckwith died after he was transferred from prison to the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, Mississippi. He was 80 years old and had suffered from heart disease, high blood pressure and other ailments.
De La Beckwith was the subject of the 1963 Bob Dylan song, "Only a Pawn in Their Game," which deplores Evers' murder and the racial environment of the South.
The 1996 film, Ghosts of Mississippi, tells the story of the murder and 1994 trial. James Woods portrayed De La Beckwith in an Academy Award-nominated performance.
Thanks History.com
Anne Frank was born 94 years ago today.
Frank was a German-Dutch diarist. One of the most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust, she gained fame posthumously with the publication of The Diary of a Young Girl, in which she documents her life in hiding from 1942 to 1944, during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II.
It is one of the world's best known books and has been the basis for several plays and films.
Born in Frankfurt, Germany, Frank lived most of her life in or near Amsterdam, having moved there with her family at the age of four and a half when the Nazis gained control over Germany. Born a German national, she lost her citizenship in 1941 and thus became stateless.
By May 1940, the Franks were trapped in Amsterdam by the German occupation of the Netherlands. As persecutions of the Jewish population increased in July 1942, the Franks went into hiding in some concealed rooms behind a bookcase in the building where Anne's father, Otto Frank, worked.
From then until the family's arrest by the Gestapo in August 1944, she kept a diary she had received as a birthday present. Following their arrest, the Franks were transported to concentration camps.
In late 1944, Anne and her sister, Margot, were transferred from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where they died (probably of typhus) a few months later. Anne was 15 years old.
Otto, the only survivor of the Franks, returned to Amsterdam after the war to find that her diary had been saved by his secretary, Miep Gies, and his efforts led to its publication in 1947. It has since been translated into over 70 languages.
Chick Corea was born 82 years ago today.
A jazz and fusion pianist, keyboardist and composer, many of Corea’s compositions are considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis' band in the 1960s, he participated in the birth of the electric jazz fusion movement. In the 1970s, he formed Return to Forever.
Along with Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner and Keith Jarrett, he has been described as one of the major jazz piano voices to emerge in the post-John Coltrane era.
Corea continued to pursue other collaborations and to explore various musical styles throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He was also known for promoting and fundraising for a number of social issues, such as eradicating illiteracy.
Corea developed his piano skills by exploring music on his own. A notable influence was concert pianist, Salvatore Sullo, from whom Corea started taking lessons at age eight. Sullo introduced Corea to classical music, helping spark his interest in musical composition. He also spent several years as a performer and soloist for the Knights of St. Rose, a drum and bugle corps based in Chelsea.
He eventually decided to move to New York City where he studied musical education for one month at Columbia University and six months at The Juilliard School. He quit after finding both disappointing, but liked the atmosphere of New York where the musical scene became the starting point for his professional career.
Corea died of a rare form of cancer, which had only been recently diagnosed, at his home in the Tampa Bay area of Florida on February 9, 2021, at the age of 79.
Jim Nabors was born 93 years ago today.
An actor and singer, Nabors was born and raised in Sylacauga, Alabama. He moved to southern California because of his asthma. While working at a Santa Monica nightclub, The Horn, he was discovered by Andy Griffith and later joined The Andy Griffith Show, playing Gomer Pyle.
The character proved popular and Nabors was given his own spin-off show, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. Though best known for his portrayal of Gomer Pyle, Nabors became a popular guest on variety shows in the 1960s and 1970s (including two specials of his own in 1969 and 1974), which showcased his rich baritone voice. He subsequently recorded numerous albums and singles, most of them containing romantic ballads.
Nabors is also well known for singing, "Back Home Again in Indiana," prior to the start of the Indianapolis 500, held annually over the Memorial Day Weekend. Except for a few absences due to health or other conflicts, Nabors sang the unofficial Indiana anthem every year from 1972 until his final time in 2014.
Nabors died at his Honolulu, Hawaii, home on November 30, 2017 at age 87.
The United States Marine Corps released a statement on Nabors: "Semper Fi, Gomer Pyle. Rest in peace Jim Nabors, one of the few to ever be named an Honorary Marine."
Carol Burnett paid tribute to Nabors saying they were "close friends for 52 years. ... My heart is heavy. I’m grateful he was a large part of my life. I miss him. I love him.
Kenny Wayne Shepherd is 46 years old today.
A guitarist, singer and songwriter from Shreveport, Louisiana, Shepard has released several studio albums and experienced a rare level of commercial success both as a blues artist and a young musician.
He is a completely self-taught guitarist who does not read music. Growing up, Shepherd's father (Ken Shepherd) was a local radio personality and occasional concert promoter who had a vast collection of music.
Shepherd got his first guitar at the age of three or four, when his grandmother purchased a series of several plastic guitars for him with S&H Green Stamps, which Shepherd has said he would "go through like candy."
Shepherd said in a 2010 interview that he began playing guitar in earnest at age seven, about six months after meeting and being "pretty mesmerized” by Stevie Ray Vaughan in June, 1984 at one of his father's promoted concerts.
His self-taught method employed a process of learning one note at a time, playing and rewinding cassette tapes, using "a cheap Yamaha wanna-be Stratocaster...made out of plywood, basically." He learned Muddy Waters, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Albert Lee licks from his father's vast music collection.
At the age of 13, Shepherd was invited on stage by the New Orleans bluesman, Bryan Lee. After proving his abilities, he decided on music as a career. Demo tapes were made and a two-camera video was shot at Shepherd's first performance at the Red River Revel Arts Festival in Shreveport. It was this video performance that impressed Giant Records chief Irving Azoff enough to sign Shepherd to a multiple album record deal.
From 1995 on, Shepherd took seven singles into the Top 10. He holds the record for the longest-running album on the Billboard Blues Charts with Trouble Is...
In 1996, Shepherd began a longtime collaboration with vocalist Noah Hunt, who provided the vocals for Shepherd's signature song, "Blue on Black."
In 2013, Shepherd, along with Stephen Stills (Crosby, Stills & Nash) and Barry Goldberg (Electric Flag), formed The Rides. The three wrote, recorded and released a CD — Can’t Get Enough — on August 27, 2013. Stills refers to the band as “the blues band of my dreams.” The band toured the U.S. in 2013 supporting their debut record — culminating with an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
The three reunited in 2015, writing and recording a new record — Pierced Arrow — released last year.
Shepherd married actor Mel Gibson's daughter, Hannah, on September 16, 2006. They have three children, a daughter born October 10, 2007 and sons born 2009 and March 12, 2011.
Here, Shepard performs “Blue on Black” in 2007
Mildred and Richard P. Loving in 1965
Today is the 56th anniversary of Loving vs. Virginia, a Supreme Court case that was a major breakthrough for interracial marriage.
Forty states once had laws prohibiting mixed marriages, but the court’s decision on June 12, 1967, struck down those rules. The date has since become regarded as “Loving Day,” a milestone celebrated in throughout the nation.
Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia
The complex is lit up during the Vivid Sydney festival
Photo by Jason Futrill