Tag Archives: Unusual

What To Do When There’s A Cigarette Shortage

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No Cigarettes? Smoke A Pipe.

Lady With Pipe
London- Josephine Yorke, actress now appearing in the cast of the perennial musical, “Chu Chin Chow” has an answer to England’s current shortage of cigarettes. She smokes a pipe. Here she enjoys a smoke in her dressing room. PASSED BY BRITISH CENSOR credit photo: Acme, 8/15/1941

Smoking is not necessarily in vogue these days in England or most places for that matter. Vaping is what attracts potential new nicotine addicts.

Tobacco pipe smoking has also been in steep decline over the last few decades. Maybe not so for pipes filled with other illicit substances like weed, hash, crack, and opium. Continue reading →

Classic Hollywood #187 – Marie Wilson Protests Wearing A Corset

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Marie Wilson Stages A Protest Against “Fencing Her In” With A Corset

There was no news slug on the rear of this photograph, but tracking down what the commotion was all about was easy. It’s a publicity stunt of the silliest magnitude.

Film Lovelies Protest Corsets, Win Short Ribs
Hollywood, CA – Carrying signs and corsets Hollywood lovelies picket a movie studio. They are from left, with “No! To Corsets” sign is Marie Wilson, in background, Judy Cook, the picketed producer Albert Lewin and Darlene De Mos. photo: AP 5/15/1946

The Des Moines Register was one of the news Continue reading →

How A $10 Mistake Cost A Pizza Shop $22,000

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The Customer Is Always Right (Even When You Don’t Think They Are)

I heard this story recently and in my experience, sets a record for holding a grudge against a business.

22 years ago along with her two toddlers, a steady customer went into her local upper east side pizza shop, to buy a slice.

She gave the pizzaman cashier a twenty dollar bill.

The change received was for a ten. Continue reading →

6-Year-Old Snake Charmer – 1949

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Parisian Judge Orders 6-Year-Old To Stop Snake Charming

JUST CHARMER NOW, NO SNAKE
Paris, France – She was “Nita”a snake charmer in a traveling circus, who thrilled the audience with her five foot rose python snake form Brazil. But she was also Nicole Vaissiere, six-year-old. So she’s been taken out of her animal trainer step-father’s side show by a court order. Nicole’s on her way to school where the three R’s aren’t all in the word wriggle. Credit: Acme photo by New York staff correspondent David S. Boyer 12/29/1949

And what else? That’s our usual question to a news story like this.

Checking the news outlets of the time did not yield much more information. United Press International did report some additional facts. Nicole’s snake act Continue reading →

Classic Hollywood #177 – Rita Hayworth And Penguin – 1937

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Rita Hayworth And A Smoking Penguin

Sometimes we run across photographs with no logical explanation. When there is no news slug we are left to speculate – what is going on here? This is one of those cases.

Besides being identified on the rear as Rita Hayworth and a United Press International photo, there was nothing else written identifying the action or location.

Fortunately entering “Rita Hayworth” and Penguin in a search engine can solve a mystery. Continue reading →

Boyfriend Proposes To His Girl, Then Shoots Her – 1915

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Matrimony Or Else

Marriage Proposal Gone Wrong On New York’s Upper East Side

If you imagine that in the good old days courtship always involved proper etiquette, courtesy and social mores you would be mistaken.

While combing through the archives of the New York Tribune we came across this article Continue reading →

Two Of The Dionne Quintuplets Turn 90-Years-Old Today

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Annette and Cécile Dionne Turn 90 On May 28, 2024
(see update at end of the article)

Turning 90 is still considered a feat of longevity and cause for celebration.

But for two Canadian women, Annette Dionne Allard and Cécile Dionne Langlois, turning 90 on  May 28 will still be a bittersweet day. Their siblings are dead and much of their early lives were lived under constant scrutiny.

Annette and Cécile, are each one fifth of what were the world’s most famous sisters.

When it was announced that five baby girls were born to Oliva-Édouard and his wife Elzire Dionne on May 28 1934 in rural Callendar, Ontario Canada, the world went into Dionne Quintuplet-mania.

The Dionne’s were the first known set of quintuplets to survive infancy. Continue reading →

Not A Halloween Prop, Long Island Boys Find A Human Skull In A Torture Device

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Long Island Kids Dig Up A Real Skeleton Horror – 1934

This news photograph showing a skull that might be a prop from a Boris Karloff or Bela Lugosi horror film, are the actual remains of an ancient criminal that were discovered two centuries after his demise.

The news slug explains: Continue reading →

Sign Shows Where Barbra Streisand’s Dog Urinated In Wiscasset Maine

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A Non-Historic Off-Road Sign In Wiscasset Maine Shows The Spot Where Barbra Streisand’s Dog Urinated

About 40 miles north of Portland is the town of Wiscasset Maine. Up until the early 1800s Wiscasset was a center for shipbuilding, fishing and lumber and was the busiest seaport north of Boston. Continue reading →