Alfred Hitchcock Taught Joseph Cotten to be a Murderer
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When Joseph Cotten was cast as Charlie Oakley in Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt, he found himself completely at a loss. The thirty-seven year old actor had never played a real villain before: Oakley was a serial killer whose victims were wealthy widows. Cotten was so conflicted about the matter, he approached Hitchcock for advice. “I’ve […]
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Who killed Vincent van Gogh?
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“The sadness will last forever.” These are among the last words spoken by Vincent van Gogh before his death just after 1 a.m. on July 29, 1890. The thirty-seven year old artist was cradled in the arms of his brother, Theo — the two were in Van Gogh’s modest attic room at the Ravoux Inn, […]
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Russian Invasion of Ukraine Fits the Pattern
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The 5:20 a.m. radio announcement was just one-half minute long. But the chilling content of that broadcast has echoed through history and has never been more pertinent. These are the grim words that went out over the air: “This is Imre Nagy speaking, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Hungarian People’s Republic. Today at daybreak, […]
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Hewitt and Arledge Changed How TV Tells a Story
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In the 1960’s, two shrewd network television producers, Don Hewitt of CBS News and Roone Arledge of ABC Sports, came to the same conclusion. It was time to shift programming into a higher gear, one that added context. Hewitt realized that a dry presentation of the news was not what the public wanted; Arledge came […]
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50 Years Later: The Legendary Funeral of J. Edgar Hoover
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It was more like a presidential inauguration than a funeral. Among the more than two thousand invitation-only attendees were President and Mrs. Richard Nixon, Vice President Spiro Agnew, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Warren Burger, future President Gerald Ford, Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, Acting Attorney General Richard Kleindienst, former Attorney General John Mitchell, […]
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