Timelines for year 1940
Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee Jun Fan Yuen Kam (Bruce Lee's full birth name) was born in the year of the dragon , at the hour of the dragon (between 6:00AM- 8:00AM).
Rock Hudson
According to the book, "The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson," the original plan was to call him "Roc" but someone pointed out the possibility of confusion with the 1940s actress, Rochelle Hudson, so a "k" was added and "Roc" became "Rock."
Walt Disney
Although he has been called politically conservative, actually voted mainly for Democrats until the 1940 presidential election. This was a main reason why he was asked by HUAC to testify, and was always particularly anti-communist, because his worst nightmare was being called one.
After adapting Ludwig van Beethoven's 6th Symphony for the soundtrack of Fantasia , he exclaimed, "Gee! This'll make Beethoven!".
Charlton Heston
Was friends with Brock Peters, having worked with him in numerous plays throughout the 1940s and 50s and films throughout the 1960s and 70s. They were slated to star in a biracial cast of Romeo and Juliet in 1946 that would have had Peters playing Tybalt and Heston as Mercutio that was abandoned due to a lack of financial backing.
Bette Davis
Measurements: 34C-21-34 (as a "too busty" starlet), 36C-25-35 (in 1940), (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine)
Michelangelo Antonioni
In 1940, he worked as an editorial secretary for "Cinema", an entertainment magazine published by the Fascist Entertainment Guild, and edited by the son of Benito Mussolini.
Gary Cooper
In 1925 he befriended another young, struggling, would-be actor named Walter Brennan. At one point, they were even appearing as a team at casting offices, and although Cooper emerged in major and leading roles first, they would work together in the good years, too. Most memorably they starred in The Westerner together, where the general critical consensus was that Brennan's underplayed performance as Judge Roy Bean had stolen the film from Cooper.
Turned down Foreign Correspondent and Saboteur .
In 1940, Cooper actively campaigned for Wendell Willkie as the Republican challenger to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's quest for a third term of office. Cooper believed Roosevelt was already too powerful, and would become more so. He told Cecelia Ager though that he advocated most of the New Deal reforms and believed the GOP made a mistake by not emphasizing their intention of retaining most of them. He said, "There's no going back to the ways of the Old Guard." Willkie, a well known womanizer, became firm friends with the actor.
Rosalind Russell
Her performance as Hildy Johnson in His Girl Friday is ranked #28 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time .
Robert Mitchum
His arrest for marijuana possession in the late 1940s was one of the first times a major actor had been jailed for this crime. According to Lee Server's 2001 biography, "Robert Mitchum: Baby I Don't Care," he was still smoking pot into his old age.
Marilyn Monroe
When budding actresses Shelley Winters and Marilyn were roommates in the late 1940s in Hollywood, Shelley said that one day she had to step out and asked Marilyn to "wash the lettuce" for a salad they were to share for dinner. When she got back to the apartment, Marilyn (aparently new to the art of cooking) had the leaves of lettuce in a small tub of soapy water and was scrubbing them clean.
Went to Van Nuys High School (Los Angeles) in the early 1940s but never graduated.
Katharine Hepburn
Turned down the role of Kitty Foyle in Kitty Foyle: The Natural History of a Woman . The part was then given to Ginger Rogers, who went on to win the Best Actress Oscar for her performance.
Was offered the part of Hildy Johnson in His Girl Friday , but she turned it down. As a result Rosalind Russell was cast instead.
Her performance as "Tracy Lord" in The Philadelphia Story is ranked #54 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time .
On American Film Institute's list of "Top 100 U.S. Love Stories," compiled in June 2002, Hepburn led all actresses with six of her films on the list. (Actor Cary Grant, co-star with her in two of them, led the male field, also with six films on list). The duo's The Philadelphia Story was ranked #44 and their Bringing Up Baby ranked #51. Hepburn's four other movies on AFI Top "100 Love Movies list" are: - #14 The African Queen - #22 On Golden Pond - #58 Guess Who's Coming to Dinner - #74 Woman of the Year
Della Reese
As a young girl of the 1940s, she and her mother would go to the movies to watch: Joan Crawford, Lena Horne and Bette Davis, portraying glamorous lives on-screen.