Thursday, 22 May 2025

1666) Arturo Dejana

Arturo Dejana (1938 - 2022). Italian jockey.
He was born in Sardinia and participated in two editions of the Palio di Siena.
The first time was in 1966, running for the Istrice contrada on a horse called Bolero. Unfortunately, on that occasion Dejana unsaddled his rival Bruno Deriu (who was running for the Lupa contrada), and then grabbed the reins of the "shaken" horse Danubio, that was galloping towards triumph. Deiana won the Palio, but the victory was taken away from him and his bad behavior cost him a disqualification for eight editions.
He participated again in the Palio di Siena in 1972, running for the Selva contrada on the horse Pitagora.

 

- "Arturo Dejana detto Pel di Carota, soprannome dovuto ai suoi capelli rossi... [Arturo Dejana, nicknamed Carrot Top for his red hair...]" https://www.brontolodicelasua.it/ciao-pel-di-carota-buon-viaggio

 

- "Gli fu dato il soprannome Pel di Carota per i capelli rossi. [He was given the nickname Carrot Top for his red hair]" https://www.lavocedelpalio.it/2022/12/Ci-ha-lasciato-Arturo-Dejana-detto-Pel-di-Carota


 

Wednesday, 21 May 2025

1665) Giovanni Bagassi

Giovanni Bagassi (1974 - 2024). Italian actor in films and commercials.
He worked mainly during the 80s, in such films as È arrivato mio fratello with Renato Pozzetto, Acapulco prima spiaggia a sinistra with Gigi Sammarchi and Andrea Roncato and in the 1983 film Don Camillo with Terence Hill.
He also worked in commercials for Benetton and Kodak.

 

- "... ex attore bambino dai capelli rossi e ricci e gli occhi azzurri..." [... former child actor with curly red hair and blue eyes...] https://www.today.it/tv/news/morto-giovanni-bagassi-attore-bambino-capelli-rossi-malattia.html 


 

Tuesday, 20 May 2025

1664) Dorothy Hart

Dorothy Hart (1922 – 2004). American actress, mostly in supporting roles.
In 1946, Hart signed a contract with Columbia Pictures.[ Her first big movie break came, starring alongside Randolph Scott and Barbara Britton in the western Gunfighters (1947).
Hart made Larceny (1948), with Shelley Winters and The Countess of Monte Cristo (also 1948) with Sonja Henie, both for Universal Pictures. She co-starred in The Naked City, starring Barry Fitzgerald (1948) and played the bad girl who double crosses her fiancé in William Castle's Undertow (1949).
She became the tenth actress to portray Jane when she appeared opposite Lex Barker as Tarzan in Tarzan's Savage Fury (1952). Hart also co-starred in Outside the Wall (1950) and I Was a Communist for the FBI (1951), playing a Communist schoolteacher who eventually repudiates the party.
In 1952, Hart left acting to work with the American Association for the United Nations in New York. The organization's first female entertainer, she spoke at the United Nations and was an observer at the 1957-1958 meeting of the World Federation of United Nations in Geneva.

 

- "A beautiful Cleveland native with green eyes and auburn hair..." https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-jul-16-me-hart16-story.html


 

Wednesday, 23 April 2025

1663) Rodolphe Salis

Louis Rodolphe Salis (1851 – 1897). Creator, host and owner of the Le Chat Noir ('The Black Cat') cabaret in the Montmartre district of Paris. With this establishment, Salis is remembered as the creator of the modern cabaret: a nightclub where the patrons could sit at tables with alcoholic drinks and enjoy variety acts on a stage, introduced by a master of ceremonies who interacted with the audience.

 

- "Homme carré d'épaules, roux de poil et de teint vermillonné... sa chevelure fauve s'accordait avec sa barbe cuivrée et lui donnait l'air d'un reître flamand." [With square shoulders, red hair and... (ruddy? I'm not sure about that)... his red hair went with his coppery beard and gave him the air of a Flemish trooper.] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodolphe_Salis 

 

- “Rodolphe Salis was a tall, red-headed bohemian with a coppery beard and boundless charisma." https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/search?page=85&q=redhead

 

- "It's not a coincidence that Rodolphe had red hair. His brother purposefully named his establishment the Red Donkey to poke fun of his brother." https://www.ruemarcellin.com/products/l-ane-rouge-cabaret-literaire


 

Wednesday, 16 April 2025

1662) Patricia Laffan

Patricia Alice Laffan (1919 – 2014). English stage, film, television and radio actress and also, after her retirement from acting, an international fashion impresario.
She was the daughter of Irish-born Arthur Charles Laffan and London-born Elvira Alice Vitali.
Laffan is best known for her film roles as the Empress Poppaea in Quo Vadis (1951) and the alien Nyah in Devil Girl from Mars (1954).
She had a sizeable supporting role as Miss Alice MacDonald in 20th Century Fox's CinemaScope mystery thriller 23 Paces to Baker Street (1956). By the 1960s she appeared mainly on radio and television, including performances in Anna Karenina, The Aspern Papers, and Rembrandt, and panel game shows such as Petticoat Line and Call My Bluff. In the late 1960s and 1970s she produced and choreographed fashion shows around the world.

 

- "She was five feet, six inches tall, with dark reddish-brown hair and green eyes." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Laffan


 

Tuesday, 8 April 2025

1661) Jack Warden

Jack Warden (born John Warden Lebzelter Jr, 1920 – 2006). American actor who worked in film and television. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Shampoo (1975) and Heaven Can Wait (1978). He received a BAFTA nomination for Shampoo, and won a Primetime Emmy Award for his performance in Brian's Song (1971).
Warden's breakthrough film role was Juror No. 7, a salesman who wants a quick decision in a murder case, in 12 Angry Men. He also had notable roles in Bye Bye Braverman, The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing, All the President's Men, The White Buffalo, ...And Justice for All, Being There, Used Cars (in which he played dual roles), Death on the Nile, The Verdict, Problem Child and its sequel, as well as While You Were Sleeping, Guilty as Sin and the Norm Macdonald comedy Dirty Work. His final film was The Replacements in 2000, opposite Gene Hackman and Keanu Reeves. 

 

- "The redhead was born September 18, 1920, in Newark, New Jersey, though he spent his childhood in Kentucky." https://www.notablebiographies.com/newsmakers2/2007-Pu-Z/Warden-Jack.html


 

Wednesday, 2 April 2025

1660) Margit Vnouček

Margit Vnouček (? - 1995). Wife of Hungarian actor and comedian Géza Hofi (born Géza Hoffmann, 1936 - 2002).
Hoffman met Vnouček at a ballet school while he was serving as a clerk in the army. Their families were initially against the relationship, but eventually changed their minds and they married in 1959. Vnouček supported her husband in everything, and when she died in 1995, it was a great blow for him.


. "Hofi a katonaság idején már erősen udvarolt Gittinek, aki csodaszép, tejfehér bőrű, vörös hajú lány volt." [During his military service, Hofi had already been courting Gitti, who was a beautiful girl with milky white skin and red hair.] https://24.hu/szorakozas/2013/04/07/igy-gyaszolta-imadott-feleseget-hofi-geza/

- "Hofi a házasságkötés után közel negyven évig kitartott a vörös hajú nő mellett, akit „vörös dög”-nek becézett." [Hofi stuck by the red-haired woman, whom he nicknamed "red bitch," for nearly forty years after their marriage.] https://valodihirek.hu/2023/11/14/hofi-geza-szerelme-sokaig-tarto-nagy-szerelem-hofi-geza-legendas-humorista

Margit Vnouček and Géza Hofi on their wedding day