G. E. Kelly X

06/09/2026

Happy World Oceans Day [June 8th]
"Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea"

06/07/2026

On This Day in 1933: The First Drive-In Theater Opens

On June 6, 1933, the world's first drive-in theater opened in Camden, New Jersey. Created by Richard Hollingshead, the outdoor theater allowed moviegoers to watch films from the comfort of their own automobiles.

The idea quickly became popular and helped create a new form of entertainment across the United States. Drive-in theaters grew in number during the following decades and became a familiar part of American culture.

Today, the opening of the first drive-in theater is remembered as an important milestone in the history of movies and entertainment.

06/02/2026

Madeleine Lebeau's escaping from N**i occupied France almost mirrored her role as Yvonne in "Casablanca" (1942).

Lebeau married actor Marcel Dalio in 1939; it was his second marriage. They had met while performing a play together. She had already appeared in her first film, an uncredited role as a student in the melodrama "Young Girls in Trouble" ("Jeunes filles en détresse," 1939). In June, 1940, Lebeau and Dalio (who was Jewish) fled Paris ahead of the invading German Army and reached Lisbon. They are presumed to have received transit visas from Aristides de Sousa Mendes, allowing them to enter Spain and journey on to Portugal. It took them two months to obtain visas to Chile.

However, when their ship, the S.S. Quanza, stopped in Mexico, they were stranded, along with around 200 other passengers, when the Chilean visas they had purchased turned out to be forgeries. Eventually, they were able to get temporary Canadian passports and entered the United States. Lebeau made her Hollywood debut in "Hold Back the Dawn" (1941), which featured Charles Boyer and Olivia de Havilland in the leading roles. The following year, she appeared in the Errol Flynn movie "Gentleman Jim" (1942), a biography of Irish-American boxer James J. Corbett.

Lebeau learned English during a seven-week stay with Dalio on a Portuguese freighter that was seeking a port for landing.

During the scene where so many patrons of Rick's started singing "La Marseillaise," the French national anthem, many of the actors in that scene were refugees from Europe and their tears were real, including Madeleine's, who was 19 when the film was released.

05/31/2026

Did you know? 👀
The Venetian Theatre at The Venetian Resort Las Vegas was actually built specifically for Phantom of the Opera 😳
That’s why the theater feels so dramatic and over-the-top inside—it was designed to look like the Paris Opera House for the famous show. The production ran there for years and had its own custom-built theater costing tens of millions of dollars.
Vegas really said… let’s build an entire theater just for one musical 🎭

05/14/2026

Support Patients in Dire Need

05/12/2026

Author Marybeth Mayhew Whalen shares the four things she does before writing the first word of a novel (that's worked 11 times so far).

05/12/2026