Phil Hartman (1948–1998) was a Canadian-born American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic artist. Born in Brantford, Ontario, Hartman and his family immigrated to the United States when he was ten. After graduating from California State University, Northridge with a degree in graphic arts, he designed album covers for bands such as Poco and America. Hartman joined the comedy group The Groundlings in 1975 and there helped comedian Paul Reubens develop his character Pee-wee Herman. Hartman co-wrote the screenplay for the film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and made recurring appearances on Reubens' show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Hartman became well-known in the late 1980s when he joined the sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live. He won fame for his impressions, particularly of President Bill Clinton, and stayed on the show for eight seasons. In 1995, after scrapping plans for his own variety show, he starred as Bill McNeal in the NBC sitcom NewsRadio. On May 28, 1998, Hartman was shot and killed by his wife while he slept in their California home. In the weeks following his death, Hartman was celebrated in a wave of tributes. Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly opined that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper ... a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with".
Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Hartman
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
793:
Scandinavian Vikings destroyed the abbey at Lindisfarne, Northumbria, England, to begin the Viking Age. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_Age
1776:
American Revolutionary War: British forces defeated the Continental Army at the Battle of Trois-Rivières, the last major battle fought on Quebec soil that was part of the American colonists' invasion of Quebec. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Trois-Rivi%C3%A8res
1949:
Nineteen Eighty-Four, a dystopian political novel by English writer George Orwell about life in the fictional totalitarian government of Oceania, was first published. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four
2004:
Ethiopian distance runner Kenenisa Bekele set the current world record for outdoor 10,000 metres in Ostrava, Czech Republic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenenisa_Bekele
2008:
A Japanese man drove a truck into a crowd of pedestrians in the Akihabara district of Tokyo, then proceeded to stab at least 12 people with a dagger before being apprehended. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akihabara_massacre
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
commonality (n): 1. The common people. 2. The state of being in common with others http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/commonality
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
Our civil laws will never be supple enough to fit the immense and changing variety of facts. Laws change more slowly than custom, and though dangerous when they fall behind the times are more dangerous still when they presume to anticipate custom. --Marguerite Yourcenar http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Marguerite_Yourcenar