Entertainment History
On Feb. 29, 1940, actress Hattie McDaniel became the first black to win
an Oscar. She won best supporting actress for her role as Mammy in
"Gone With The Wind. In 1968, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"
by the Beatles won the Grammy for album of the year, plus three other
Grammys. Bobbie Gentry won the best new artist Grammy, the first
country-and-western star to do so. In 1972, John Lennon's U.S.
immigration visa expired. He struggled for three and a-half years to
keep from being deported. In 1976, Michael Nesmith of The Monkees
married Kathryn Bild. They divorced in 1988. In 1980, the sheriff of
Mason City, Iowa, discovered Buddy Holly's glasses and the Big Bopper's
watch in some old police files. Holly and the Big Bopper had been
wearing those items when their plane crashed in 1959. In 2000,
guitarist Dennis Danell (dah-NEL') of Social Distortion died of a brain
aneurysm in Newport Beach, California. He was 38. In 2004, "The Lord of
the Rings: The Return of the King" won eleven Oscars, including best
picture. Leap Year Birthdays: Actor Antonio Sabato Jr. is 11 (born
1972). Rapper Ja Rule is 10 (born 1976). Singer Mark Foster (Foster the
People) is 8 (born 1984).
