While Loy was dancing in prologues at the Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre, portrait photographer Henry Waxman took several pictures of her that were noticed by Rudolph Valentino when the actor went to Waxman’s studio for a sitting. Valentino was looking for a leading lady for Cobra, the first independent project he and his wife Natacha Rambova were producing. Loy tested for the role, which went to Gertrude Olmstead instead, but soon after that she was hired as an extra for Pretty Ladies (1925), in which she and fellow newcomer Joan Crawford were among a bevy of chorus girls dangling from an elaborate chandelier. The two of them would share a life-long friendship that would last until Crawford’s death.

Rambova hired Loy for a small but showy role opposite Nita Naldi in What Price Beauty?, a film she was producing. Shot in May 1925, the film remained unreleased for three years; but stills of Loy in her exotic makeup and costume appeared in Motion Picture magazine and led to a contract with Warner Bros. There, her surname was changed from Williams to Loy. The idea for the new name apparently came from screenwriter Peter Ruric, also known as crime novelist Paul Cain, who may have been inspired by the name of British poet Mina Loy.

Loy’s silent film roles were mainly as a vamp or femme fatale, and she frequently portrayed characters of Asian or Eurasian background in films such as Across the Pacific (1926), A Girl in Every Port (1928), The Crimson City (1928), The Black Watch (1929), and The Desert Song (1929), which she later recalled “kind of solidified my exotic non-American image.” In 1930, she appeared in The Great Divide. It took years for her to overcome this typecasting, and as late as 1932, she was cast as a villainous Eurasian in Thirteen Women (1932) and, opposite Boris Karloff, as the depraved sadistic daughter of the title character in The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932).

Van der Elsken’s raw, gritty, and intimate style perfectly captured Myers’s unconventional spirit and the vibrant yet challenging life of artists and outsiders in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés quarter. His photographs of her helped cement her image as a muse and a symbol of the era’s counterculture. Many of these photographs date from the early to mid-1950s, showcasing Myers in various settings, from cafes and streets to more intimate portraits.

William Castle was a producer and director with a live theater background and a reputation for being able to crank out competent, crowd-pleasing B-movies on time and under budget. He also possessed a showman’s shrewd understanding of what it took to fill cinemas in an age when television was slowly overtaking the movie-going experience.

In 1958 he had the idea for a live-action special effect he called “Emergo.” and so he produced a movie to justify that effect, telling the screenwriter that he didn’t care what the story was about as long as it featured a skeleton emerging from a vat of acid.

The resulting film was titled House On Haunted Hill and starred Vincent Price as an eccentric millionaire who invites guests to stay in his haunted mansion. In true proto-Scooby Doo style, it is eventually revealed that the millionaire was faking the haunt in self-defense against a murder plot. None of that mattered very much to Castle’s first matinee audiences, who were on the edge of their seats waiting to experience Emergo.

At the crucial moment, as the apparently ghostly skeleton appeared on-screen, a glowing plastic skeleton would emerge from behind the screen and “float” out over the cinema audience via a system of wires and pulleys. Meanwhile, Vincent Price’s on-screen character was seen manipulating a gadget that appeared to be controlling the flying specter, maneuvering it until it returned to its lair.

The novelty of Emergo caught the public imagination and, as word slowly spread from town to town, local kids would compete to see who could be the first to hit the flying skeleton with thrown popcorn. The important thing to Castle, of course, was that they had paid to get in.

Castle’s later promotional gimmicks included “Percepto” (electric buzzers installed in cinema seats, for The Tingler) and the “Punishment Poll” (in which audiences were purportedly able to “vote” for the punishment of the on-screen villain Mr. Sardonicus).

Before they became the pioneers of heavy metal, the iconic band Black Sabbath was known as Earth. This was a crucial, but short-lived, period in their history that laid the groundwork for their legendary sound.

The band, which consisted of Ozzy Osbourne on vocals, Tony Iommi on guitar, Geezer Butler on bass, and Bill Ward on drums, first formed in 1968 under the name Polka Tulk Blues Band. They then shortened their name to Earth. During this time, they were a blues-rock outfit, influenced by the British blues scene that was popular at the time. They honed their skills playing clubs in their native Birmingham, England.

While touring, the band discovered there was another group in England already using the name “Earth,” which led to booking confusion and a need for a more unique identity.

Inspired by the success of horror films, the band decided to create music that was the sonic equivalent of a scary movie. Geezer Butler, the bassist and primary lyricist, was inspired by a Boris Karloff film called Black Sabbath, which was playing across the street from their rehearsal space.

The band wrote a song with the same title, “Black Sabbath,” which featured a dark, ominous sound and a sinister musical interval known as the “Devil’s Interval.” The positive audience reaction to this new, heavier style solidified their decision to change their name to Black Sabbath in August 1969 and focus on a darker, more occult-themed sound.

In December 1982, a young Drew Barrymore, then 7 years old and fresh off her role as Gertie in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, had a memorable encounter with Princess Diana. This special moment occurred at the London premiere of the film.

Barrymore, along with her E.T. co-stars Henry Thomas and Robert MacNaughton, and director Steven Spielberg, met Prince Charles and Princess Diana at the Empire Cinema in Leicester Square in London, UK. During this meeting, Drew Barrymore adorably presented Princess Diana with a plush E.T. doll.

Photographs from the event capture the heartwarming scene: a beaming young Drew handing the doll to a smiling Princess Diana, with Steven Spielberg often seen observing the interaction. Barrymore has since spoken about this experience as one of the most special moments of her life, recalling Diana’s kindness and grace.

Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian handyman who had previously worked at the Louvre, stole the Mona Lisa on August 21, 1911. He entered the museum dressed in a worker’s smock, hid in a closet overnight, and then, while the museum was closed, removed the painting from its frame and walked out with it hidden under his smock.

Peruggia kept the Mona Lisa hidden in a false-bottom trunk in his Paris apartment for two years. During this time, the theft caused a sensation, and even famous artists like Pablo Picasso were questioned as suspects.

Peruggia’s motive, he claimed, was patriotic: he believed the Mona Lisa had been stolen from Italy by Napoleon and wanted to return it to its homeland. However, Leonardo da Vinci had actually sold the painting to King Francis I of France centuries earlier.

Peruggia was finally caught in December 1913 when he attempted to sell the painting to an art dealer in Florence, Italy, named Alfredo Geri. Geri, along with Giovanni Poggi, the director of the Uffizi Gallery, authenticated the painting and then alerted the police, leading to Peruggia’s arrest at his hotel.

Peruggia was put on trial in Florence and, due to his claimed patriotic motives, received a lenient sentence, serving only seven months in jail. The theft, ironically, propelled the Mona Lisa to unprecedented global fame.