Stallone’s childhood was rough, complications at birth left him with partial paralysis on the lower left side of his face, creating his signature slurred speech and snarling look. By the early 1960s, he was a deeply troubled youth living in Philadelphia. He was expelled from multiple schools for behavioral issues and fighting. To channel his aggression, his mother eventually sent him to Devereux Manor High School, a specialized boarding school in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, where he finally started lifting weights, throwing the shot put, and dipping his toes into high school theater productions.

In the mid-1960s, Stallone moved to Switzerland to attend the American College in Leysin. It was a bizarre but pivotal chapter. He worked as a dorm bouncer and a girls’ physical education coach to pay his tuition. It was here that he starred in a campus production of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. The experience made him realize that acting was the only career he wanted to pursue.

Returning to the US, Stallone spent two years studying drama at the University of Miami from 1967 to 1969. He didn’t finish his degree; instead, he dropped out just blocks short of graduation to move directly to New York City to conquer the theater world. By the very end of 1969, he was living the ultimate “starving artist” lifestyle, sleeping in bus terminals, taking odd jobs like cleaning lion cages at the Central Park Zoo, and ushering at theaters just to stay close to the stage.

It wasn’t until 1970 that he would land his first minor film roles, paving the long, rocky road to his 1976 breakthrough.

Osborne made over 250 appearances for West Bromwich Albion between 1966 and 1977. He was a crucial part of the squad that won the 1968 FA Cup Final against Everton. He earned the nickname “Bionic” because he played with a pioneering plastic/metal joint inserted into one of his fingers.

Early in his career at age 24, Osborne survived a cancer diagnosis that required the removal of a rib and part of a lung. Despite this, he returned to top-flight professional football. He later passed away from lung cancer in November 1998 at the age of 57.

Holiday-themed “cheesecake” photography was an incredibly effective publicity tool in 1950s Hollywood. New models and starlets frequently posed with festive, oversized props for events like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Independence Day because national newspapers and entertainment magazines guaranteed publication of patriotic visuals leading up to the holiday weekend.

In 1954, Jayne Mansfield was a 21-year-old mother who had recently moved from Texas to Los Angeles to pursue her dreams of movie stardom. To build her portfolio, network, and gain visibility, she worked extensively as a glamor model.

These early modeling sessions proved highly successful. Within months of shots like this circulating, she caught the attention of major studio executives and publications. By 1955, she would break out on Broadway in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? and quickly establish herself as Hollywood’s primary alternative to her personal idol, Marilyn Monroe.

Born on July 4, 1924, Saint spent the first half of the 1940s at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. She initially studied to be a teacher but joined the theater department on a whim. She became a prominent member of the Delta Gamma sorority and the campus theater group. She graduated in 1946 with a Bachelor of Arts in theater, and her alma mater eventually named their campus theater after her.

After graduation in 1946, she moved straight to New York City. Before hitting the screen, her distinct, expressive voice kept her working steadily in the booming world of Golden Age radio. She did voice work for popular radio dramas and daytime soap operas, which forced her to perfect her vocal delivery and script-reading under tight live-broadcast pressures.

By the late 1940s, television was transitioning from an experimental medium into American living rooms. Saint became one of New York’s busiest early television actresses. She appeared in early anthology series like Studio One and The Philco Television Playhouse. These were broadcast completely live—if you messed up a line or a prop broke, thousands of viewers saw it in real time. To make ends meet between acting gigs, she worked briefly as an NBC page at Rockefeller Center, giving tours and guiding studio audiences. By the turn of the decade, this extensive TV groundwork led to her breakout recurring television role as the quiet, sweet school nurse Nancy Remington on the hit sitcom Mister Peepers.

In 1948, the famous Actors Studio was gaining massive momentum in New York. Saint began studying there alongside future icons like Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, and Julie Harris, learning the internal, deeply naturalistic style known as “The Method.” This rigorous training in the late 1940s is exactly what prepared her to match Brando’s intense, raw energy just a few years later in On the Waterfront, launching her into Hollywood immortality.

The concept of soapbox racing originated in 1933 when Myron Scott, a photographer for the Dayton Daily News in Ohio, witnessed boys racing homemade cars down a hill. Inspired by the idea, he organized a larger, more formal race. The success of this event led to the establishment of the All-American Soap Box Derby in 1934, with Chevrolet as a national sponsor.

In 1935, the race moved to Akron, Ohio, due to its central location and hilly terrain. A permanent track, Derby Downs, was built in Akron in 1936 with the assistance of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and it remains the site of the national championship today.

Over the years, the Soap Box Derby gained immense popularity, especially in the 1950s and 60s, drawing tens of thousands of spectators and attracting celebrities. While originally for boys, girls were first allowed to compete in 1971, and in 1975, Karen Stead became the first girl to win the All-American Soap Box Derby.

 

Lollobrigida participated in the national beauty pageant, placed third, and it helped launch her modeling and acting career. The winner was Lucia Bosè, with Gianna Maria Canale as first runner-up. Other notable participants included Eleonora Rossi Drago.

This event came shortly after World War II. Lollobrigida had moved to Rome with her family, taken singing lessons, done some modeling, and entered several beauty contests. She was already turning heads for her striking looks and charisma.