Del Río was one of the few silent film stars who successfully transitioned to “talkies.” She starred in her first talkie, The Bad One, in 1930. Critics praised her ability to speak and sing in English with a charming accent.

Dolores del Río’s impact during this time was significant. She was often billed as the “female Valentino” and was considered one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood. She became a fashion icon and her elegance and expressive face made her a compelling presence on screen. Despite being sometimes typecast in “exotic” or “ethnic” roles, she was able to transcend simple categorization, playing characters from different backgrounds and challenging prevailing stereotypes of Latina women in early Hollywood cinema.

Hetfield was born on August 3, 1963, in Downey, California, the son of Cynthia Bassett, a light opera singer, and Virgil Lee Hetfield, a truck driver. He has two older half-brothers from his mother’s first marriage and one younger sister. His parents divorced in 1976 when Hetfield was 13.

Hetfield and his family were Christian Scientists, a belief system that disapproved of medical treatment. His mother, Cynthia, died of cancer in 1980 when Hetfield was 16, a situation that became an inspiration for some of his lyrics later in his career. After his mother’s death, he went to live with his older half-brother.

Hetfield’s musical journey began early. He started piano lessons at age nine, then moved on to his half-brother David’s drums before starting to play guitar at age 14. He attended Downey High School and later Brea Olinda High School. As a teenager, he was in bands called Leather Charm and Obsession. Aerosmith was a primary musical influence for him as a child, and he has stated they were the reason he wanted to play guitar. Other bands that influenced him were Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Thin Lizzy, Motörhead, and AC/DC.

Below is a collection of 20 rarely seen childhood photos of James Hetfield in the 1960s and 1970s:

Released in April 1988, Even Worse was Yankovic’s fifth studio album. The album’s title and cover art were direct parodies of Jackson’s Bad. The cover featured Yankovic in a similar pose and outfit, with the title Even Worse printed in a font that mimicked the Bad logo.

The lead single was “Fat,” a parody of Jackson’s “Bad.” The song’s lyrics humorously detailed the struggles and pride of being overweight. The music video for “Fat” was a shot-for-shot, scene-for-scene parody of Jackson’s “Bad” video. Yankovic, wearing a fat suit, mimicked Jackson’s dance moves and swagger in the same subway setting.

On July 9, 2009, in the wake of Michael Jackson’s death, Rolling Stone published an article written by Weird Al, a kind of tribute/remembrance piece. In the article, Weird Al talked about the first contact he had with the King of Pop, and how even he was surprised about the warm reception that his request was given.

In his Rolling Stone tribute, Weird Al remembered that, not only did Michael Jackson approve his request to record “Eat It,” but he also signed a contract to say that the two artists were co-creators of the new parody song.

“There’s a contract somewhere that has his signature next to mine, proving that we are the co-writers of ‘Eat It,’ which is surrealistic in and of itself.”

Weird Al largely credits his success to Michael Jackson, which seems generous and kind of him. Yes, it’s certainly true that Weird Al might still have found the same level of international fame and recognition even if Michael Jackson had taken the same road as Prince and denied Weird Al the right to create his parody songs, but it seems that Weird Al’s star really started to rise after those two Michael Jackson songs went viral.

“I don’t know what kind of career I would have today if it hadn’t been for Michael Jackson. In a very real sense, he jump-started my career. ‘Eat It’ basically changed me from an unknown into a guy that got recognized at Burger King.”

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).