Mr. Handsome

Calling all baby boomers. Pop quiz: Dubbed “Mr. Handsome,” this young man appeared in a famous 1954 film. Name it.

The movie is Godzilla, which was released stateside in 1956 with added footage of Raymond Burr as an intrepid reporter. The actor in question is Akira Takarada, who has passed away at 87. Born in North Korea, he was in six installments of the series, known as Gojira in Japan. There are 138 titles under his name at IMDb. His bio refers to his persona as the “cocky, slightly cynical urban male.” Thank you, sir. Here’s a fun publicity still:

Headline from nypost.com: “Demoralized Russians reportedly shooting themselves in the legs to avoid fighting.” An episode of Combat!, first aired in 1965 and guest-starring John Cassavetes, is titled SIW, as in “self-inflicted wound.” The accompanying NYP article by Yaron Steinbuch reports 14,000 deaths. Nice goin’, Vlad.

The weather evolved from gloomy to glorious. Almost all today’s trade at the floating book shop was in Russian. My thanks to Wolf and the sweet lady library volunteers, who donated seven books between them; and to the gentleman who donated one in English; and to the woman who bought four translations of Harlequin romances; and to the one who purchased three books in Russian including a huge dictionary; and to Steve, the poet laureate of Sheepshead Bay, who took home another two classical CDs.

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