1947 Year

Times and tastes have certainly changed. What began humbly enough as a relaxed "family" evening with a dinner of broiled chicken on toast has evolved into the biggest event in the film industry. As the Academy Awards settle into their first permanent home--the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland--it's a good opportunity to reflect on the places the extravaganza has outgrown. The first event, May 16, 1929, was held in the Blossom Room at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.

The ranks of the diplomatic corps would be proud of Melina Gudiel and Billie Steiner. As foreign exchange students, they slept in an igloo, kissed a moose and went halibut fishing during their year in the United States. "The igloo was comfortable and warm," recalled Steiner, a 17-year-old German student who lived with a host family in Kenai, Alaska, for nearly a year.

Syd Cassyd, the founder of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, died Friday at his home in Los Angeles after a long illness. He was 91. Begun by Cassyd in 1946, the academy has grown into one of the most influential organizations in the entertainment industry today. In addition to sponsoring the annual Emmy Awards, which recognize outstanding entertainment and news achievement in television, the academy has a variety of outreach and archival programs.

On the occasion of Christmas, you probably should ask Gene Autry why he chooses to play Santa Claus to left-handed pitchers, enriching one of them by $16 million. But, instead, you ask Gene a question of more worldly concern, namely, how did he become linked with the Christmas classic bearing the title, "Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer?" You listen to the radio, stroll the mall, and what does your audio system pick up? It picks up Gene singing, "Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer."

Mary Brian, a romantic leading lady whose memorable career began in the era of silent and early sound films, died of natural causes Monday at a retirement home in Del Mar. She was 96. Brian, a longtime resident of Studio City, appeared in more than 70 films from 1924 to 1947. She co-starred with such leading men of the era as Gary Cooper, Cary Grant and James Cagney, and at different times during the 1930s was engaged to Grant and Dick Powell.

The Dilemmas of an Upright Man: Max Planck as Spokesman for German Science by J. L. Heilbron (University of California: $17.95) Max Planck, a founder of quantum theory and a giant of early 20th-Century physics, was 75 years old when Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany in 1933. He was the pillar of German science, a Nobel laureate, president of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institute, the voice of German scientific research.

On an episode of ABC's post-World War II drama "Homefront," the characters played by Ginger Szabo and Linda Metcalf were to meet for ice cream sundaes. What creator-executive producer Lynn Marie Latham needed to know was whether whipped cream would be a sundae topping in 1947, the year in which the show is set.

John Mortimer, a British lawyer and writer who created the character Horace Rumpole, a disheveled barrister memorably featured in the popular television series "Rumpole of the Bailey," died Friday at his home in Oxfordshire, England. He was 85. The cause of death was not reported.

John Wooden's first All-American at UCLA never played a minute in the NBA. He was neither a prized recruit nor a prolific scorer, and as a shooter, he wasn't much. George Stanich, however, ranked among the most versatile athletes to ever play for Wooden. An Olympic bronze medalist in the high jump before he met Wooden, Stanich later was a minor league pitcher. In between, he was a two-time All-Pacific Coast Conference guard who helped UCLA reach the NCAA tournament for the first time and Wooden to win the first two of his 19 conference championships.