Ballroom With Steve & Roxanne

Los Angeles police are seeking the public's help in identifying a young child who was found inside a car, along with a dog, after someone failed to steal it in Highland Park. https://abc7.la/3Lpq2xk

Demonstrators Take To New York City Streets: 'Venezuela's Not Yours!' LOADINGERROR LOADING5 minutes agoSebastian MurdockDemonstrators Take To New York City Streets: 'Venezuela's Not Yours!'At least 1,000 people took to the streets of New York City's Time Square on Saturday afternoon to protest the military operation in Venezuela that led to the capture of the nation's...

In 1962, Julie Andrews stood backstage at the Majestic Theatre in New York, still wearing her Guinevere costume from Camelot, when a short man with a warm smile approached her.
"I'm Walt Disney," he said. "I'd like you to play Mary Poppins."
Andrews was 27 years old. She'd just been told she wasn't "cinematic enough" to play Eliza Doolittle in the film version of My Fair Lady—the very role she had originated on Broadway, the role that had made her a star. Warner Bros. gave it to Audrey Hepburn instead.
Julie Andrews had never made a movie. Hollywood believed her face wouldn't draw audiences.
Walt Disney believed she was perfect.
For the role of Bert, the charming chimney sweep, Disney cast Dick Van D**e—a television sensation from Missouri who had never carried a major musical film. There was just one significant problem: Bert was supposed to be a working-class Cockney Londoner.
Dick Van D**e was from the American Midwest.
Van D**e hired a dialect coach, but years later he laughed about the result: "He didn't do a Cockney accent any better than I did." In 2003, Empire magazine ranked it the second-worst accent in film history.
Van D**e has spent sixty years apologizing for it.
But here's the remarkable truth: nobody really cared.
Because when Dick Van D**e tap-danced across animated rooftops with penguins, when he laughed his way through "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," when he performed acrobatic physical comedy that made Bert feel like a living cartoon—the accent simply didn't matter.
The magic worked anyway.
What few audiences knew was that Van D**e also played a second role in the film. Buried under heavy prosthetic makeup as Mr. Dawes Senior, the ancient bank chairman, he was credited as "Navckid Keyd"—an anagram of his own name. It took decades before most viewers realized both characters were the same actor.
Julie Andrews brought something else entirely: authority that never felt cold, strictness that never felt harsh, magic that felt completely matter-of-fact.
When Mary Poppins slides up a banister or snaps her fingers to make toys put themselves away, Andrews plays it with such perfect poise that you believe this is simply how proper English nannies behave.
And her voice—a crystalline four-octave range that could shift from stern lecture to soaring melody—made every song feel effortless.
Mary Poppins premiered on August 27, 1964.
It became the highest-grossing film of the year. It received 13 Academy Award nominations and won five, including Best Actress for Julie Andrews.
When Andrews accepted her Oscar for her very first film role, she thanked "a man who made a wonderful movie and who made all this possible in the first place, Mr. Jack Warner."
Jack Warner was the studio head who had rejected her for My Fair Lady.
It remains the most elegant revenge in Oscar history. Delivered with perfect, Mary Poppins poise.
The decades that followed brought both triumphs and trials.
In 1997, Julie Andrews underwent vocal cord surgery to remove a benign lesion. Instead of a routine procedure, it left her legendary singing voice permanently damaged. She fought through depression, underwent additional surgeries, and eventually found new purpose—writing children's books with her daughter and continuing to act. Today, she voices Lady Whistledown in Netflix's Bridgerton, a role that won her an Emmy in 2025.
Queen Elizabeth II made her a Dame in 2000.
Dick Van D**e never stopped moving. He overcame alcoholism, stayed active, and credited his much-younger wife Arlene Silver with keeping him young. "She gives me energy, humor, and all kinds of support," he says.
At 97, he became the oldest contestant ever on The Masked Singer. At 98, he became the oldest Daytime Emmy winner in history for a guest role on Days of Our Lives. He is now the oldest living Disney Legend.
On December 13, 2024, Dick Van D**e turned 100 years old.
"A hundred years is not enough," he said. "You want to live more, which I plan to."
Julie Andrews is now 89. Though she can no longer sing the notes that once defined her, she remains one of the most beloved figures in entertainment.
In 2013, Andrews and Van D**e reunited at the premiere of Saving Mr. Banks—the film about Walt Disney's battle to make Mary Poppins. Watching them together, still radiating warmth and genuine affection, reminded the world why their chemistry had been so magical.
Mary Poppins endures not because of special effects or catchy songs.
It endures because two performers—one rejected by Hollywood, one faking the most infamous accent in film history—created something that transcended every imperfection.
Sixty years later, that magic hasn't faded.
And incredibly, neither have they.
Dick Van D**e at 100. Julie Andrews at 89. Living proof that sometimes the real magic isn't what happens on screen.
It's knowing that the people who brought joy to millions are still here, still inspiring, still reminding us that imperfection can become something beautiful.
They made us believe in magic.
And they're still practicing it.


~Old Photo Club

"1929. The first Academy Awards ceremony. They opened the envelope for Best Actress. A 23-year-old nobody won—for three movies at once. Hollywood had never seen anything like her."
May 16, 1929. Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, Los Angeles.
The first Academy Awards ceremony in history.
No red carpet. No televised broadcast. Just 270 people in a banquet hall, eating dinner while they handed out awards for the best films of 1927-28.
When they announced Best Actress, they opened the envelope and read a name most Americans had never heard:
Janet Gaynor.
But here's what made it extraordinary: she didn't win for one performance.
She won for three.
"Seventh Heaven." "Street Angel." "Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans."
Three completely different roles. Three completely different characters. All recognized with a single Oscar.
Janet Gaynor, 23 years old, became the first woman to ever win an Academy Award for Best Actress.
And Hollywood had no idea they were witnessing the beginning of a legend.

But let's go back. Because Janet's path to that stage wasn't glamorous.
Born Laura Gainor on January 6, 1906, in Philadelphia (she'd later change her name to Janet Gaynor), she grew up ordinary. Working-class. No connections to Hollywood. No theatrical family.
Just a girl who loved movies.
Her sister worked as a secretary for Hal Roach, a film producer. It wasn't a glamorous job—it was typing and filing and answering phones.
But it was a door.
Janet started visiting her sister at work. Started watching how movies were made. Started asking if maybe, possibly, she could try being in one?
She got bit parts. Background roles. Uncredited appearances in short comedies in the mid-1920s.
She was nobody.
Five-foot-nothing. Baby-faced. Sweet-looking but unremarkable.
Hollywood was filled with tall, striking women. Dramatic beauties. Exotic femme fatales.
Janet Gaynor looked like the girl next door.
Which, in the silent film era transitioning to sound, turned out to be exactly what audiences wanted.

1926. "The Johnstown Flood."
Janet got a supporting role in a disaster drama about the devastating 1889 Pennsylvania flood that killed over 2,000 people.
It wasn't a starring role. But it was enough.
She was good. Genuinely good.
Not in a showy, theatrical way. In a way that felt real. Vulnerable. Human.
Fox Film Corporation noticed.
They signed her to a contract.
And suddenly, this nobody from Philadelphia was getting lead roles.

Then came the three films that would make history.
"Seventh Heaven" (1927) - Janet played Diane, a Parisian street waif who falls in love with a sewer worker. The film was a massive hit, one of the highest-grossing silent films of the era.
"Street Angel" (1928) - Another tale of poverty and love, with Janet as a young woman forced into prostitution to care for her dying mother, who finds redemption through love.
"Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans" (1927) - Directed by F.W. Murnau, this was artistically ambitious—a German Expressionist masterpiece about a farmer's wife who nearly gets murdered by her husband but finds forgiveness.
Three completely different characters. Three completely different emotional registers.
In "Seventh Heaven," Janet was hopeful and innocent.
In "Street Angel," desperate and heartbroken.
In "Sunrise," terrified and forgiving.
And she nailed all three.

Here's what made Janet Gaynor revolutionary:
She didn't perform emotion like theatrical actresses of the silent era.
She lived it.
Her face could convey devastation with just a slight change in her eyes. Joy with the tiniest smile. Terror with a trembling lip.
The camera loved her because she was genuine.
And in 1927-28, as silent films were dying and "talkies" were being born, Hollywood was desperate for actors who felt real—not stagey, not over-the-top, not theatrical.
Janet Gaynor was the future.

May 16, 1929. The first Academy Awards.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had just been founded two years earlier. This was their first attempt at honoring film achievements.
Everything was different from modern Oscars:

Winners were announced three months in advance (no suspense)
The ceremony lasted 15 minutes
Awards covered two years of films (1927-28)
Actors could win for multiple performances in one award

When they announced Janet Gaynor as Best Actress for her work in three films, she walked to the stage and accepted a small statuette.
No tearful speech. No list of thank-yous. Just a brief acknowledgment.
She'd just made history.
The first woman to win an Academy Award for acting.
But in that moment, nobody understood the weight of what had just happened.

The 1930s. Janet Gaynor became one of Hollywood's biggest stars.
She successfully transitioned to sound films—her voice was soft, sweet, perfect for the wholesome characters she played.
She starred in romantic comedies, musicals, dramas. She was Fox's top female star, earning massive salaries.
Then came "A Star Is Born" (1937).
Janet played Esther Blodgett, a small-town girl who moves to Hollywood and becomes a star while her alcoholic husband's career collapses.
It was a darker, more mature role than her earlier work. And she was brilliant.
She earned another Oscar nomination (though she didn't win).
"A Star Is Born" became one of the most influential Hollywood films ever made—remade four times, most recently with Lady Gaga in 2018.
Janet Gaynor originated that role.

But here's where Janet's story gets interesting:
At the height of her fame, she walked away.
In 1939, at age 33, Janet Gaynor retired from film.
Not because she couldn't get work. Not because her career had stalled.
Because she was done.
She married costume designer Adrian (the man who designed the ruby slippers in "The Wizard of Oz") and chose private life over stardom.
She occasionally acted in theater. Made a brief film comeback in the 1950s. But mostly, she lived quietly, away from Hollywood.
She'd proven everything she needed to prove.
She'd won the first Best Actress Oscar in history. She'd become a massive star. She'd helped shape what film acting could be.
And then she chose herself.

September 14, 1984. Janet Gaynor died at age 77.
Most people under 40 had never heard of her. Silent films were ancient history. Her greatest films weren't readily available.
She died relatively forgotten by mainstream culture.
But here's what she left behind:
She was the first.
The first woman to win an Academy Award for Best Actress.
The first to show that vulnerability and naturalism could work on screen.
The first to successfully transition from silent films to talkies.
The first to prove that you didn't need to be a dramatic, exotic beauty to be a star—you just needed to be real.

Here's why Janet Gaynor's story matters:
Every woman who's ever won an Oscar for Best Actress stands on Janet's shoulders.
Katharine Hepburn. Meryl Streep. Frances McDormand. Cate Blanchett. Every single one.
Janet was first.
She won for three performances at once—a feat that will never be repeated (the Academy changed the rules after 1929).
She helped invent what naturalistic film acting could look like.
She became Hollywood's biggest female star, then walked away on her own terms.
She was a pioneer who never needed to call herself one.

Think about this:
In 1929, movies were just learning to talk.
Hollywood was figuring out what acting for the screen even meant.
And a 23-year-old woman from Philadelphia who got into movies through her sister's secretarial job showed them all how it was done.
She won the first Best Actress Oscar in history for three performances.
She became one of Hollywood's biggest stars.
Then she walked away when she was done.
She died relatively forgotten.
But every Oscar-winning actress since 1929 follows in her footsteps.

Remember Janet Gaynor.
Remember she was the first woman to win Best Actress at the Academy Awards.
Remember she won for three films at once—a feat never repeated.
Remember she helped invent naturalistic screen acting when movies were transitioning to sound.
Remember she became a massive star, then chose private life over fame.
Remember that she's been largely forgotten—but every Best Actress winner since owes her a debt.
May 16, 1929. A 23-year-old nobody named Janet Gaynor walked onto a stage and made history.
She was the first.
And she showed Hollywood what a woman could do.
They opened the envelope. They said her name.
And cinema was never the same.

Enoch "Woody" Woodhouse is one of the legendary Tuskegee Airmen, and he was born January 14, 1927 in Roxbury, Massachusetts. When he was just 17 years old, he joined the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. Woody served with honor as a paymaster in the 332nd Fighter Group and was part of a historic unit that helped break barriers in the U.S. military.

After the war, Woody continued to lead an extraordinary life and graduated from Yale University. He later earned his law degree from Boston University. While attending Yale, Woody faced ostracism and isolation as a Black student on campus. He was ignored in classes and during meals in the dining hall, according to the Yale Alumni Association. Woody said, "I don't consider myself a victim. I would be the first to correct anyone who would refer to me as one."

Woody became a dedicated lawyer, an advocate for veterans, and received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2007. The City of Boston later honored him by naming the intersection of Boylston and Dartmouth Streets "Citizen Square." Woody will celebrate his 99th birthday on January 14, 2026.

(Photo: Courtesy of Enoch Woodhouse | Virginia Mayo/AP | U.S. Army Air Corps)

In 1951, a 16-year-old student in Virginia organized a walkout to protest segregation at her school. Her actions helped bring an end to segregated education in America. More than 70 years later, Barbara Rose Johns is being honored with a statue at the United States Capitol.

Find out how one student’s protest helped change American history: https://bit.ly/4sgju4Z

📸 Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call, Inc / Getty Images

Financial hardship should never condemn a dog to a life behind bars. Actress Kate Mara paid the adoption fees for 10 shelter dogs, transforming their futures from confinement to companionship. This simple but powerful act removed the last obstacle standing between vulnerable animals and the families waiting to love them.
Shelter adoption fees, though essential for maintaining rescue operations, often price out good people who would gladly give a dog a home. Kate's decision to eliminate this barrier for 10 animals shows a deep understanding of what matters: not the transaction, but the transformation – a dog moving from loneliness to family, from uncertainty to safety. For these 10 fortunate souls, her kindness meant everything.
Beyond the immediate impact, Kate's generosity is already inspiring a movement. Animal advocates report increased adoptions and support for shelters as people see what one compassionate act can accomplish. Her example demonstrates that true celebrity is not measured in fame, but in the willingness to use resources to protect the vulnerable. Every dog in a shelter waiting for their chance at a home now has proof that heroes do exist – and sometimes they show up when you least expect it.

'It's a violation of the law': Schumer criticizes decision to strike Venezuela

On New Year’s Eve, while the world prepared to welcome the new year with thunder and fire in the sky, a different kind of miracle quietly unfolded in Germany.

Outside, the night was restless—fireworks cracking like storms, streets echoing with fear for those who could not understand the noise. But behind the thick concrete walls of Cologne Bonn Airport, something rare existed: peace.

One by one, dog owners arrived, carrying more than leashes and blankets. They carried shaking hearts, wide frightened eyes, and the silent plea of animals who trusted them completely. Inside the terminal, the roar of celebration was replaced by soft footsteps, gentle voices, and the steady hum of safety. Glass and concrete stood like guardians, shielding sensitive ears from the chaos beyond.

Dogs who would have spent the night hiding under beds or trembling in corners slowly relaxed. Some curled up beside their humans, others cautiously explored the unfamiliar space, realizing—perhaps for the first time that night—that they were safe. No explosions. No fear. Just closeness.

Across Germany, airports became unexpected sanctuaries. Because fireworks are banned in airport zones, these spaces transformed into islands of calm in a sea of noise. Some airports even opened their doors early, inviting families to visit beforehand so their dogs could recognize the smells, the sounds, and the safety before the night arrived.

As the clock struck midnight elsewhere, here there was no panic—only quiet breaths, wagging tails, and hands resting gently on fur. It was a reminder that compassion doesn’t always come with grand gestures. Sometimes, it comes in the form of open doors, thick walls, and a simple understanding: fear deserves refuge too.

And as a new year began outside in flashes of light, inside these terminals, love chose silence—and won.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is escalating the Trump administration’s attacks on Minnesota by freezing all federal funding to the state’s childcare providers. https://www.wfla.com/news/national/hhs-escalates-minnesota-fraud-fight-prompting-fear-among-daycare-providers/