BALLANTINE HOUSE AT THE NEWARK MUSEUM 

Built in 1885 for Jeannette and John Holme Ballantine of the celebrated Newark beer-brewing family, this brick and limestone mansion originally had 27 rooms, including eight bedrooms and three bathrooms.  The house was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1985.  The Ballantines were one of the prominent brewing families in Newark during the 19th century.  Their brewery company was founded in 1840 by Peter Ballantine, John’s father, who emigrated from Scotland.  John and his two brothers joined the business and in 1857 the company was renamed P. Ballantine and Sons.  By 1879, it had become sixth largest brewery in the US.  The name was used for the next 115 years, until the company closed its brewery in May 1972.  https://www.journeythroughjersey.com/sites/ballantine-house-at-the-newark-museum/   

Ray Milland (born Alfred Reginald Jones; 1907–1986) was a Welsh-American actor and film director.  He is often remembered for his portrayal of an alcoholic writer in Billy Wilder's The Lost Weekend (1945), which won him Best Actor at Cannes, a Golden Globe Award, and ultimately an Academy Award—the first such accolades for any Welsh actor.  Before becoming an actor, Milland served in the Household Cavalry of the British Army, becoming a proficient marksman, horseman and aeroplane pilot.  He left the army to pursue a career in acting and appeared as an extra in several British productions before getting his first major role in The Flying Scotsman (1929).  This led to a nine-month contract with MGM, and he moved to the United States, where he worked as a stock actor.  After his MGM contract ended, Milland was picked up by Paramount, which used him in a range of lesser speaking parts, usually as an English character.  He was loaned to Universal for the Deanna Durbin musical Three Smart Girls (1936), and its success led to Milland's playing the lead role in The Jungle Princess (also 1936) alongside new starlet Dorothy Lamour.  The film was a big success and raised both to stardom.  Milland remained with Paramount for almost 20 years.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Milland    

Robert George Young (1907–1998) was an American film, television, and radio actor best known for his leading roles as Jim Anderson, the father character, in Father Knows Best (CBS, then NBC, then CBS again) and the physician Marcus Welby in Marcus Welby, M.D. (ABC).   Born in Chicago, Young was the son of an Irish immigrant father, Thomas E. Young, and an American mother, Margaret Fyfe.  While Young was a child, the family moved to various locations within the U.S., including Seattle as well as Los Angeles, where Young was a student at Abraham Lincoln High School.  After graduation, he studied and performed at the Pasadena Playhouse while working odd jobs and appearing in bit parts in silent films.  While touring with a stock company producing "The Ship", Young was discovered by a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer talent scout who signed the fledgling actor to a contract.  Young made his sound-film debut for Fox Film Corporation in the 1931 Charlie Chan film Black Camel, starring Warner Oland.  Young appeared in over 100 films between 1928 and 1952.  In spite of having a "tier B" status, he co-starred with some of the studio's most illustrious actresses, such as Katharine Hepburn, Margaret Sullavan, Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Helen Hayes, Luise Rainer, Hedy Lamarr, Helen Twelvetrees and (unrelated) Loretta Young.  Yet most of his assignments consisted of short B movies, also known as "programmers", which required brief two- to three-week shooting schedules.  Actors who were relegated to such hectic routines appeared, as Young did, in some six to eight movies per year.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Young_(actor)    

January 29:  National Puzzle Day  The first jigsaw puzzle was meant to help teach geography to young children.  In 1760, John Spilsbury pasted maps on wood and cut them into pieces.  Little did he know that his invention would become the birth of the first jigsaw puzzle.  The old term for jigsaw puzzle is “Dissected Maps”.  When Spilsbury first designed his tool, he used a map of Europe and divided it into pieces.  As it became popular throughout the years, different jigsaw puzzle styles and pictures emerged.  In 1909, puzzle makers started to use a mechanical saw to cut curves and complicated patterns in wood or other materials.  The word “jigsaw” was used to describe how it worked.  The word jig describes the “up and down motion” as it saws the wood into pieces.   Fifteen year old Deepika Ravichandran from East Hampton, University High School of Science and Engineering holds the Guinness World Record for the fastest puzzle solver in completing a 250-piece jigsaw puzzle.   Assembling 18 pieces per minute, she successfully completed the oval puzzle in just 13 minutes and 7 seconds, even without a guide picture of the puzzle.  Who would have thought that a 529-piece Dalmatians puzzle would become the world’s most difficult puzzle?  Designed by Paul Lamond Games, the puzzle needs to be solved on both sides.  Each tile needs to be matched with the shape, color and fit on each of its side.  Believe it or not, someone actually created a jigsaw puzzle with no solution.  In 1989, Stave Puzzles, an American puzzle company from Norwich, Vermont, created 5 Easy Pieces, an April Fool’s puzzle with no solution.  https://puzzleready.com/blogs/learn/top-10-facts-every-puzzle-lovers-should-know    

Still round the corner there may wait, / a new road or a secret gate. - J.R.R. Tolkien, novelist and philologist (3 Jan 1892-1973)

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2765  January 3, 2024