The birthday salute TCM should be running

TCM spent a good portion of this morning showing several of Rita Hayworth's films, as today is the anniversary of her birth in 1918. Interestingly, today happens to be one of those days when there are multiple births of big stars of the studio era. In addition to Hayworth, there's Montgomery Clift and Jean Arthur.

Now to be fair, there are only so many days in a year so it should be unsurprising that some stars would share the same birthday. But I find when I can't think of something to do a post on and look at the people born on this day, I don't come up with three such big names. I didn't even mention the more current people; IMDb's "Most Popular" list of October 17 birthdays only has Hayworth at #7, one spot behind Eminem.

And there are some relatively well-known supporting stars too. From the world of TV there's Tom Poston; from movies there's Spring Byington. But I also note that today is the 99th birthday of the still living Marsha Hunt. Hunt started her career in Hollywood back in the mid-1930s, and had an active career playing supporting roles for the most part until the McCarthy era and the blacklist came along. For whatever reason, she fell afoul of it, and there went her movie career, more or less. I'd love to recommend her role in Kid Glove Killer, where she's the female lead opposite Van Heflin, but it doesn't seem to be on DVD. Anyhow, since she worked at MGM, it would probably be easier for TCM to round up a bunch of her movies for a birthday tribute. Maybe for her centenary next year.