By Annabella Ramirez
FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
Stuart Townsend (born 15 December 1972) is an Irish actor. He portrayed Lestat de Lioncourt in the film adaptation of Anne Rice‘s Queen of the Damned (2002), and Dorian Gray in Alan Moore‘s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003). In 2007, he directed the film Battle in Seattle.
Townsend was born in Howth, County Dublin, the son of Lorna Hogan, an Irish model, and Peter Townsend, an English professional golfer. His younger brother, Dylan, is also an actor.
In 2005, he starred alongside Gabrielle Union in Night Stalker, the remake of the 1974 ABC TV series Kolchak: The Night Stalker. He portrayed Carl Kolchak, an investigative reporter looking into his wife’s murder. Night Stalker was abruptly cancelled by ABC after six episodes due to bad viewing figures, with some critics reportedly saying he was too young compared to Darren McGavin in the original series.
Townsend’s father, Peter, was a golfer who played in the 1969 and 1971 Ryder Cups. He has a brother, Dylan, and sister, Chloe, from his father’s first marriage to Lorna Townsend, who died in 1994 of a brain haemorrhage. Townsend has two half-siblings, Hugo and Ella, from his father’s second marriage, to Swedish-born Sofia.
Stuart dated actress Charlize Theron after meeting her on the set of 2002’s Trapped. The couple lived together in Los Angeles and Ireland. They said they considered themselves married without an actual marriage, with Townsend stating, “We didn’t have a ceremony. I don’t need a certificate or the state or the church to say otherwise. So no, there’s no big official story on a wedding, but we are married…. I consider her my wife and she considers me her husband.” Theron split from Townsend when they came back on day two of a planned ten-day holiday in Mexico in January 2010.
TODAY’S ALMANAC
In 2023, December’s Full Moon reaches peak illumination on Tuesday, December 26. December’s Moon is most commonly known as the Cold Moon—a Mohawk name that conveys the frigid conditions of this time of year, when cold weather truly begins to grip us. Read more about December’s Cold Moon here.
Question of the Day
Advice of the Day
Home Hint of the Day
Word of the Day
Puzzle of the Day
Born
- Gustave Eiffel (architect) –
- Betty Smith (novelist) –
- Muriel Rukeyser (poet) –
- Tim Conway (comedian & actor) –
- Stuart Townsend (actor) –
- Adam Brody (actor) –
Died
- Sitting Bull (Sioux Chief) –
- Dick Stuart (also known as Dr. Strangeglove, baseball player) –
Events
- The Bill of Rights, first ten amendments to U.S. Constitution, ratified –
- Fire at the U.S. Patent Office –
- Philadelphia streets were first cleaned by a machine –
- Battle of Fredericksburg ends in defeat of union troops by Confederate General Robert E. Lee (Civil War) –
- Groundbreaking ceremonies for the Jefferson Memorial took place in Washington D.C. –
- Gone With the Wind premiered, at Loew’s Grand Theater in Atlanta, Georgia –
- Commemorative stamp depicting Echo I, world’s first passive communications satellite, issued by U.S. post office, D.C., 1960 –
- First rendezvous of two manned spacecraft, Gemini 6 and Gemini 7 –
- Venera 7 Soviet unmanned spacecraft landed on Venus –
- Superman, starring Christopher Reeve, premiered –
Weather
- An intense cold front swept the East Coast, dumping heavy rain on Louisiana and heavy snow on the Northeast –
- Great Blizzard hit the Prairie provinces –
- O’Hare Airport in Chicago was closed because of high winds and heavy snowfall –
- Approximately 1.5 million homes and businesses in Washington and Oregon were without power after windstorms and heavy rains caused flooding, several deaths and closed two major bridges –
COURTESY www.almanac.com
