By Nicole Bernard
FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
Naomi Ellen Watts (born 28 September 1968) is a British actress. After her family moved to Australia, she made her film debut there in the drama For Love Alone (1986). She appeared in three television series, Hey Dad..! (1990), Brides of Christ (1991), and Home and Away (1991), and the film Flirting (1991). Ten years later, Watts moved to the United States, where she initially struggled as an actress. She took roles in small-scale films until she starred in her breakthrough role as an aspiring actress in David Lynch‘s psychological thriller Mulholland Drive in 2001.
Watts played a tormented journalist in the horror remake The Ring (2002). She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as a grief-stricken mother in Alejandro González Iñárritu‘s film 21 Grams (2003). She had starring roles in I Heart Huckabees (2004), King Kong (2005), Eastern Promises (2007), and The International (2009). For her role as Maria Bennett in the disaster film The Impossible (2012), Watts received a second nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. In the 2010s, she also starred in films including Birdman (2014), St. Vincent (2014), While We’re Young (2015), The Glass Castle (2017), and Luce (2019), and appeared in the Divergent franchise (2015–2016).
Watts ventured into television with the Showtime mystery series Twin Peaks (2017) and the biographical miniseries The Loudest Voice (2019). In 2022, she began starring in the Netflix thriller series The Watcher. In 2024, she portrayed Babe Paley in the anthology series Feud: Capote vs. The Swans, for which she received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination.
Watts is particularly known for her work in remakes and independent productions with dark or tragic themes, as well as for portrayals of characters who endure loss or suffering. Magazines such as People and Maxim have included her on their lists of the world’s most beautiful women. She has served as an ambassador for the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS and Pantene‘s Beautiful Lengths. Watts is reticent about discussing her personal life. From 2005 to 2016, she was in a relationship with American actor Liev Schreiber, with whom she has two sons. In June 2023, she married American actor Billy Crudup.
TODAY’S ALMANAC
Question of the Day
Advice of the Day
Home Hint of the Day
Word of the Day
Puzzle of the Day
Soon as I’m made, I’m sought with care, for one whole year consulted. That time elapsed, I’m thrown aside, neglected and insulted. (What is being described?)
An almanac
Born
- Caravaggio (painter) –
- Frances Willard (U.S. reformer) –
- Kate Wiggin (author & educator) –
- Avery Brundage (sports figure) –
- Ed Sullivan (TV host) –
- Al Capp (cartoonist) –
- Syd Howe (hockey player) –
- Alice Marble (tennis player) –
- Brigitte Bardot (actress) –
- Mira Sorvino (actress) –
- Naomi Watts (actress) –
- Hilary Duff (actress) –
Died
- Herman Melville (author) –
- Harpo Marx (comedian & actor) –
- Ferdinand Marcos (Philippine political leader) –
- Miles Davis (musician) –
- Pierre Trudeau (15th prime minister of Canada) –
- Patsy Takemoto Mink (Hawaiian congresswoman) –
- Elia Kazan (film director) –
- Althea Gibson (American tennis player and golfer) –
Events
- Explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo of Portugal arrived at what is now San Diego Bay–
- First photograph of a comet–
- Grand jury in Chicago indicted eight players of the Chicago White Sox for throwing” the 1919 World Series”–
- Hazel, based on The Saturday Evening Post’s cartoon by Ted Key, premiered on television–
- 150th flight of the X-15 aircraft–
- Little Joe, a 5-foot, 300-pound adolescent gorilla born in captivity, escaped from the Franklin Park Zoo in Massachusetts for a second time minutes before closing time. It also had escaped from its section of the Tropical Forest exhibit in August 2003–
- An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.0, near Parkfield, California, was felt from San Francisco to Los Angeles–
- The U.S. government released the new $50 bills into circulation. The redesigned bill had splashes of red, blue, and yellow–
- 437 people dressed as Superman set a world record in Calgary, Alberta–
Weather
- The first of three early snowstorms hit the Northeast, where Hamilton, New York, received four inches of snow and Ashby, Massachusetts got two inches–
- Astoria, Oregon, had a high temperature of 83 degrees F–
- Waterspout formed near Smithtown Bay, New York–
- Hurricane Ian hit the southwest coast of Florida as a category 4 hurricane. –
COURTESY www.almanac.com
