Spark Of A Champion

Albert Champion (1878-1927), was a French-born bicycle racing champion with major wins in Paris in 1889 and 1904. After retiring from competitive cycling in 1905, he incorporated the Albert Champion Company in Boston, Massachusetts to make porcelain spark plugs and import French electrical parts and components made by the Nieuport aircraft company. Two years later the Champion name was stamped on the side. He incorporated the Champion Ignition Company, in Lansing, Michigan in October 1908. General Motors founder, William Durant, was impressed with the spark plugs and persuaded him to move to Flint and supply his spark plugs for Buick automobiles.

In 1922 he changed the name to AC Spark Plug Company, utilizing his initials, to settle out of court with his original partners in the Albert Champion Company. In May of 1927, Charles Lindbergh flew his Spirit of St. Louis non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean to Paris, France powered by AC Spark Plugs. Champion died in October of that same year while vacationing in Paris. Today his initials survive as ACDelco (owned by General Motors) and Champion spark plugs sold by the Federal-Mogul Corporation.

Note: In the 1961 advertisement above, a family has just gotten gas for their 1959 Chevrolet when the service station attendant brings out a spark plug. It sounds to him like they need a new one. He will know better once he gets under the hood, but it is best to replace all of them simultaneously. Not happy about the sales pitch, the son throws a 1961 Oldsmobile promotional model at the attendant's head.

The Roy Huggins Affair

Screenwriter, novelist, and producer, Roy Huggins, had a significant influence in Hollywood, most notably in television. Below are three who were indirectly and directly impacted by Huggins.

IRVING BACON (1893-1965) was an American character actor who always had a role to play, no matter how small, in nearly five hundred films. He often played comical everyday men and was singled out by his trademarked surprised expression. He is perhaps best remembered as the soda jerk in the comedy, Never Give a Sucker An Even Break (1941), or the musical, Holiday Inn (1942) as the cagey wagon driver. In later years Bacon would also be cast in serious roles whether in Westerns or modern-day dramas. Bacon had roles on television's Maverick and 77 Sunset Strip. Both lead characters from those shows, Bret Maverick and Stu Bailey, were created by Roy Huggins.

VICTOR JORY (1902-1982) was a Canadian-American actor of stage, film, and television. He was initially cast in romantic leads. In Shakespeare's fantasy play, A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935), he portrayed Oberon and eighteenth-century costume dramas. His career would turn one-hundred-eighty degrees, becoming most identified as a sinister villain in Westerns. A case in point is Dodge City (1939) a ruthless outlaw gang member. His mid-career creased face brought him a wide variety of roles as a Native American Indian or a detective in modern crime dramas in film and television. Nearing the end of his career, Jory had a definitive role to use his trademarked tight-lipped delivery as an old-school FBI agent from the 1930s in "The Attractive Nuisance" (1977), an episode of Huggins's, The Rockford Files.

ADELE MARA (1923-2010) was an American actress, singer, and dancer, who appeared in mostly forgettable films. She was most prolific in the 1940s with such average films as The Tiger Woman (1945) and Exposed (1947) before turning to the new medium of television in the 1950s through the 1960s. The beauty was married to Roy Huggins from 1952 until his death in 2002. Born Adelaide Delgado, her brother, Luis Delgado, was frequently cast in The Rockford Files series. He was James Garner's long-time personal assistant, as well.

On This Date

Ride On The Peace Ship

In 1915, Henry Ford's peace ship, Oscar II, (commonly the Peace Ship) sailed for Europe 'to get the boys out of the trenches by Christmas.' The peace mission was deemed unsuccessful, producing only inconsequential meetings with "quasi-official" representatives from several European governments. Nevertheless, Ford asserted that the Peace Ship's expedition was successful because it stimulated discussions about peace.

I Like It Like That 

In 1961, the New York Museum of Modern Art finally hung Henri Matisse's picture, a paper cut from 1953, "Le Bateau" (The Boat), the right side up. Only one person, stockbroker Genevieve Habert, among the 116,000 visitors to the exhibition, "The Last Works of Henri Matisse,"  noticed that one of the most elegant of Matisse's late career cutouts was hanging upside down for the last forty-seven days.  

 
Many later said they preferred it upside down. Maybe sideways. Perhaps.