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Updated September 29, 2012, 2:28 pm
On Sept. 30, 1938, British, French, German and Italian leaders agreed at a meeting in Munich that Nazi Germany would be allowed to annex Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland.
On Sept. 30, 1924, Truman Capote, the American author of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and “In Cold Blood”, was born. Following his death on Aug. 25, 1984, his obituary appeared in The Times.
Go to obituary » | Other birthdays »
On This Date
By The Associated Press
1788 The Pennsylvania Legislature elected the first two members of the U.S. Senate – William Maclay of Harrisburg and Robert Morris of Philadelphia. 1791 Mozart’s opera “The Magic Flute” premiered in Vienna, Austria. 1924 Author Truman Capote was born in New Orleans. 1927 Babe Ruth of the New York Yankees hit his 60th home run of the season to break his own major-league record. 1946 An international military tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany, found 22 top Nazi leaders guilty of war crimes. 1955 Actor James Dean was killed in a car accident at age 24. 1962 Black student James Meredith succeeded on his fourth try in registering for classes at the University of Mississippi. 1966 The Republic of Botswana declared its independence from Britain. 1982 The situation comedy “Cheers” premiered on NBC. 1991 The military in Haiti overthrew Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the country’s first freely-elected president. 1992 George Brett of the Kansas City Royals reached 3,000 career hits during a game against the California Angels. 1993 A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck southern India, killing an estimated 10,000 people. 1997 France’s Roman Catholic Church apologized for its silence during the systematic persecution and deportation of Jews by the pro-Nazi Vichy regime. 2004 Merck & Co. pulled Vioxx, its heavily promoted arthritis drug, from the market after a study found it doubled the risk of heart attacks and strokes. 2005 Cartoons featuring the Prophet Muhammad were published in a Danish newspaper, offending many Muslims worldwide. 2007 Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre completed his 421st career touchdown pass, breaking Dan Marino’s NFL record. Current Birthdays
By The Associated Press
Author and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel turns 84 years old today.
AP Photo/Charles Sykes
Actress Marion Cotillard turns 37 years old today.
AP Photo/Joel Ryan
1931 Angie Dickinson, Actress (“Police Woman”), turns 81 1933 Cissy Houston, Gospel singer, turns 79 1935 Johnny Mathis, Singer, turns 77 1939 Len Cariou, Actor, turns 73 1943 Marilyn McCoo, Singer (The Fifth Dimension), turns 69 1953 Deborah Allen, Country singer, turns 59 1954 Barry Williams, Actor (“The Brady Bunch”), turns 58 1957 Fran Drescher, Actress (“The Nanny”), turns 55 1958 Marty Stuart, Country singer, turns 54 1960 Blanche Lincoln, Former U.S. senator, D-Ark., turns 52 1961 Crystal Bernard, Actress (“Wings”), turns 51 1961 Eric Stoltz, Actor, turns 51 1963 Eddie Montgomery, Country singer (Montgomery Gentry), turns 49 1964 Trey Anastasio, Rock singer, musician (Phish), turns 48 1971 Jenna Elfman, Actress (“Dharma and Greg”), turns 41 1980 Martina Hingis, Tennis player, turns 32 1982 Lacey Chabert, Actress (“Mean Girls,” “Party of Five”), turns 30 1982 Kieran Culkin, Actor, turns 30 1984 T-Pain, Singer, rapper, turns 28
Historic Birthdays
Truman Capote 9/30/1924 – 8/25/1984 American novelist, short-story writer and playwright.Go to obituary »
64 Etienne Bonnot Condillac 9/30/1715 – 8/2/3/1780
French philosopher, psychologist, logician and economist73 Zacharias Frankel 9/30/1801 – 2/13/1875
Bohemian rabbi and theologian; founded Conservative Judaism73 Antoine-Jerome Balard 9/30/1802 – 3/30/1876
French chemist; discovered the element bromine71 Sir Charles Stanford 9/30/1852 – 3/29/1924
Irish-born English composer, conductor and teacher77 Thomas Lamont 9/30/1870 – 2/2/1948
American banker and financier71 Jean Perrin 9/30/1870 – 4/17/1942
French Nobel Prize-winning physicist (1926)62 Hans Geiger 9/30/1882 – 9/24/1945
German physicist; introduced the Geiger Counter87 Nora Stanton Barney 9/30/1883 – 1/18/1971
American civil engineer, architect and suffragist90 Sir Nevill Mott 9/30/1905 – 8/8/1996
English physicist72 Kenny Baker 9/30/1912 – 8/10/1985
American movie and radio singer and actor
Her long face and sad eyes are good for conveying melancholy, but if those were the only two essential qualities to pull off a story with a script as scattered as this one, then we have a winner on our hands. But given that it takes more than that to make a story stick, the fact is that sitting through two and half hours of Heroine is quite the ordeal. Because, what we have here is loosely packaged pulp that is as sensational in depicting the life of a Bollywood heroine as it is messy.
The script is neither here nor there in allowing the viewer to take a stand on whether one wishes to sympathize with our heroine or tell her to knock it off. One moment she wants stardom, the other, love. And the moment after that, she wants superstardom, love be damned. Oh, and in the midst of these variances, she also wishes to be an artist. Well, such is apparently the life of a Marilyn Monroe-styled actress in today’s Bollywood.
We’re told there’s plenty of alcohol and substance abuse, sex for favors, and an insatiable appetite for self-love. That might seem like an interesting mix of ingredients for a story that might speak of the rise and fall of a diva, but what we’re offered is quite a pathetic hodge-podge of a series of neurotic episodes that our heroine attempts to navigate time and time again without much success in any sense of the word. Narcissism is alive and well is what we’re made to see, but beyond that there is little else we know of our heroine. When characters aren’t developed, they eventually appear hollow and lacklustre.
Kareena Kapoor is tolerable enough, but no high marks here for any exceptional performance. I suppose with a script as weak as this one, and the demands of portraying every negative emotion from one frame to the next, it would be a tall order for any actor to deliver with conviction. At the risk of sounding unkind, I’d say that her eye-makeup is the only variable on her face. Her two male co-stars are equally forgettable, although Mr. Rampal seems to have a little more chemistry with her than Mr. Hooda.
