Recently I acquired a very large and heavy book’Chronicle of the 20th Century’ and in it for each year there are small articles and pictures of all the major events including some film related ones.

It is fascinating and a book that you can go back to time after time with each visit producing another gem of information. It has an Australian angle – I purchased it last month on a visit to see my daughter and family and now am reading it on a near daily basis

This below is one with – very much a film angle :–

Johnny Weissmuller sets swiming record

On July 9th 1922 one of sport’s classic time barrires was decisively broken today as Johhny Weissmuller an18 year old Austrian born American immigrant from Chicago became the first man to swim 100 meters in less than a minute.

For more than a decade Hawaiian Americans Duke Kahanamoka and Pua Kela Kealoha with their traditional island adaptation of the front crawl had dominated the speed events bringing the record down from 63 to 60.4 seconds. Now with a remarkable performance of 58.6 seconds Johnny had smashed the one minute barrier heralding a new era in sprint swimming and bringing the record back to America

Now another one – this time 35 years on in 1957

Diane Cilento a Big Hit in London’s West End

March 1 1957

A 24 year old blonde Australian actress, Diane Cilento is a big hit in London. She plays Tweeny in the film ‘The Admirable Chrichton’ and also has the lead role in ‘Zuleika Dobson’ whose beauty blinded and whose tragic death caused despair

Picture taken on February 28, 1957 of Diane Cilento and David Morton at rehearsal for the musical Zuleika Dobson.

I have since found out that although Diane Cilento did indeed earn rave reviews, she didn’t remain in the production for very long as she was taken ill during the run. That must have been very disappointing for her.

Diane Cilento from Queensland Australia, was indeed a pretty big star both in films and on the stage at this time – a much bigger name than Sean Connery who she married not long after this dat. , Sean Connery took a wife who was much more famous – but that was soon to change as we all know,

Diane has said that they were very happy until the Bond mania caught on and then they could hardly leave the house without being mobbed – it effectively wrecked their private life