Total Pageviews

Wednesday 1 July 2020

APROPOS OF NOTHING #74 - 1 JULY 1920 - HAROLD 'ODD JOB' SAKATA

Available for freelance writing commissions on a variety of subjects including family history, nostalgic Belfast and its famous people, shops, shoppers & shopping (40 years in retailing), the golden age of Hollywood (including westerns) and humorous pieces on life's weird and wonderful. Op-eds, columns, non-fiction book reviews too. 

joecushnan@aol.com & @JoeCushnan

I have a portfolio of features, reviews, poetry and short fiction published in all sorts of places - Belfast Telegraph, Tribune, Ireland's Own, Dalhousie Review, Fairlight Books, Reader's Digest, Reality, Lapwing Poetry, Ink, Sweat & Tears, Spillwords, Dear Reader, Amethyst Review, to name a selection.  Oh, and the odd BBC radio contribution. I wrote a book on retailing, on dealing with job losses and a biography of Stephen Boyd.

This is a series of very short items that have nothing to do with the current news agenda.  Swift diversions for a moment or two.

Apropos of Nothing #74 – 1 July 1920

Harold Sakata was born on 1 July, 1920 in Hawaii.  He was an Olympic weightlifter (winning a silver medal in the 1948 Games in London), a professional wrestler and an actor, best remembered for the character Odd Job in the James Bond film Goldfinger (1964).

Odd Job is memorable for his martial arts skills and, especially, for his lethal, steel-rimmed bowler hat.

Goldfinger was his first film and he went on to play similar villainous, menacing and, at times, comedic characters.  He appeared in episodes of The Rockford Files, Police Woman and Quincey M.E.

To help maintain his public profile, Sakata adopted Odd Job as his middle name.

Sakata died at 62 from liver cancer on 29 July, 1982.


Sources: Various

No comments:

Post a Comment