NewMexiKen

. . . was born on this date in 1855.

At the age of 17, Gillette became a traveling salesman, who made improvement to his wares as well as selling them. By 1890, he had earned four patents. More importantly, he had learned from the President of his company that disposable items made for big sales.

On the road, Gillette used to shave every morning with a Star Safety Razor: that is, a heavy, wedge-shaped blade fitted perpendicularly into its handle. It would have been downright dangerous, in the lavatory of a rumbling train, for Gillette to shave with the type of straight razor used by most men at the time. However, the safety razor did share a major shortcoming with standard razors: the blade had to be sharpened frequently on a leather strop; and even so, the blade eventually became too worn to sharpen.

One morning in 1895, Gillette, now living in Boston, had a revelation: if he could put a sharp edge on a small square of sheet steel, he could market a safety razor blade that could be thrown away when it grew dull, and readily replaced. Gillette visited metallurgists at MIT, who assured him his idea was impossible. It took Gillette six years to find an engineer, William Emery Nickerson (an MIT-trained inventor), who could produce the blade Gillette wanted.

In 1901, Gillette and Nickerson formed the American Safety Razor Company (soon thereafter renamed for Gillette himself). For the first time, razor blades would be sold in multiple packages, with the razor handle a one-time purchase. Production began in 1903; Gillette won a patent for his product the next year.

Competition was fierce from the start, for two reasons. First, virtually half the world’s population was a potential customer; second, once the basic idea was made public, modifications multiplied at an incredible rate. For example, Gillette introduced his double-edged blade, of the still familiar type, in 1904; soon, so did many other companies. In a series of patent battles, Gillette Co. often resolved the controversy by buying the competitor. Over the years, he became a kind of international celebrity, since his portrait was featured on the wrappers of the tens of billions of Gillette blades sold all over the world.

Excerpted from Inventor of the Week: Archive — MIT

Robert Duvall was born in San Diego 80 years ago today. Duvall won the best actor Oscar for his portrayal of Mac Sledge in Tender Mercies in 1983. Among other characters he has portrayed are Boo Radley, Frank Burns, Tom Hagen, Lt. Col. William ‘Bill’ Kilgore (photo above), Bull Meechum and the unforgettable Augustus McCrae.

Walter F. Mondale is 83.

Umberto Eco is 79 today. Two excerpts from a profile today at The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor:

He went to graduate school, wrote a dissertation on the aesthetics of medieval church philosopher Thomas Aquinas, and started working in television, which he really loved. He wondered if he had some sort of split personality, since he was so passionately interested in television and medieval aesthetics, fields that seemed like polar opposites. But he realized that what it came down to was that he was interested in how cultures communicate with signs and symbols, otherwise known as semiotics.

He wrote a murder mystery about poisoned monks, set in the year 1327. He describes it as “an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies, and literary theory.” The Name of the Rose, published in Italian in 1980 and in English in 1983, became an international best-seller. His other novels include Foucault’s Pendulum (1988), Mysterious Flame of the Queen Loana (2004), and most recently, The Cemetery of Prague (2010).

Charlie Rose is 69 today.

Diane Keaton was born in Los Angeles 65 years ago today. Keaton won the best actress Oscar for her portrayal of Annie Hall in 1977. She has had three other Oscar nominations. She has never married but has adopted two children. Her real name is Diane Hall; she changed to Keaton, her mother’s maiden name, because there was already a Diane Hall in the Actor’s Guild.

Marilyn Manson is 42.

January Jones is 33 today.