Womb to Tomb – it’s shorter than you think.

Sometimes the delicate strands of birth and death cross even closer than we’d like to contemplate – just consider today’s Womb to Tomb in which a pair of well-traveled movie actors are connected in the tiny karmic space of only three classic cinematic properties:

On this day, July 6th, William Schallert was born. This prolific character actor, known mostly for his television roles in Star Trek and The Patty Duke Show, turns 84 today.

• Schallert costarred in 1967’s Best Picture Oscar-winner In the Heat of the Night with Sidney Poitier.
• Poitier was of course famously shackled to Tony Curtis in The Defiant Ones.

And Tony Curtis gender-bended his way to cinematic history in Some Like It Hot alongside the delightfully clown-faced Joe E. Brown, a former circus and vaudeville performer who passed away on this day, July 6th.