On This Day: Everybody Welcome Paul Rudd!

The latest journey through Movieline's deep, rich archives yields another round of historical how's-thats and what's-its, including a Hollywood dynasty born 126 years ago, a technical innovation that would come to define cinema, and, well, the introduction of some talented young Rudd.

· 1870: The first patent for celluloid is registered by the Celluloid Manufacturing Company of Albany, N.Y. Throughout various legal squabbles over the provenance and propriety, the substance is eventually developed into a photographic aid and, by around 1889, a material flexible enough to facilitate the motion-picture medium.

· 1884: Walter Huston (nee Houghston) was born in Toronto to immigrant parents. He later dabbled in vaudeville and started a family -- including young John Huston -- while subsisting as an engineer. And not an especially good one, either; after nearly flooding a town, he returned to his stage background. It was all Broadway and then Hollywood from there, particularly after the advent of sound pictures. His son John would direct him to a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for 1948's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and nearly 40 years later direct Walter's granddaughter Anjelica to an Oscar of her own in Prizzi's Honor. The Huston brood also includes actor Danny and writer Tony (another Oscar nominee for his father's final film, The Dead). They owe you one, Walter. Hell, we all do.

· 1937: William December Williams Jr. and his twin sister Loretta are born in New York, N.Y.. The world will get to know him especially well in the '70s and '80s as the one and only Billy Dee Williams.

· 1969: Paul Rudd, is born in Passaic, N.J. His family would soon relocate to Overland Park, Kan., where Rudd would develop a sad affinity for the Kansas City Chiefs and eventually flee to Hollywood, earning his breakthrough in 1995's Clueless. There's really only one appropriate tribute to the man, so everyone enjoy -- and happy birthday, Mr. Rudd.