December 25th isn't a very popular day for classic movie star birthdays, but fans know that Humphrey Bogart was born on Christmas Day -- although most of his movies, from fab film noir to African adventure, don't really strike holiday themes. (Jimmy Stewart works better for that. The classic star of It's a Wonderful Life was born on December 21.)

The other classic film star born on Christmas Day is of a more recent vintage -- Sissy Spacek. However, I don't think Carrie is anybody's choice for heatwarming holiday fare.

Happy holidays!

Dan O'Bannon, whose rich imagination brought us the screenplays for the first Alien movie and Arnold Schwarzenegger's Martian adventure Total Recall, has died of Crohn's disease at 63 in California.

His name was often seen in credits for sci-fi television shows as well as movies. O'Bannon adapted Total Recall from a story by prolific sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick. But the inspiration for Alien - and a scene none of us can forgot - came from a stomach ache O'Bannon once had. Must have been a doozy.

Writers are often little-known, and under-appreciated. But among sci-fi fans, O'Bannon was known and revered. He's gone too soon and will be missed.

So, turns out that Hugh Grant gets stinking drunk one day, flies over to New York on the Concorde with his father, and buys Andy Warhol's painting of Elizabeth Taylor for $3.2 million while on a three-day bender.

Which he later sells for a profit of more than $11 million.

I don't know about you, but nothing I've ever done drunk has been worth $11 million.

So here's my question.

Does being gorgeous also make you lucky? Assuming you don't die tragically from drugs or drink?

Or if you're lucky enough to be born that gorgeous, is that all the luck you'll ever need?

Phillip Jose Farmer's fantastic Riverworld sci-fi books posit that luck is genetic. Makes sense. After all, good looks are genetic. Maybe luck, sometimes, comes with the DNA.

I'll never know...

Grant in Soho promoting 'Did You Hear About the Morgans,' by Jemal Countess/Getty Images

Pretty Jennifer Jones, whose career was transformed when she was discovered by David O. Selznick, and who won a Best Actress Oscar in 1943 at age 24 for Song of Bernadette, died Thursday in Los Angeles.

Selznick was reportedly obsessed with the young actress, who eventually became his wife. She starred in several more films, earning a nomination for Duel in The Sun, but never winning another Oscar.

Decades later. she married industrialist and art collector Norton Simon, more than 20 years her senior. In one of those famous second acts in American life, she became a socialite and patron of the arts who guided the restoration of her husband's museum in LA. The Los Angeles Times has an obituary. Turner Classic Movies will honor the star by playing four of her movies on January 7, beginning at 8 p.m. Eastern.