Word: sardonicus
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...Philadelphia and Boston, they labored to whip Breakfast at Tiffany's into something palatable, but the talents of Playwrights Nunnally Johnson, Abe Burrows and Edward Albee couldn't save the musical. After the fourth dismal preview in Manhattan, Producer David Merrick, 54, flashed a sort of risus sardonicus and announced: "Rather than subject the drama critics and the theatergoing public to an excruciatingly boring evening, I have decided to close the show. It's my Bay of Pigs." And this particular sow's ear will cost Merrick...
...brought into the Indianapolis City Hospital at 5:15 p. m., Oct. 26, 1928. She had taken 100 one-thirtieth grain (0.002 gm.) strychnine sulphate tablets at 1 p. m. after a heavy meal. . . . She immediately had a severe generalized convulsion with opisthotonos [body arched], trismus [lockjaw], risus sardonicus [a taut, toothy grin], complete extension of the extremities, and cyanosis [purpling of the skin and mucous membrane]. . . . She was given 81 grains (0.55 gm.) of sodium amytal intravenously. The convulsion stopped and the patient relaxed completely and went to sleep. . . . On the third day she was normal and was released...
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