1st               1912
Furrier Adolph Zukor founded the Famous Players Film Company from profits he earned as U.S. distributor for the French film “Queen Elizabeth” starring Sarah Bernhardt. FPFC later became Paramount Studio.

                    1943
Leslie Howard, much-loved British actor, was killed when his plane was shot down over the Bay of Biscay by German fighter planes who thought Winston Churchill was aboard.

3rd           1932
The First National Bank of Beverly Hills failed, taking many of the Hollywood elite by surprise. Among them..Greta Garbo and her favorite leading man, John Gilbert.

7th            1943
The 19 year old son of a British WWI general signed a film contract with MGM. His name was Peter Lawford.

12th           1963
“Cleopatra” premiered in New York to capacity audiences. The $44,000,000 epic survived the star’s illness (Elizabeth Taylor), intrigue (Taylor and Richard Burton), and changes in directors (from Rouben Mamoulian to Joseph L. Mankiewicz ) and location (rainy cold England had to be changed to sunny Rome). The movie received 9 Oscar nominations but Roddy McDowell was denied one for BSA due to a clerical error.

13th           1926
A mentally unstable young mother gave up her 13-day-old baby daughter to foster care. The baby, named Norma Jean Mortenson, grew up to be called Marilyn Monroe.

14th           1938
A group of black actors went to Will Hays, then head of Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Inc., demanding roles other than the domestic servant parts they were usually given. Not much was accomplished.

                 1946
Charles Butterworth, popular character actor, was killed in an automobile crash. He was 50 years old.

16th          1937
Jeanette MacDonald married Gene Raymond two days before her 34th birthday (see The Baritone’s Corner). The lavish wedding reportedly cost $25,000 and insiders reported that the tab was picked up by Jeanette’s boss L. B. Mayer and MGM Studios.

17th           1937
Alice Faye was given the costarring role opposite Tyrone Power in “In Old Chicago”. Jean Harlow, originally scheduled to play the role, had died suddenly 10 days earlier from kidney disease. She was 26.

                 1961
Actor Jeff Chandler died while under the knife for a slipped disc. The surgeon also slipped and accidentally cut a major artery. Chandler bled to death on the table.

19th          1905
The first nickelodeon was opened in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania by Harry Davis. The first film shown there was “The Great Train Robbery”.

22nd         1923
Al Jolson walked out on a screening of his first film, D. W. Griffith’s “Black and White” because he didn’t like the way he looked on the big screen. When he didn’t return, Griffith sued him.

Al Jolson in blackface

29th          1901
America’s most beloved baritone was born in Providence, Rhode Island (see The Baritone’s Corner).

30th          1952
“The Guiding Light”, a popular radio soaper made its debut on CBS television. The long-running daytime favorite gave career boosts to such familiar names as Kevin Bacon, James Earl Jones, Jo Beth Williams and Christopher Walken.

3rd              1935
A young comic, appearing at the Club 500 in Atlantic City, met a struggling new singer…and entertainment history was made. The comic was Jerry Lewis and the singer was….Dean Martin!

5th              1916
The City of New York banned all children under the age of 16 from attending stage shows or movie theaters because of a spreading epidemic of polio. It affected over 200 theaters.

                   1938
Variety broke the news about a “revolutionary new idea”! There were plans to build “two-auditorium” movie houses each showing a different movie!

6th              1919
Carl Laemmle promoted his 20 year old private secretary to an executive position at Universal Studios. The name on the new office door read “Irving Thalberg”! Thalberg would later become L. B. Mayer’s nemesis at MGM.

               1947
Actress Carole Landis died from an overdose of sleeping pills. Her suicide was attributed to a broken romance with married actor Rex Harrison.

9th          1926
“The Son of the Sheik” starring Rudolph Valentino and Vilma Banky premiered at Graumann’s Theatre in Los Angeles. Valentino died less than seven weeks later.

11th        1962 Janet Leigh divorced Tony Curtis and another Hollywood storybook romance bit the dust.

14th        1916
The first all-black feature film premiered in New Jersey. The six-reel movie was produced by the Frederick Douglas Film Co.

17th          1913
Mabel Normand, silent screen comedienne, gave Fatty Arbuckle the first recorded “pie in the face”! The movie was “A Noise from the Deep”.

24th           1952
The critically acclaimed film “High Noon” premiered in the U.S. (two weeks after they saw it in Sweden). One of the Oscars went to cinematographer Floyd Crosby, father of David Crosby of “Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young” a rock group.