1915 in film
Encyclopedia
The year 1915 in film involved some significant events.

Events

  • February 8 : D.W Griffith's The Birth of a Nation
    The Birth of a Nation
    The Birth of a Nation is a 1915 American silent film directed by D. W. Griffith and based on the novel and play The Clansman, both by Thomas Dixon, Jr. Griffith also co-wrote the screenplay , and co-produced the film . It was released on February 8, 1915...

    premieres at Clune's Auditorium Los Angeles and breaks box office and film length records, running at a total length of 3 hrs 10 minutes.
  • June 18 : The Motion Picture Directors Association
    Motion Picture Directors Association
    The Motion Picture Directors Association was an American non-profit fraternal organization formed by twenty-six film directors on June 18, 1915 in Los Angeles, California.Its articles of incorporation stated as that the organization existed to:...

     (MPDA) is formed by twenty-six film directors in Los Angeles, California
    Los Angeles, California
    Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

    .
  • November 18 : Release of Inspiration
    Inspiration (1915 film)
    Inspiration is a 1915 American silent film written by Virginia Tyler Hudson and directed by George Foster Platt and starring Audrey Munson. It is notable for being the first non-pornographic American film to feature full nudity of a woman....

    , the first mainstream movie in which a leading actress (Audrey Munson
    Audrey Munson
    Audrey Munson was an American artist's model and film actress, known variously as "Miss Manhattan," "the Exposition Girl," and "American Venus." She was the model or inspiration for more than 15 statues in New York City and appeared in four silent films.-Life and career:Audrey Marie Munson was...

    ) appears nude
    Nudity in film
    Nudity in film is any presentation in motion pictures of people while naked or wearing less clothing than contemporary norms consider modest. Many actors and actresses have appeared nude, or exposing parts of their bodies or dressed in ways considered provocative by contemporary standards at some...

    .
  • The Allan Dwan
    Allan Dwan
    Allan Dwan was a pioneering Canadian-born American motion picture director, producer and screenwriter.-Early life:...

     directed film David Harum
    David Harum
    David Harum; A Story of American Life is a best-selling novel of 1899 whose principal legacy is the colloquial use of the term horse trading.-Literary significance and criticism:...

    is released. The film is the first in long line of a successful romantic onscreen pairings of actors May Allison
    May Allison
    May Allison was an American stage and film actress whose greatest success was achieved in the early part of the 20th century in the medium of silent film.-Life and career:...

     and Harold Lockwood
    Harold Lockwood
    Harold A. Lockwood was an American silent film actor and one of the most popular matinee idols of the early film period during the 1910s.-Career:...

    .
  • The Duplex Corporation creates a Split Duplex, an early widescreen
    Widescreen
    Widescreen images are a variety of aspect ratios used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than the standard 1.37:1 Academy aspect ratio provided by 35mm film....

     film format where the film image is rotated 90 degrees and occupies half of a conventional frame.

Top grossing films (U.S.)

Rank Title Gross
1. The Awakening
2. La Banda della cifre
3. The Birth of a Nation
The Birth of a Nation
The Birth of a Nation is a 1915 American silent film directed by D. W. Griffith and based on the novel and play The Clansman, both by Thomas Dixon, Jr. Griffith also co-wrote the screenplay , and co-produced the film . It was released on February 8, 1915...

, directed by D.W. Griffith, starring Lillian Gish
Lillian Gish
Lillian Diana Gish was an American stage, screen and television actress whose film acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912 to 1987....

, Sam De Grasse
Sam De Grasse
Samuel Alfred De Grasse was a Canadian actor. Born in Bathurst, New Brunswick, he trained to be a dentist....

, Mae Marsh
Mae Marsh
Mae Marsh was an American film actress with a career spanning over 50 years.-Early life:...

,
Robert Harron
Robert Harron
Robert "Bobby" Harron was an American motion picture actor of the early silent film era. Although he acted in scores of films, he is possibly best remembered for his roles in the D.W. Griffith directed films Intolerance and The Birth of a Nation...

, Wallace Reid
Wallace Reid
Wallace Reid was an actor in silent film referred to as "the screen's most perfect lover".-Early life:Born William Wallace Reid in St...

, and Blanche Sweet
$1,000,000
4. Burlesque on Carmen
Burlesque on Carmen
Burlesque on Carmen is Charlie Chaplin's thirteenth film for Essanay Films. It was released in 1915 and then later recut into a different version in 1916. Charlie Chaplin played Darn Hosiery and Edna Purviance played Carmen. Carmen was very popular at this time and one of the reasons Chaplin...

5. Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...

, starring Theda Bara
Theda Bara
Theda Bara , born Theodosia Burr Goodman, was an American silent film actress – one of the most popular of her era, and one of cinema's earliest sex symbols. Her femme fatale roles earned her the nickname "The Vamp" . The term "vamp" soon became a popular slang term for a sexually predatory woman...

6. The Cheat
The Cheat (film)
The Cheat is a drama film directed by Cecil B. DeMille, starring Fannie Ward, Sessue Hayakawa, and Jack Dean, Ward's real-life husband. The film has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.-Plot:...

$137,364
7. David Harum
David Harum
David Harum; A Story of American Life is a best-selling novel of 1899 whose principal legacy is the colloquial use of the term horse trading.-Literary significance and criticism:...

8. Der Golem
The Golem (1915 film)
Der Golem is a 1915 silent horror film written and directed by Paul Wegener and Henrik Galeen. The film is an original work inspired by ancient Jewish legend. It is a long lost film...

, starring Paul Wegener
Paul Wegener
Paul Wegener was a German actor, writer and film director known for his pioneering role in German expressionist cinema.-Stage and early film career:...

9. The Eternal City
The Eternal City (1915 film)
The Eternal City is a silent film directed by Hugh Ford and Edwin S. Porter, produced by Adolph Zukor and based upon a Hall Caine novel. The film was released through the Paramount Pictures division of Famous Players-Lasky. The movie is based on the 1902 Broadway play that starred Viola Allen...

10. Fatty's Tintype Tangle
Fatty's Tintype Tangle
Fatty's Tintype Tangle is a 1915 comedy short film. A man, tired of his mother-in-law's henpecking, leaves home in anger and sits on a park bench, where a photographer takes a picture of him sitting next to a married woman, whose husband is not pleased....

, starring and directed by 'Fatty' Arbuckle
11. La Folie du Docteur Tube
La Folie du Docteur Tube
La Folie du Docteur Tube is a short silent experimental film directed by Abel Gance, in which a scientist takes a white powder, and then hallucinates. Gance shows the man's hallucinations by using a series of distorting lenses on the camera. A print of the film survives....

12. A Fool There Was, starring Theda Bara
Theda Bara
Theda Bara , born Theodosia Burr Goodman, was an American silent film actress – one of the most popular of her era, and one of cinema's earliest sex symbols. Her femme fatale roles earned her the nickname "The Vamp" . The term "vamp" soon became a popular slang term for a sexually predatory woman...

13. His New Job
His New Job
His New Job is a short 1915 film written by, directed by, and starring Charlie Chaplin. Gloria Swanson appears as an uncredited extra. The title is an inside reference to this being Chaplin's first film after leaving Keystone Studios for Essanay Studios....

14. Honeymoon for Three
Honeymoon for Three
Honeymoon for Three is a 1915 British comedy film directed by Maurice Elvey.-Cast:* Charles Hawtrey as Prince Ferdinand* Elisabeth Risdon as Molly Van Dam* Fred Groves as Cornelius V. Van Dam* A. V. Bramble as Duke of Monte Casa...

15. Inspiration
Inspiration (1915 film)
Inspiration is a 1915 American silent film written by Virginia Tyler Hudson and directed by George Foster Platt and starring Audrey Munson. It is notable for being the first non-pornographic American film to feature full nudity of a woman....

16. The Italian
17. Martyrs of the Alamo
Martyrs of the Alamo
Martyrs of the Alamo is an American film directed by Christy Cabanne.- Cast :*Sam De Grasse as Silent Smith*Allan Sears as David Crockett*Walter Long as Santa Anna*Alfred Paget as James Bowie*Fred Burns as Captain Dickinson...

by D.W Griffith
18. The Morals of Marcus
The Morals of Marcus
The Morals of Marcus is a 1935 British comedy film directed by Miles Mander and starring Lupe Vélez, Ian Hunter and Adrianne Allen. An archaeologist finds a womam hiding in his luggage who has escaped from a harem and they eventually fall in love and marry. It was based on a play The Morals of...

, starring Marie Doro
Marie Doro
Marie Doro was an American stage and film actress of the early silent film era.-Personal life:Marie Doro was born as Marie Katherine Steward in Duncannon, Pennsylvania and began her career as a theater actress under the management of Charles Frohman before progressing to motion pictures in 1915,...

19. Regeneration
20. The Tramp
The Tramp (film)
The Tramp is Charlie Chaplin's sixth film for Essanay Studios in 1915. Directed by Chaplin, it was the fifth and last film made at Essanay's Niles, California studio. The Tramp marked the beginning of The Tramp character most known today, even though Chaplin played the character in earlier films...

21. Les Vampires
Les Vampires
Les Vampires is a 1915/1916 ten-part silent film serial. It was written and directed by Louis Feuillade and stars Musidora as "Irma Vep" a femme fatale whose name is a suspicious anagram of "vampire." The serial is set in Paris and follows the exploits of a gang of master criminals who call...

, directed by Louis Feuillade
Louis Feuillade
Louis Feuillade was a prolific and prominent French film director from the silent era. Between 1906 and 1924 he directed over 630 films...

, starring Musidora
Musidora
Musidora was the stage name of Jeanne Roques, a popular French silent film actress. She became famous for her vamp roles in such film serials as Les Vampires and Judex, in which she developed a persona comparable to that of Theda Bara...

 and Édouard Mathé
Édouard Mathé
Édouard Mathé was an Australian born French silent film actor.He starred in some 51 films between 1914 and 1924.He appeared Barabbas in 1920...


Films released in 1915

U.S. unless stated
  • Assunta Spina
    Assunta Spina (1915 film)
    Assunta Spina is one of the masterpieces of Italian silent film, released in 1915. Outside Italy, it is sometimes known as Sangue Napolitano .-Production:...

    (Italy)
  • The Champion
  • Double Trouble
  • Enoch Arden
    Enoch Arden (1915 film)
    Enoch Arden is a 1915 short drama film directed by Christy Cabanne. It is based on the poem of the same name by Tennyson.-Cast:* Alfred Paget - Enoch Arden* Lillian Gish - Annie Lee* Wallace Reid - Walter Fenn* D. W. Griffith - Mr. Ray...

  • Four Feathers
    Four Feathers
    Four Feathers is a silent film adaptation of A. E. W. Mason's 1902 novel The Four Feathers. Considered a coward by his fiancée and comrades in arms, a British army officer has to redeem himself.-Cast:*Edgar L...

  • The Lamb
    The Lamb (1915 film)
    The Lamb is a 1915 silent film that was Douglas Fairbanks's first starring role in a film. Fairbanks apparently played an extra or warm up part in Martyrs of the Alamo before releasing The Lamb. Surviving stills of The Lamb show Fairbanks at one point as an Indian brave in a near state of nudity...

  • Le traquenard
    Le traquenard
    Le traquenard is a French crime silent film starring Fernand Mailly and Irène Bordoni....

    (France), cast; Irène Bordoni
    Irène Bordoni
    Irène Bordoni was a French singer and a Broadway and film actress.-Early years:Born in Ajaccio, France, from an Italian family, she had been a child actor, performing in Paris on stage and in silent films for a few years, having signed with theatrical agent André Charlot...

  • Martyrs of the Alamo
    Martyrs of the Alamo
    Martyrs of the Alamo is an American film directed by Christy Cabanne.- Cast :*Sam De Grasse as Silent Smith*Allan Sears as David Crockett*Walter Long as Santa Anna*Alfred Paget as James Bowie*Fred Burns as Captain Dickinson...

  • The Two Orphans
    The Two Orphans (1915 film)
    The Two Orphans is a 1915 silent drama film directed by Herbert Brenon and starring Theda Bara. The film is now considered to be a lost film....

  • Work

Short film series

  • Broncho Billy Anderson
    Broncho Billy Anderson
    Gilbert M. "Broncho Billy" Anderson was an American actor, writer, film director, and film producer, who is best known as the first star of the Western film genre.-Early life:...

    (1910–1916)
  • Harold Lloyd
    Harold Lloyd
    Harold Clayton Lloyd, Sr. was an American film actor and producer, most famous for his silent comedies....

    (1913–1921)
  • Charlie Chaplin
    Charlie Chaplin
    Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...

    (1914–1923

Births

  • January 9 - Anita Louise
    Anita Louise
    -Life and career:Born Anita Louise Fremault in New York, New York, she made her acting debut on Broadway at the age of six, and within a year was appearing regularly in Hollywood films...

    , actress (d. 1970
    1970 in film
    The year 1970 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 9 - Larry Fine, the second member of The Three Stooges, suffers a massive stroke, therefore ending his career....

    )
  • January 9 - Fernando Lamas
    Fernando Lamas
    Fernando Álvaro Lamas was an Argentine-born actor and director, and the father of actor Lorenzo Lamas.-Early life and career:...

    , actor (d. 1982
    1982 in film
    -Events:* March 26 = I Ought to Be in Pictures, starring Walter Matthau, Ann-Margret and Dinah Manoff is released. Manoff would not appear in another movie until 1987's Backfire.* June = PG-rated film E.T...

    )
  • January 11 - Veda Ann Borg
    Veda Ann Borg
    Veda Ann Borg was an American film actress.Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Borg was the daughter of Gottfried Borg, a Swedish immigrant and Minna Noble. She became a model in 1936 before winning a contract at Paramount Pictures. A car crash in 1939 necessitated drastic reconstruction of her face by...

    , actress (d. 1973
    1973 in film
    The year 1973 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*The Marx Brothers' Zeppo Marx divorces his second wife, Barbara Blakely. Blakely would later marry actor/singer Frank Sinatra....

    )
  • January 26 - William Hopper
    William Hopper
    William Hopper, born DeWolf Hopper, Jr. was an American actor. He is best-remembered for playing Paul Drake on television's Perry Mason.-Early life:...

    , actor; son of Hedda Hopper
    Hedda Hopper
    Hedda Hopper was an American actress and gossip columnist, whose long-running feud with friend turned arch-rival Louella Parsons became at least as notorious as many of Hopper's columns.-Early life:...

     (d. 1970
    1970 in film
    The year 1970 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 9 - Larry Fine, the second member of The Three Stooges, suffers a massive stroke, therefore ending his career....

    )
  • January 29 - Victor Mature
    Victor Mature
    Victor John Mature was an American stage, film and television actor.-Early life:Mature was born in Louisville, Kentucky to an Italian-speaking father from the town Pinzolo, in the Italian part of the former County of Tyrol , Marcello Gelindo Maturi, later Marcellus George Mature, a cutler,...

    , actor (d. 1999
    1999 in film
    The year 1999 in film involved several noteworthy events and has been called "The Year That Changed Movies". Several significant feature films, including Stanley Kubrick's final film Eyes Wide Shut, Pedro Almodóvar's first Oscar-winning film All About My Mother, science fiction The Matrix, Deep...

    )
  • January 30 - Dorothy Dell
    Dorothy Dell
    Dorothy Dell was an American film actress.-Early life and career:Born Dorothy Dell Goff in Hattiesburg, Mississippi to entertainers, she moved with the family to New Orleans, Louisiana, at age 13. She was born into a socially prominent family, and her mother was a descendant of Jefferson Davis...

    , actress (d. 1934
    1934 in film
    -Events:*January 26 - Samuel Goldwyn purchases the film rights to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz from the L. Frank Baum estate for $40,000.*February 19 - Bob Hope marries Dolores Reade...

    )
  • February 7 - Eddie Bracken
    Eddie Bracken
    Edward Vincent "Eddie" Bracken was an American actor.-Life and career:Bracken was born in Astoria, New York, the son of Catherine and Joseph L. Bracken. Bracken performed in vaudeville at the age of nine and gained fame with the Broadway musical Too Many Girls in a role he reprised for the 1940...

    , actor (d. 2002
    2002 in film
    The year 2002 in film involved some significant events. The first significant releases of sequels took place between The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Men in Black II, Analyze That, Spy Kids 2: The Island of...

    )
  • February 12 - Lorne Greene
    Lorne Greene
    Lorne Greene , was the stage name of Lyon Himan Green, OC, a Canadian actor.His television roles include Ben Cartwright on the western Bonanza, and Commander Adama in the science fiction movie and subsequent TV Series Battlestar Galactica...

    , actor (d. 1987
    1987 in film
    -Events:*January 31 - The Cure for Insomnia premieres at The School of the Art Institute in Chicago, Illinois, to officially become the world's longest film according to Guinness World Records....

    )
  • February 21 - Ann Sheridan
    Ann Sheridan
    -Life and career:Born Clara Lou Sheridan in Denton, Texas on February 21, 1915, she was a student at the University of North Texas when her sister sent a photograph of her to Paramount Pictures. She subsequently entered and won a beauty contest, with part of her prize being a bit part in a...

    , actress (d. 1967
    1967 in film
    The year 1967 in film involved some significant events. It is widely considered as one of the most ground-breaking years in film.-Events:* December 26 - The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour airs on British television....

    )
  • February 23 - Jon Hall
    Jon Hall
    Jon Hall was an American film actor.-Biography:Born Charles Felix Locher in Fresno, California, and raised in Tahiti by his father, the Swiss-born actor Felix Locher, he was a nephew of James Norman Hall, one of the authors of Mutiny on the Bounty...

    , actor (d. 1979
    1979 in film
    The year 1979 in film involved some significant events.- Major events :* March 5 - Production begins on Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.* May 25 - Alien, a landmark of the science fiction genre, is released....

    )
  • February 28 - Zero Mostel
    Zero Mostel
    Samuel Joel “Zero” Mostel was an American actor of stage and screen, best known for his portrayal of comic characters such as Tevye on stage in Fiddler on the Roof, Pseudolus on stage and on screen in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and Max Bialystock in the original film version...

    , actor (d. 1977
    1977 in film
    The year 1977 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*In the Academy Awards, Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway and Beatrice Straight win Best Actor and Actress and Supporting Actress awards for Network....

    )
  • March 2 - Lona Andre
    Lona Andre
    Lona Andre was an American film actress.Born Launa Anderson in Nashville, Tennessee, Andre attracted attention with her first films in Hollywood and was named as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars of 1932. After winning the Paramount Panther Woman Contest, she was signed to a movie contract by...

    , actress (d. 1992
    1992 in film
    The year 1992 in film involved many significant films. -Top grossing films:-Awards:Academy AwardsGolden Globe AwardsNational Film Awards...

    )
  • March 17 - Henry Bumstead, art director (d. 2006
    2006 in film
    - Highest-grossing films :Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top-grossing films that were first released in the United States in 2006...

    )
  • April 10 - Harry Morgan
    Harry Morgan
    Harry Morgan is an American actor. Morgan is well-known for his roles as Colonel Sherman T. Potter on M*A*S*H , Pete Porter on both Pete and Gladys and December Bride , Detective Bill Gannon on Dragnet , and Amos Coogan on Hec Ramsey...

    , United States actor
  • April 21 - Anthony Quinn
    Anthony Quinn
    Antonio Rodolfo Quinn-Oaxaca , more commonly known as Anthony Quinn, was a Mexican American actor, as well as a painter and writer...

    , actor (d. 2001
    2001 in film
    The year 2001 in film involved some significant events, including the first of the Harry Potter series and also the first of The Lord of the Rings trilogy...

    )
  • May 5 - Alice Faye
    Alice Faye
    Alice Faye was an American actress and singer, called by The New York Times "one of the few movie stars to walk away from stardom at the peak of her career." She is remembered first for her stardom at 20th Century Fox and, later, as the radio comedy partner of her husband, bandleader and comedian...

    , actress (d. 1998
    1998 in film
    -Events:* February 14 - Sharon Stone marries Phil Bronstein.* Former child star Gary Coleman is charged with assaulting a young female bus driver at a California shopping mall.-Top grossing films:...

    )
  • May 6 - Orson Welles
    Orson Welles
    George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...

    , actor, director (d. 1985
    1985 in film
    -Events:* 3 December - Roger Moore steps down from the role of James Bond after twelve years and seven films. He is replaced by Timothy Dalton.* The Academy Award for Best Picture was won by Out Of Africa, while the highest grossing film was Back to the Future.* Bliss wins AFI Award for best Movie...

    )
  • June 12 - Priscilla Lane
    Lane Sisters
    The Lane Sisters refers to a group of sisters, three of whom achieved success in the 1920s and 1930s as a singing act, with their popularity onstage leading to a series of successful films. A fourth sister was not successful and left this milieu and a fifth avoided show business altogether...

    , singer, actress (d. 1995
    1995 in film
    -Top grossing films:-Events:* March 22 - The Dogme 95 movement is officially announced in Paris by Danish directors Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg.* March 28 - Actress Julia Roberts and singer Lyle Lovett announce their plans for separation....

    )
  • July 7 - Yul Brynner
    Yul Brynner
    Yul Brynner was a Russian-born actor of stage and film. He was best known for his portrayal of Mongkut, king of Siam, in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor for the film version; he also played the role more than 4,500 times on...

    , actor (d. 1985
    1985 in film
    -Events:* 3 December - Roger Moore steps down from the role of James Bond after twelve years and seven films. He is replaced by Timothy Dalton.* The Academy Award for Best Picture was won by Out Of Africa, while the highest grossing film was Back to the Future.* Bliss wins AFI Award for best Movie...

    )
  • August 29 - Ingrid Bergman
    Ingrid Bergman
    Ingrid Bergman was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films. She won three Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards, and the Tony Award for Best Actress. She is ranked as the fourth greatest female star of American cinema of all time by the American Film Institute...

    , actress (d. 1982
    1982 in film
    -Events:* March 26 = I Ought to Be in Pictures, starring Walter Matthau, Ann-Margret and Dinah Manoff is released. Manoff would not appear in another movie until 1987's Backfire.* June = PG-rated film E.T...

    )
  • September 5 - Jack Buetel
    Jack Buetel
    Jack Buetel was an American film and television actor.Born in Dallas, Texas, Buetel moved to Los Angeles, California in the late 1930s with the intention of establishing a film career...

    , actor (d. 1989
    1989 in film
    -Events:* Batman is released on June 23, and goes on to gross over $410 million worldwide.* Actress Kim Basinger and her brother Mick purchase Braselton, Georgia, for $20 million...

    )
  • September 10 - Edmond O'Brien
    Edmond O'Brien
    Edmond O'Brien was an American actor who is perhaps best remembered for his role in D.O.A. and his Oscar winning role in The Barefoot Contessa...

    , actor (d. 1985
    1985 in film
    -Events:* 3 December - Roger Moore steps down from the role of James Bond after twelve years and seven films. He is replaced by Timothy Dalton.* The Academy Award for Best Picture was won by Out Of Africa, while the highest grossing film was Back to the Future.* Bliss wins AFI Award for best Movie...

    )
  • October 13 - Cornel Wilde
    Cornel Wilde
    Cornel Wilde was an American actor and film director.-Early life:Kornél Lajos Weisz was born in 1912 in Prievidza, Hungary , although his year and place of birth are usually and inaccurately given as 1915 in New York City...

    , actor (d. 1989
    1989 in film
    -Events:* Batman is released on June 23, and goes on to gross over $410 million worldwide.* Actress Kim Basinger and her brother Mick purchase Braselton, Georgia, for $20 million...

    )
  • December 7 - Eli Wallach
    Eli Wallach
    Eli Herschel Wallach is an American film, television and stage actor, who gained fame in the late 1950s. For his performance in Baby Doll he won a BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer and a Golden Globe nomination. One of his most famous roles is that of Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly...

    , actor
  • December 12 - Frank Sinatra
    Frank Sinatra
    Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...

    , singer, actor (d. 1998
    1998 in film
    -Events:* February 14 - Sharon Stone marries Phil Bronstein.* Former child star Gary Coleman is charged with assaulting a young female bus driver at a California shopping mall.-Top grossing films:...

    )
  • December 13 - Curd Jürgens
    Curd Jürgens
    Curd Gustav Andreas Gottlieb Franz Jürgens was a German-Austrian stage and film actor. He was usually billed in English-speaking films as Curt Jurgens.-Early life:...

    , actor (d. 1982
    1982 in film
    -Events:* March 26 = I Ought to Be in Pictures, starring Walter Matthau, Ann-Margret and Dinah Manoff is released. Manoff would not appear in another movie until 1987's Backfire.* June = PG-rated film E.T...

    )

Film debuts

  • Mary Boland
    Mary Boland
    -Career:Born Marie Anne Boland in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she was the daughter of William Boland, an actor, and his wife Mary Cecilia Hatton. She had an older sister named Sara....

  • Donald Brian
    Donald Brian
    Donald Brian was an actor, dancer and singer born St. John's, Newfoundland , at the age of eighteen was crowned "King of Broadway" by the New York Times in 1907. Brian is noted for helping President Theodore Roosevelt act more relaxed in public and teaching Frank Sinatra to dance and entertain U.S...

  • Laura Hope Crews
    Laura Hope Crews
    Laura Hope Crews was a leading actress of the American stage in the first decades of the 20th century who is best remembered today for her later work as a character actress in motion pictures of the 1930s...

  • Elliott Dexter
    Elliott Dexter
    Elliott Dexter was an American film and stage actor. Dexter started his career in vaudeville and didn't move to films until he was 45. He retired from acting in 1925....

  • Marie Doro
    Marie Doro
    Marie Doro was an American stage and film actress of the early silent film era.-Personal life:Marie Doro was born as Marie Katherine Steward in Duncannon, Pennsylvania and began her career as a theater actress under the management of Charles Frohman before progressing to motion pictures in 1915,...

  • Douglas Fairbanks
    Douglas Fairbanks
    Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. was an American actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films such as The Thief of Bagdad, Robin Hood, and The Mark of Zorro....

  • Geraldine Farrar
    Geraldine Farrar
    Geraldine Farrar was an American soprano opera singer and film actress, noted for her beauty, acting ability, and "the intimate timbre of her voice." She had a large following among young women, who were nicknamed "Gerry-flappers".- Early life and opera career :Farrar was born in Melrose,...

  • W.C. Fields
  • Pauline Frederick
    Pauline Frederick
    Pauline Frederick was a leading Broadway actress who later became known for her motion picture work.-Early years:...

  • Charlotte Greenwood
    Charlotte Greenwood
    Frances Charlotte Greenwood was an American actress and dancer. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Greenwood started in vaudeville, and eventually starred on Broadway, movies and radio. Standing around six feet tall, she was best known for her long legs and high kicks...

  • Edna Purviance
    Edna Purviance
    Edna Purviance was an American actress during the silent movie era. She was the leading lady in many Charlie Chaplin movies. In a span of eight years, she appeared in over thirty films with Chaplin.-Early life:...

  • Valeska Suratt
  • Erich Von Stroheim
    Erich von Stroheim
    Erich von Stroheim was an Austrian-born film star of the silent era, subsequently noted as an auteur for his directorial work.-Background:...

     - actor and director
  • Charlotte Walker
    Charlotte Walker (actress)
    Charlotte Walker was a Broadway theater actress from Galveston, Texas. She was the mother of character actress Sara Haden-Stage Actress:...

  • Fannie Ward
    Fannie Ward
    Fannie Ward was an American actress of stage and screen, known for comedic roles as well as The Cheat, a sexually–charged 1915 silent film directed by Cecil B. DeMille....


Deaths

  • January 10 - Marshall P. Wilder, diminutive stage and screen actor, age 55.
  • April 26 – John Bunny
    John Bunny
    John Bunny was an American actor and was one of the first comic stars of the motion picture era. Between 1910 and his death in 1915 Bunny was one of the top stars of early silent film, as well as an early example of celebrity...

    , silent film comedian
  • June 16 - Elmer Booth, silent screen actor brother of film editor Margaret Booth
    Margaret Booth
    Margaret Booth was an American film editor.Born in Los Angeles, California, she started her Hollywood career as a 'patcher', editing films by D. W. Griffith, around 1915. Later she worked for Louis B...

    .
  • October 31 - Blanche Walsh
    Blanche Walsh
    Blanche Walsh was a highly regarded American stage actress who appeared in one film, Resurrection based on the novel by Leo Tolstoy and the first three reel treatment of any Tolstoy story....

    , stage actress appeared in Zukor's
    Adolph Zukor
    Adolph Zukor , born Adolph Cukor, was a film mogul and founder of Paramount Pictures.-Early life:...

    3 reel feature "Resurrection" 1912
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