October

1 st               1896
Charles and Emile Pathe founded a cinema company in Paris, France called “Pathe Freres” (Pathe Brothers). It would become the most influential film company on the continent.

2 nd            1872
The real Phineas Fogg left the Reform Club in London on his famous journey as depicted in the Oscar-winning film “Around the World in 80 Days” (1956)

3 rd             1937
Actor Anthony Quinn married Katherine De Mille, daughter of film director/producer Cecil De Mille.      

5 th           1892
The Dalton gang, an essential ingredient of many Hollywood B-westerns, was nearly wiped out during an attempted bank robbery at Coffeyville, Kansas. Robert and Grattan Dalton were killed along with 2 gang members. Emmett Dalton survived and, after a prison term for murder, was pardoned in 1907 in time to write for the movies!

                   1970
MGM, one of the greatest movies studios of all time, held an auction to sell off its back lot. One piece sold for 7.25 million dollars.

9 th             1917
The “rotoscope”, a method of photographing drawings to create movement and animation, was invented by Max Fleischer.

                    1941
Torch singer/actress Helen Morgan died from cirrhosis of the liver at 41 because of an addiction to alcohol. She played the role of Julie in the 1936 version of “Showboat” and was portrayed by Ann Blyth in the1957 movie “The Helen Morgan Story”.

Helen Morgan

11th              1947
Actor-dancer Gene Kelly broke his leg while rehearsing for “Easter Parade” and Fred Astaire was tapped to replace him.

18 th            1922
Sid Graumann opened his first movie palace, The Egyptian Theater, with a showing of “Robin Hood” starring Douglas Fairbanks.

19 th           1936
A British court upheld the validity of Bette Davis’ contract by preventing her from working there or any other studio but Warner Bros.

22 nd            1918
Silent film comedian Charlie Chaplin married 16 year old Mildred Harris.

                     1942
Irving Rapper’s “Now, Voyager” opened at the Hollywood Theater in New York. It included that famous scene in which Paul Henreid lights 2 cigarettes and then hands one to Bette Davis.

23 rd              1928
RKO Radio Pictures, a subsidiary of RKO, began operations.

25 th              1938
A directorial revolving door opened on the yellow brick road. George Cukor replaced Richard Thorpe as director of “The Wizard of Oz” and George was replaced 9 days later by Victor Fleming.

27 th               1981
Barbara Stanwyck was robbed and beaten in her Beverly Hills home.

Barbara Stanwyck

29th                 1957
Louis B. Mayer died of a kidney infection at 72. He lived long enough to see the disintegration of the studio system he had worked to establish.

30th                1938
On this night before Halloween, Orson Welles scared the daylights out of America with his radio production of H. G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds”.

                       1968
Ramon Novarro, romantic leading man of silent films and early talkies, was found dead in his home. He had been beaten to death by two teenage hustlers.

1 st             1925
“The Smiling Daredevil” Lester Cuneo, silent Western star, committed suicide when his career took a nosedive. He was 37 years old.

3 rd            1990
The world lost Mary Martin, wonderful star of stage and screen. The mother of actor Larry Hagman, she died in Rancho Mirage, California of cancer at the age of 76.

4th             1929
Dick Powell, not yet discovered by Hollywood, became the singing emcee at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

5th             1954
Baseball slugger Joe DiMaggio and a bunch of his pals (including Frank Sinatra) broke into a Los Angeles apartment expecting to find Marilyn Monroe with another man. Sorry, wrong place, fellas!

6th             1939
A new contract from Warner Bros. meant a salary raise for James Cagney from $5,100 to $12,500 a week.

9th            1939
Greta Garbo was laughing all over town when the ads announcing “Garbo Laughs” went up everywhere to publicize Ernst Lubitsch’s classic comedy “Ninotchka”. The film co-starred the Swedish actress and Melvyn Douglas.

16th          1981
William Holden who won an Oscar for his role in “Stalag 17” (1953), died at 63 from an alcohol-induced fall in his apartment.

17th           1920
Constance and Norma Talmadge signed a contract with First National Pictures to star in a series of films to be produced by their own company.

                 1936
Actor John Bowers whose career couldn’t survive sound, drowned himself. The manner and circumstances of his death provided the idea for the suicide scenes in “A Star Is Born” (1954)

18th           1938
A relatively unknown young starlet ended a 2-day screen test with Melvyn Douglas for the roles of Scarlett O’ Hara and Rhett Butler. Neither won the role they tested for but the starlet went on to fame without it. Her name was Lana Turner.

19th           1924
Thomas Harper Ince (producer/director/screenwriter/actor) died mysteriously aboard William Randolph Hearst’s yacht. Official cause of death was a heart attack but rumors persisted that Ince had been shot by Hearst for making overtures to Marian Davies.

21st             1899
Victor Coutinsouza and Rene Bunzle, early filmmakers and inventors, registered their Stereoscopic Animator for patent. Other early forms of this 3-D process never got out of the experimental stage.

25th             1969
Bill (Bojangles) Robinson died at 71. Robinson was best known as the favorite dancing partner of Shirley Temple.

26th            1927
Baron Georg von Trapp married former nun Maria Augusta. Maria was later played by Mary Martin in the stage production of “The Sound of Music” while Julie Andrews played the part in the film version.

28 th           1920
“The Mask of Zorro”, starring Douglas Fairbanks as the swashbuckling hero, opened at the Capitol in Hollywood.

30th            1947
Hollywood lost two legends in one day. Director Ernst Lubitsch died of a heart attack during the filming of “That Lady in Ermine” and Otto Preminger finished the film.

Buck Jones, the great cowboy star, died of injuries he received 2 days earlier at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire in Boston. He was trying to rescue others from the blaze that killed 492 people.