Film

Since its publication in 1962, A Wrinkle in Time has become one of the mostfrequently banned or challenged books, for multiple reasons. People have argued that it’s too complicated for children, and earlier critics disapproved of its plucky female protagonist. Among conservative ...read more

It’s become cliche for actors, writers, and directors to say that they don’t care about winning an Academy Award, even if they do. But in the 90-year history of the Oscars, there have been very few people who won a golden knight statuette and then told the Academy of Motion ...read more

MGM’s 1937 sales convention was an affair to remember. There were celebrity meet-and-greets, marching bands, an escort of motorcycle cops. There was a private rail car and plenty of booze and conversation. And, on the night of May 5, 1937, there was a big party, complete with ...read more

In 2006 I walked into a dim and dusty backroom of an old courthouse in upstate New York and my heart stopped. Before me stood a wall of shelves on which thousands of pieces of paper had been haphazardly crammed—countless documents related to the Attica prison uprising of 1971 ...read more

It seemed so easy: Arrive in Hollywood with a suitcase and a pretty face. Get discovered by an agent or, better yet, a movie exec. Next step: stardom. This seemingly simple formula was the dream of many aspiring Hollywood starlets—and the myth of Hollywood’s Golden Age. For a ...read more

1. Jerry Lewis & Dean Martin: From Boom to Bust When one of the most successful teams in comedy history called it quits in 1956 after a 10-year run, their fans were shocked. Together, Martin and Lewis had made 16 films, starred in a highly-rated television variety program and ...read more

1. A veteran of World War II, Gene Roddenberry created a show about fighting another world war—this time in space. After piloting a B-17 bomber in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II, Roddenberry served in the Los Angeles Police Department before he began writing for ...read more

1. Dalton Trumbo The blacklist era kicked off in 1947, when famed screenwriter Dalton Trumbo and several other filmmakers known as the “Hollywood Ten” were called before the House Un-American Activities Committee and asked a now-famous question: “Are you now or have you ever ...read more

1. Ben Kingsley – Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in “Gandhi” (1982) The son of an Indian father and a British mother, Krishna Pandit Bhanji combined his father’s nickname (Benji) and his grandfather’s (King Clove) to come up with his now-famous stage name: Ben Kingsley. After ...read more

When George Lucas developed the storyline for “Star Wars” and crafted his heroes and villains, he tapped into elements of theology, mysticism and mythology as well as his knowledge of classic films. And befitting a story set a “long time ago,” real-life history also played a ...read more

1. Before he was famous, Baum worked as a poultry breeder, actor and traveling salesman. Baum was 44 when “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” was published and by then he’d tried his hand at a variety of jobs. As a young man in upstate New York, he bred prize-winning chickens, ...read more

1. The von Trapps only had to cross the railroad tracks behind their villa—not the Alps—to escape the Nazis. In the climactic scene of “The Sound of Music,” the von Trapps flee Salzburg, Austria, under the cover of night and hike across the surrounding mountains to safety in ...read more

1. Disney came from humble beginnings. Born in Chicago on December 5, 1901, Walt Disney, the fourth of five children, moved with his family to a farm in Marceline, Missouri, when he was four. It was in Marceline—a small-town community Disney remembered as an adult as having been ...read more

After his father, Antoine, a well-known portrait painter turned photographer, opened a small business in photographic plates based in Lyons, Louis Lumière began experimenting with the equipment his father was manufacturing. In 1881, 17-year-old Louis invented a new “dry plate” ...read more

1. One of his first films is lost to history. Following a six-year stint in the sales and advertising departments of a telegraph company, the 21-year-old Hitchcock made the jump to the movie business in 1921. He got his first chance to direct a full-length film with 1925’s “The ...read more

1. Chaplin made his stage debut as a tot. Both of Chaplin’s parents were music hall entertainers in London. In his autobiography, he described how, at age 5, his mother’s voice suddenly failed in front of a crowd of rowdy soldiers. The stage manager—or possibly his father or one ...read more