1959 in film

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The year 1959 in film involved some significant events.

Events

• The Three Stooges make their 190th and last short film, Sappy Bullfighters.
• September 18 - The Marx Brothers' Zeppo Marx marries his second wife, Barbara Blakely.
• November 18 - William Wyler's film Ben-Hur premieres at Loew's Theater in New York City.
• Sammy Davis, Jr. and May Britt start dating.

Top grossing films (U.S.)

(*) After theatrical re-issue(s)
source: http://www.boxofficereport.com/database/1959.shtml

Awards

Academy Awards:

Best Picture: Ben-Hur - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Best Director: William Wyler - Ben-Hur

Best Actor: Charlton Heston - Ben-Hur

Best Actress: Simone Signoret - Room at the Top

Best Supporting Actor: Hugh Griffith - Ben-Hur

Best Supporting Actress: Shelley Winters - The Diary of Anne Frank

Best Foreign Language Film: Black Orpheus (Orfeu Negro), directed by Marcel Camus, Brazil / France / Italy

Golden Globe Awards:

Drama:

Best Picture: Ben-Hur

Best Actor: Anthony Franciosa - Career

Best Actress: Elizabeth Taylor - Suddenly, Last Summer

Musical or comedy:

Best Picture (tie): Some Like It Hot

Best Picture (tie): Porgy and Bess

Best Actor: Jack Lemmon - Some Like It Hot

Best Actress: Marilyn Monroe - Some Like It Hot

Other

Best Director: William Wyler - Ben-Hur

Palme d'Or (Cannes Film Festival):

Black Orpheus (Orfeu Negro), directed by Marcel Camus, France

Golden Lion (Venice Film Festival):

Il Generale della Rovere (General della Rovere), directed by Roberto Rosselini, Italy / France

La grande guerra (The Great War), directed by Mario Monicelli, Italy / France

Golden Bear (Berlin Film Festival):

Les Cousins (The Cousins), directed by Claude Chabrol, France

Films released in 1959

• The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock
• The 39 Steps
• 4D Man
• The 400 Blows
• Anatomy of a Murder, starring James Stewart and Lee Remick
• The Angry Red Planet
• Apur Sansar (The World of Apu)
• The Atomic Submarine
• Ballad of a Soldier (Ballada o soldate)
• Battle in Outer Space
• The Beat Generation, starring Steve Cochran and Mamie Van Doren
• Ben-Hur, starring Charlton Heston
• The Best of Everything, starring Hope Lange, Stephen Boyd and Joan Crawford
• Beyond This Place (also known as Web of Evidence)
• The Big Fisherman
• The Big Operator, starring Mickey Rooney, Steve Cochran and Mamie Van Doren
• Black Orpheus Palme d'Or winner
• Career
• Carlton-Browne of the F.O., starring Peter Sellers and Terry-Thomas and John Le Mesurier
• Carry On Nurse
• Carry On Teacher
• La Casa del Terror
• Come Dance With Me, starring Brigitte Bardot
• Les Cousins
• A Date with Death
• The Diary of Anne Frank, starring Millie Perkins, Joseph Schildkraut, Shelley Winters, Richard Beymer, Diane Baker and Ed Wynn
• Donald in Mathmagic Land (short subject)
• Don't Give Up The Ship
• The FBI Story
• Fires on the Plain
• The Five Pennies
• The Fugitive Kind, starring Marlon Brando, Anna Magnani and Joanne Woodward
• The Giant Behemoth
• Il Generale della Rovere
• Gidget, starring Sandra Dee
• Girls Town, starring Mamie Van Doren
• La grande guerra (The Great War)
• The Hanging Tree
• Happy Anniversary
• Hercules and the Queen of Lydia (also known as Ercole e la regina di Lidia and Hercules Unchained)
• Hiroshima Mon Amour
• A Hole in the Head
• The Horse Soldiers
• The Hound of the Baskervilles
• House on Haunted Hill, starring Vincent Price
• Imitation of Life, starring Lana Turner and John Gavin with Sandra Dee, Susan Kohner and Juanita Moore
• It Started with a Kiss
• The Jazz Singer (performance)
• Journey to the Center of the Earth
• John Paul Jones
• Kapò
• Killer Shrews
• The Last Angry Man, starring Paul Muni
• Last Train from Gun Hill
• Magic Boy (Shōnen Sarutobi Sasuke)
• The Miracle
• Mise Éire
• The Mummy
• North by Northwest, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason
• The Nun's Story, starring Audrey Hepburn
• Operation Petticoat
• On the Beach, starring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire and Anthony Perkins
• Pillow Talk, starring Doris Day and Rock Hudson
• Plan 9 from Outer Space'', Directed by Edward D. Wood, Jr. Starring Tor Johnson and Vampira and Bela Lugosi
• Porgy and Bess, starring Dorothy Dandridge and Sidney Poitier
• Pork Chop Hill
• Rio Bravo, starring John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson and Angie Dickinson
• Room at the Top, starring Simone Signoret and Laurence Harvey
• Sampo (The Day the Earth Froze)
• Sapphire
• The Shaggy Dog
• Sleeping Beauty (Walt Disney animation)
• Solomon and Sheba
• Some Like It Hot, starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon
• SOS Pacific
• Suddenly, Last Summer, starring Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift and Katharine Hepburn
• Terror is a Man
• Wild Strawberries (U.S. release)
• The World, the Flesh and the Devil
• The Wreck of the Mary Deare
• The Young Philadelphians, starring Paul Newman and Barbara Rush

Short Film Series

• Looney Tunes (1930-1969)
• Terrytoons (1930-1964)
• Merrie Melodies (1931-1969)
• Bugs Bunny (1940-1962)
• Yosemite Sam (1945-1963)
• Speedy Gonzales (1953-1968)
• The Three Stooges (1934-1959)

Births

• January 22 - Linda Blair, actress
• February 22 - Kyle MacLachlan, American actor
• March 18 - Luc Besson, French director
• - Irene Cara, actress, singer
• March 22 - Matthew Modine, American actor
• April 15 - Emma Thompson, British actress
• April 17 - Sean Bean, English actor
• June 11 - Hugh Laurie, British actor
• July 26 - Kevin Spacey, American actor
• July 29 - Sanjay Dutt, Indian actor
• August 10 - Rosanna Arquette, American actress
• October 21 - Ken Watanabe, Japanese actor
• November 14 - Paul McGann, British actor
• November 19 - Allison Janney, American actress
• December 29 - Patricia Clarkson, American actress
• December 31 - Val Kilmer, American actor

Deaths

• January 21 - Cecil B. DeMille, American director & producer
• February 1 - Madame Sul-Te-Wan, actress
• February 4 - Una O'Connor, actress
• March 3 - Lou Costello, comedian and actor, half of Abbott and Costello comedy team
• February 5 - Gwili Andre, actress
• June 16 - George Reeves, actor (Superman)
• June 18 - Ethel Barrymore, actress
• August 6 - Preston Sturges, American director
• October 14 - Errol Flynn, actor
• October 23 - Gerda Lundequist, actress
• November 20 – Sylvia Lopez, European actress
• November 25 - Gérard Philipe, French actor

Film Debuts

• Mia Farrow
• Liv Ullmann