January 19, 1907: An Exciting Honeymoon and The Life of a Cowboy are the first films to be reviewed in the entertainment trade magazine Variety.
January 18, 1923: Drug addiction claims leading man Wallace Reid, whose morphine dependency followed an injury suffered in a train crash.
January 13, 1939: The industry’s most-ballyhooed casting search to date (or since) ends when Vivien Leigh signs to play Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind.
January 16, 1942: While on a promotional tour for War Bonds, actress Carole Lombard, 33, is killed in a plane crash near Las Vegas.
January 19, 1952: Jerome “Curly” Howard, most manic of the Three Stooges, shuffles off this mortal coil at age 49.
January 19, 1953: After months of campaigning, Frank Sinatra is signed by Columbia to play Maggio in From Here to Eternity at a cut-rate $8,000 a week.
January 13, 1959: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences abandons the practice of excluding blacklisted artists from Oscar consideration.
January 19, 1966: Director Otto Preminger loses his battle in New York court to prevent Anatomy Of A Murder from being edited for television or broadcast without commercials.
January 17, 1984: The rights of VCR owners to tape programs off TV are upheld by the Supreme Court, which rules such use does not violate copyright laws.
January 18, 1985: Filmmaking siblings Joel and Ethan Coen put a modern spin on the film noir genre with their debut feature, Blood Simple.