July 12, 1912: Adolph Zukor releases a French film, Queen Elizabeth, starring stage star Sarah Bernhardt, in America, giving a new respectability to motion pictures.
July 8, 1932: Audiences are repelled by scenes of real-life sideshow stars in Tod Browning‘s horror film Freaks, which will go on to become a cult classic.
July 8, 1953: Otto Preminger‘s comedy The Moon Is Blue, which contains the words “pregnant,” “seduce” and “virgin,” opens without Production Code approval.
July 8, 1967: With her final years characterized by bouts of depression, the film world’s beloved Scarlett O’Hara, Vivien Leigh, 53, dies of tuberculosis.
July 7, 1972: Shane co-star Brandon de Wilde, 30, dies in a car accident near Denver, where he was starring in a stage production of Butterflies Are Free.
July 8, 1972: At the invitation of the North Vietnamese government, Jane Fonda arrives in Hanoi to survey the results of U.S. bombing.
July 10, 1989: The voice of nearly every major Warner Bros. cartoon character, as well as Heathcliff the cat, Mel Blanc, dies at 80.
July 11, 1989: The portrayer of nearly every major Shakespearean character, as well as Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, Laurence Olivier, dies at 82.
July 8, 1994: Tom Hanks‘ star continues to rise thanks to his performance in Robert Zemeckis‘ Forrest Gump, a role for which he’ll win his second consecutive Oscar.