It’s been exactly 75 years since one of the most-hyped talent hunts in industry ended, and David O. Selznick inked Vivien Leigh as his Scarlett O’Hara for Gone With the Wind. You’ll never go hungry for film facts if you click on through.
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 12, 1957: Humphrey Bogart, quintessential movie tough guy from the ’30s through the ’50s, dies of cancer at age 57.
January 13, 1959: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences abandons the practice of excluding blacklisted artists from Oscar consideration.
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.