June 2, 1916: Victor Schertzinger composes the first original film score for an American feature, Thomas H. Ince‘s Civilization.
June 6, 1933: The first drive-in movie theatre (called a “park-in”) opens in Camden, N.J. The evening’s main feature: Wives Beware with Adolphe Menjou.
June 7, 1937: Blonde bombshell Jean Harlow, who, during filming of Saratoga, was hospitalized for uremic poisoning, dies at the age of 26.
June 1, 1943: The plane carrying refined British actor Leslie Howard, 50, is shot down by German fighters over the Bay of Biscay near Lisbon, Portugal.
June 7, 1950: Director Anthony Mann’s Winchester ’73, with James Stewart, launches a cycle of more serious-themed Western movies.
June 3, 1955: The Seven Year Itch opens, but a poster of star Marilyn Monroe, skirts blown up by a passing subway, is removed in New York amid cries of indecency.
June 3, 1959: Francois Truffaut’s debut feature as director, the semi-autobiographical The 400 Blows, opens in France.
June 4, 1959: After 25 years and 190 films, the final Three Stooges short, Sappy Bullfighters, is released by Columbia.
June 7, 1962: 20th Century Fox fires Marilyn Monroe from the set of her latest movie, Something’s Got to Give, for repeated absences.
June 5, 1967: The American Film Institute, an independent, non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the heritage of film and television, is established.
June 3, 2001: Two-time Academy Award-winning actor Anthony Quinn passes away at 86.
June 6. 2005: Anne Bancroft, who earned a Best Actress Oscar for The Miracle Worker, dies from cancer at 73.
June 6, 2013: Swimming champ-turned-MGM musical star Esther Williams, dubbed “America’s Mermaid,” passes away at 91.