August 9, 1930: The Fleischer Studio’s Betty Boop sashays onto the screen (as a dog!) in the cartoon short Dizzy Dishes.
August 10, 1932: Hollywood’s first true canine superstar, the original Rin Tin Tin, goes to Heaven at 13.
August 15, 1935: Beloved stage and screen star Will Rogers, traveling with aviator Wiley Post, is killed in a plane crash near Barrow, Alaska.
August 15, 1939: The audience at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre is taken “Over the Rainbow” at the Hollywood premiere of MGM’s The Wizard of Oz, starring Judy Garland.
August 14, 1940: Top screenwriter of Easy Living and If I Were King, Preston Sturges, makes his directorial debut with The Great McGinty.
August 10, 1950: Director Billy Wilder is accused of biting the hand that feeds him with his darkly funny look at Hollywood past, Sunset Boulevard.
August 14, 1951: A Place in the Sun opens. Paramount removes the name of actress Anne Revere, who had refused to cooperate with HUAC, from the publicity.
August 13, 1967: Arthur Penn’s gangster biodrama Bonnie and Clyde, starring Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty, ushers in a wave of screen realism and violence.
August 9, 1969: A massacre in the Hollywood Hills claims Roman Polanski’s pregnant wife, actress Sharon Tate, and four others; members of the “Manson Family” will be convicted in January of 1971.
August 11, 1976: Depicting, ironically, a famed gunslinger’s battle with cancer, John Wayne’s last film, The Shootist, opens.
August 15, 1979: After years of production and financial troubles, Apocalypse Now finally opens in American theaters, three months after its premiere at Cannes.
August 14, 1980: Playboy model/actress (They All Laughed) Dorothy Stratten, 20, is murdered by estranged husband Paul Snider, who later commits suicide.
August 12, 1982: Months after winning the Best Actor Academy Award for On Golden Pond, actor Henry Fonda dies at 77.
August 15, 1986: Michael Mann’s suspense tale Manhunter introduces moviegoers to anthropophagous medico Dr. Hannibal Lecktor, played by Brian Cox.
August 12, 1988: Director Martin Scorsese’s controversial The Last Temptation of Christ opens to protests from religious groups.
August 13, 1997: American audiences are introduced to a British slang term, thanks to the unexpected comedy hit The Full Monty.
August 12, 2000: Loretta Young, Best Actress Oscar-winner for The Farmer’s Daughter, dies from cancer at 87.
August 15, 2003: The screen’s modern masters of horror finally meet in Freddy vs. Jason.
August 14, 2006: Comic actor Bruno Kirby (When Harry Met Sally, City Slickers) dies from complications from leukemia at 57.