September 8, 1886: British photographer/inventor William Friese-Greene creates his “Biophantascope,” a prototype motion picture camera which shoots up to 10 photographs per second.
September 9, 1916: Silent comedy star Harold Lloyd, at the suggestion of producer Hal Roach, first sports his trademark horn-rimmed glasses in Over the Fence.
September 10, 1921: Comedian Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle is charged in the death of actress Virginia Rappe after a long, wild hotel party five days earlier.
September 10, 1922: The first of Hal Roach’s “Our Gang” comedies, One Terrible Day, with Mickey Daniels, Jack Davis and Jackie Condon, is released.
September 6, 1925: Lon Chaney returns in another chilling achievement as Erik, The Phantom of the Opera, which premieres in New York.
September 6, 1935: Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dance “cheek to cheek” in Top Hat, a smashing box office success for the financially-troubled RKO Pictures.
September 12, 1936: Tarzan the Ape Man co-star Maureen O’Sullivan marries director John Farrow. Among their seven children is actress Mia Farrow.
September 11, 1947: Jane Russell delivers her bust-out debut performance as Howard Hughes’ much-anticipated, controversial adult western The Outlaw opens.
September 8, 1949: The most famous cinema squint this side of Clint Eastwood debuts when the nearsighted Mr. Magoo makes his bow in the animated short Ragtime Bear.
September 12, 1964: Sergio Leone’s violent frontier drama A Fistful of Dollars opens in Italy, fuels the “spaghetti western” subgenre, and makes a star of U.S. TV cowboy Clint Eastwood.
September 11, 1970: Joan Crawford makes a less than seemly screen farewell in the “B” horror vehicle Trog.
September 8, 1979: The body of actress Jean Seberg, 40, is found in the back of a car in Paris. Her controversial death will be attributed to an overdose of barbiturates.
September 12, 1992: Anthony Perkins, who immortalized the role of Norman Bates in Psycho, dies of AIDS at the age of 60.
September 9, 1993: Palms get sweaty in many a Hollywood boardroom as well-connected Beverly Hills madam Heidi Fleiss is arraigned on charges of narcotics possession and pandering.
September 6, 1998: The king of Japanese cinema, Rashomon and The Seven Samurai director Akira Kurosawa, passes away from a stroke at 88.
September 8, 2003: Controversial film actress-turned-documentarian Leni Riefenstahl, director of Triumph of the Will, dies in her native Germany at 101.
September 6, 2008: Silent film actress Anita Page, the last surviving attendee of the first Academy Awards dinner, dies at 98.
September 10, 2011: Actor Cliff Robertson, who won a best Actor Academy Award for his title portrayal of Charly, dies at the age of 88.