January 19, 1907: An Exciting Honeymoon and The Life of a Cowboy are the first films to be reviewed in the entertainment trade magazine Variety.
January 18, 1923: Drug addiction claims leading man Wallace Reid, 31, whose morphine dependency followed an injury suffered in a train crash.
January 20, 1929: In Old Arizona, directed by Irving Cummings and Raoul Walsh, marks the first time a sound film was shot on location as well as the sound debut of The Cisco Kid (Warner Baxter).
January 23, 1932: Educational Films Corporation signs 3-year-old Shirley Temple to appear in a series of film take-offs called Baby Burlesks.
January 20, 1933: Because of a memorable nude swimming scene, Austrian actress Hedy Kiesler (soon to be known as Hedy Lamarr) causes a sensation with the release of Ecstasy.
January 21, 1938: Pioneering French filmmaker and visual effects master Georges Méliès (A Trip to the Moon) dies at the age of 76.
January 19, 1952: Jerome “Curly” Howard, most manic of The Three Stooges, shuffles off this mortal coil at age 49.
January 23, 1952: Precedent-setter James Stewart chooses to share in the profits of Universal’s Bend of the River rather than accept a fixed salary.
January 19, 1953: After months of campaigning, Frank Sinatra is signed by Columbia to play Maggio in From Here to Eternity at a cut-rate $8,000 a week.
January 24, 1957: RKO, the studio that produced King Kong and Citizen Kane, announces plans to close and distribute its remaining films through Universal.
January 21, 1959: Producer/director Cecil B. DeMille, the man behind The Ten Commandments, dies of heart failure at 77.
January 23, 1959: The “B” western Plunderers of Painted Flats, the final film shot by Republic Pictures, is released.
January 20, 1964: A lethal combination of alcohol and depressants claims the life of ’40s tough guy Alan Ladd, 50, whose career had been in decline over the last decade.
January 19, 1966: Director Otto Preminger loses his battle in New York court to prevent Anatomy of a Murder from being edited for television or broadcast without commercials.
January 24, 1974: Frizzy-haired Larry Fine of The Three Stooges dies at the age of 72 in Woodland Hills, California.
January 20, 1984: Olympic swimmer-turned-iconic screen Tarzan Johnny Weismuller dies–not in the African jungle, but at his Acapulco home–at 79.
January 18, 1985: Filmmaking siblings Joel and Ethan Coen put a modern spin on the film noir genre with their debut feature, Blood Simple.
January 20, 1990: Barbara Stanwyck, star of Stella Dallas and Double Indemnity, dies in Santa Monica of heart failure at the age of 82.
January 22, 2000: The indie crime drama The Boondock Saints opens to a minimal box office, but garners success and a cult audience on home video.
January 22, 2008: Actor Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight) dies in his Manhattan apartment of complications from an accidental drug overdose at 28.