William Broderick Crawford was an American actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Willie Stark in the film All the King's Men (1949), which earned him an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award. Often cast in tough-guy roles, he later achieved recognition for his starring role as Dan Mathews in the crime television series Highway Patrol (1955–1959).
The following is an overview of 1956 in film, including significant events, a list of films released and notable births and deaths.
Annie Oakley is an American Western television series that fictionalizes the life of the famous Annie Oakley. Featuring actress Gail Davis in the title role, the weekly program ran from January 1954 to February 1957 in syndication. A total of 81 black-and-white episodes were produced, with each installment running 25 minutes in length. ABC aired daytime reruns of the series on Saturdays and Sundays from 1959 to 1960 and then again from 1964 to 1965.
Virginia Mayo was an American actress and dancer. She was in a series of comedy films with Danny Kaye and was Warner Brothers' biggest box-office money-maker in the late 1940s. She also co-starred in the 1946 Oscar-winning movie The Best Years of Our Lives and White Heat (1949).
Raymond Thomas Bailey was an American actor, and comedian on the Broadway stage, films, and television. He is best known for his role as greedy banker Milburn Drysdale in the television series The Beverly Hillbillies.
Whitman Blount Mayo Jr. was an American actor, best known for his role as Grady Wilson on the 1970s television sitcom Sanford and Son.
AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars is the American Film Institute's list ranking the top 25 male and 25 female greatest screen legends of American film history and is the second list of the AFI 100 Years... series.
Szőke Szakáll, known in the English-speaking world as S. Z. Sakall, was a Hungarian-American stage and film character actor. He appeared in many films, including Casablanca (1942), in which he played Carl, the head waiter, Christmas in Connecticut (1945), In the Good Old Summertime (1949), and Lullaby of Broadway (1951). Sakall played numerous supporting roles in Hollywood musicals and comedies in the 1940s and 1950s. His rotund cuteness caused studio head Jack Warner to bestow on Sakall the nickname "Cuddles".
Michael Pate OAM was an Australian actor, writer, director, and producer, who also worked prolifically as a supporting actor in Hollywood films and American Television during the 1950s and 1960s.
The Story of Mankind is a 1957 American dark fantasy film loosely based on the nonfiction book The Story of Mankind (1921) by Hendrik Willem van Loon. The film was directed and coproduced by Irwin Allen and released by Warner Bros.
George Garfield Nader, Jr. was an American actor and writer of Lebanese descent. He appeared in a variety of films from 1950 to 1974, including Sins of Jezebel (1953), Congo Crossing (1956), and The Female Animal (1958). During this period, he also did episodic television and starred in several series, including NBC's The Man and the Challenge (1959–60). In the 1960s he made several films in Germany, playing FBI agent Jerry Cotton. He is remembered for his first starring role, in the low-budget 3-D sci-fi film Robot Monster (1953), known as "one of the worst films ever made.”
Adam Roarke was an American actor and film director.
King Richard and the Crusaders is a 1954 American historical drama film made by Warner Bros. The film stars Rex Harrison, Virginia Mayo, George Sanders and Laurence Harvey, with Robert Douglas, Michael Pate and Paula Raymond. It was directed by David Butler and produced by Henry Blanke from a screenplay by John Twist based on Sir Walter Scott's 1825 novel The Talisman. The music score was by Max Steiner and the cinematography by J. Peverell Marley. This was Warner Bros.' first essay into CinemaScope. King Richard and the Crusaders was listed in the 1978 book The Fifty Worst Films of All Time.
The Leicester Mercury Comedian of the Year is held during the Leicester Comedy Festival every February. All the finalists picked are nominated by the UK's top comedy clubs and must meet certain criteria. The competition is sponsored by the Leicester Mercury, a local newspaper, and Equity, the actors union.
Jamboree, known as Disc Jockey Jamboree in the United Kingdom, is a 1957 American rock and roll film directed by Roy Lockwood. Its story is about a boy and girl, Pete Porter and Honey Wynn, who become overnight sensations as a romantic singing duo who run into trouble when their squabbling managers, try to turn them into solo acts. Against this backdrop in cameo performances appear some of the biggest names of rock and roll in the 1950s lip-syncing to their recordings.
The Silver Chalice is a 1954 American historical epic drama film directed and produced by Victor Saville, based on Thomas B. Costain's 1952 novel of the same name. It was one of Saville's last films and marked the feature film debut of Paul Newman; despite being nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his performance, Newman later called it "the worst motion picture produced during the 1950s".
The Proud Ones is a 1956 American CinemaScope Western film directed by Robert D. Webb and starring Robert Ryan and Virginia Mayo. The film was based on the 1952 novel by Verne Athanas who after suffering an early heart attack, he gave up logging and started writing under the pseudonym Bill Colson.
The Big Land is a 1957 American Western film in Warnercolor directed by Gordon Douglas and starring Alan Ladd, Virginia Mayo and Edmond O'Brien.
The EGA Trophy was an annual amateur boys' under-21 team golf competition between Great Britain & Ireland and the Continent of Europe.
