Cinema 1976: You Must Remember This–Movies, Events, Stars

What You Need to Know: 1976 as Movie Year

My Oscar Book:

Highest-grossing films 1976

Rank Title Distributor Domestic rentals

1 Rocky United Artists $55,900,000

2 A Star Is Born Warner Bros. $37,100,000

3 King Kong Paramount $36,900,000

4 Silver Streak 20th Century Fox $30,018,000

5 All the President’s Men Warner Bros. $30,000,000

6 The Omen 20th Century Fox $28,500,000

7 The Bad News Bears Paramount $24,800,000

8 The Enforcer Warner Bros. $24,000,000

9 In Search of Noah’s Ark Sunn Classic $23,800,000

10 Midway Universal $21,610,435

Events

March 22 – Filming begins on George Lucas’ Star Wars sci-fi. Lucas declines directing fee of $500,000 in exchange for ownership of merchandise and sequel rights.

April 1 – The Rocky Horror Picture Show is rereleased as midnight movie at Waverly Theater in Greenwich Village, New York, starting through the run and still being shown in there as of 2013 all around the world.

April 9 – Hitchcock’s last film, Family Plot, is released.

August 11 – John Wayne appears in his final film, The Shootist.

Nov 21 – Rocky, the first in the series, becomes year’s highest-grossing film and goes on to win the Best Picture.

Dec 5 – Bound for Glory, the first picture in which inventor-operator Garrett Brown used Steadicam for moving scenes, although its use had already been seen in Marathon Man and Rocky which were filmed later but released earlier.

Dec 17 – King Kong, highest opening weekend gross and overall box office success.

Oscar Awards

49th Academy Awards–March 28, 1977

Best Film Rocky
Best Director: John G. Avildsen, Rocky
Best Actor Peter Finch, Netowrk
Best Actress Faye Dunaway, Network
Best Supporting Actor Jason Robards, All the President’s Men
Best Supporting Actress Beatrice Straight,Network
Best Screenplay, Adapted Paddy Chayefsky, Network
Bugsy Malone William Goldman
All the President’s Men
Best Screenplay, Original: Paddy Chayefsky
Network

Best Original Score Kenneth Ascher and Paul Williams
A Star Is Born Bernard Herrmann
Taxi Driver Jerry Goldsmith
The Omen
Leonard Rosenman
Bound for Glory
Best Original Song “Evergreen” A Star Is Born

Best Foreign Language Film: Face to Face N/A Black and White in Color

Palme d’Or (Cannes Film Festival) Taxi Driver, directed Scorsese, US

Golden Bear (Berlin Film Festival): Buffalo Bill and the Indians, Altman, US

Deaths

Jan 12 Agatha Christie 85 UK Writer
Witness for the ProsecutionMurder on the Orient Express
13 Margaret Leighton 53 UK Actress
The Go-BetweenThe Best Man
18 Sonia Dresdel 66 UK Actress
This Was a WomanThe Fallen Idol
23 Paul Dupuis 62 France Actor
Against the WindMadness of the Heart
23 Paul Robeson 77 US Actor, Singer
Show BoatThe Proud Valley
29 Michael Gwynn 59 UK Actor
CleopatraJason and the Argonauts
February 4 Roger Livesey 69 UK Actor
The EntertainerThe Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
11 Lee J. Cobb 64 US Actor
On the WaterfrontThe Exorcist
11 John Twist 77 US Screenwriter
King Richard and the CrusadersAnnie Oakley
12 Sal Mineo 37 US Actor
Rebel Without a CauseExodus
13 Lily Pons 77 France Singer, Actress
I Dream Too MuchHitting a New High
13 John Lounsbery 64 US Animator
DumboLady and the Tramp
15 Maria Corda 77 Hungary Actress
White RoseThe Private Life of Helen of Troy
16 Campbell Singer 66 UK Actor
The Square PegThe Hands of Orlac
24 Peter Madden 71 UK Actor
From Russia with LoveDoctor Zhivago
26 Frieda Inescort 75 UK Actress
A Place in the SunThe Letter
March 3 Doris Hill 70 US Actress
Sons of the SaddleMen Are Like That
5 Charles Lederer 69 US Screenwriter
His Girl FridayOcean’s 11

March 14 Busby Berkeley 80 US Director, Choreographer, 42nd Street
17 Luchino Visconti 69 Italy Director, Writer, The Leopard Death in Venice

April 5 Howard Hughes 70 US Director, Producer
Hell’s AngelsThe Outlaw
5 Robert Lord 75 US Screenwriter, Producer
One Way Passage20,000 Years in Sing Sing
11 Liam Dunn 59 US Actor
Blazing SaddlesYoung Frankenstein
12 Paul Ford 74 US Actor
Advise & ConsentThe Music Man
21 Léonide Moguy 75 Russia Director, Writer
Paris After DarkAction in Arabia
25 Carol Reed 69 UK Director, Writer
OIiver!The Third Man
26 Neil McCallum 46 Canada Actor
The Longest DayDr. Terror’s House of Horrors
26 Sid James 62 UK Actor
The Lavender Hill MobTrapeze
29 Thelma Connell 63 UK Film Editor
AlfieThe Deadly Affair

May

June 9 Sybil Thorndike 93 UK Actress
The Magic BoxMelba
10 Adolph Zukor 103 US Producer, Studio Executive
WingsShanghai Express
25 Johnny Mercer 66 US Songwriter
The Harvey GirlsDarling Lili
28 Stanley Baker 48 UK Actor
The Guns of NavaroneHelen of Troy
July 2 Frances Howard 73 US Actress
The Shock PunchThe Swan
7 Norman Foster 72 US Actor, Director
PilgrimageState Fair
12 James Wong Howe 76 China Cinematographer
The Rose TattooHud
17 Rina Morelli 67 Italy Actress
The LeopardSenso
28 Lucie Mannheim 77 Germany Actress
The 39 StepsThe High Command
August 2 Fritz Lang 85 Germany Director, Writer
MetropolisThe Big Heat
6 William Mervyn 64 UK Actor
The Ruling ClassThe Long Arm
10 Ray Corrigan 74 US Actor
The Three MesquiteersRange Busters
17 William Redfield 49 US Actor
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s NestDeath Wish
17 Murvyn Vye 60 US Actor
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s CourtAl Capone
18 Luigi Serventi 91 Italy Actor
A Woman’s StoryThe Story of a Poor Young Man
28 Alastair Sim 75 UK Actor
The Green ManScrooge
September 10 Dalton Trumbo 70 US Screenwriter
SpartacusRoman Holiday
30 Paul Dehn 63 UK Screenwriter
GoldfingerMurder on the Orient Express
October 5 Barbara Nichols 47 US Actress
Sweet Smell of SuccessThe Naked and the Dead
14 Edith Evans 88 UK Actress
Tom JonesThe Nun’s Story
November 3 Ramsay Hill 86 US Actor, Technical Advisor
The CrusadesOne Hundred and One Dalmatians[7]
15 Jean Gabin 72 France Actor
La Grande IllusionPort of Shadows
22 Rupert Davies 60 UK Actor
WaterlooThe Criminal
28 Rosalind Russell 69 US Actress
His Girl FridayAuntie Mame
29 Godfrey Cambridge 43 US Actor
Cotton Comes to HarlemThe President’s Analyst
December 3 Mary Nash 92 US Actress
The Philadelphia StoryThe Human Comedy
8 Cathy Downs 50 US Actress
My Darling ClementineThe Dark Corner
12 Jack Cassidy 49 US Actor
Bunny O’HareThe Eiger Sanction
20 Walter Fitzgerald 80 UK Actor
The Fallen IdolMan in the Sky

Film debuts

Dan Aykroyd – Love at First Sight
Albert Brooks – Taxi Driver
Dean Cain – Elmer
Nicholas Campbell – The Omen
Chow Yun-fat – Tou tai ren
Cam Clarke – Baker’s Hawk
James Cromwell – Murder by Death
Ron Dean – The Last Affair
Michael Dorn – Rocky
Bill Duke – Car Wash
Joe Flaherty – Tunnel Vision
Paul Freeman – Whose Child Am I?
Richard Griffiths – It Shouldn’t Happen to a Vet
Mariel Hemingway – Lipstick
Ernie Hudson – Leadbelly
Amy Irving – Carrie
Michael Kamen – The Next Man
Alice Krige – Vergeet My Nie
Jessica Lange – King Kong
Jennifer Jason Leigh – The Spy Who Never Was
Delroy Lindo – Find the Lady
Mark Margolis – The Opening of Misty Beethoven
Marc McClure – Freaky Friday
Edie McClurg – Carrie
Sam McMurray – The Front
Glenn Morshower – Drive-In
Bill Murray – Next Stop, Greenwich Village
Lena Olin – Face to Face
Holmes Osborne – The Student Body
Stuart Pankin – Next Stop, Greenwich Village
Tim Pigott-Smith – Aces High
Mary Kay Place – Bound for Glory
Jonathan Pryce – Voyage of the Damned
John Ratzenberger – The Ritz
James Rebhorn – The Yum Yum Girls
Isabella Rossellini – A Matter of Time
Cecilia Roth – No toquen a la nena
Deep Roy – The Pink Panther Strikes Again
Mercedes Ruehl – Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands
Theresa Russell – The Last Tycoon
Helen Shaver – Shoot
Brooke Shields – Alice, Sweet Alice
Ron Silver – Tunnel Vision
P.J. Soles – Carrie
Carol Sutton – Sounder, Part 2
Holland Taylor – The Next Man
Tim Thomerson – Car Wash
Charlene Tilton – Freaky Friday
Frank Vincent – The Death Collector
John Waters (actor) – End Play
Tom Wilkinson – The Shadow Line
Debra Winger – Slumber Party ’57
Tom Wright – Tomcats
Keone Young – Baby Blue Marine