1926 in film - Definition and Overview

Events

• August - Warner Brothers debuts the first Vitaphone film, Don Juan. The Vitaphone system used multiple 33⅓ rpm disc records developed by Bell Telephone Laboratories and Western Electric to play back audio synchronized with film.
• Theodore W. Case and E. I. Sponable demonstrate their sound-on-film experiments to William Fox of the Fox Film Corporation. The Fox-Case Corp. was formed in an effort to exploit the system, which was given the name Movietone. Fox began to create Movietone News newsreels at this time. One of the first newsreels was Charles Lindbergh's takeoff for Paris.

Top grossing films

1. Aloma of the South Seas
2. What Price Glory

Films released

Films released in 1926 include:

• Aloma of the South Seas, starring Gilda Gray.
• Battling Butler, a Buster Keaton film.
• The Black Pirate, starring Douglas Fairbanks.
• Faust, directed by F.W. Murnau.
• Flesh and the Devil, starring John Gilbert and Greta Garbo.
• Madame Mystery, starring Theda Bara.
• Scarlet Letter, starring Lillian Gish.
• The Son of the Sheik, starring Rudolph Valentino.
• Sparrows, starring Mary Pickford.
• What Price Glory, starring Edmund Lowe, Victor McLaglen and Dolores del Rio.

Births

• January 5 - Maria Schell, actress
• January 14 - Tom Tryon, actor, novelist (+ 1991)
• January 17 - Moira Shearer, actress, dancer
• January 19 - Fritz Weaver, actor
• January 20 - Patricia Neal, actress
• May 8 - Don Rickles, comedian and actor
• June 1 - Andy Griffith, actor
• June 1 - Marilyn Monroe, actress
• June 28 - Mel Brooks, entertainer
• October 17 - Beverly Garland, actress
• October 18 - Klaus Kinski, actor
• November 30 - Richard Crenna, actor

Deaths

• January 30 - Barbara La Marr, actress
• August 23 - Rudolph Valentino, actor