Events

• 1894 – Thomas Edison makes a kinetoscopic film of someone sneezing.
  • On the same day, his employee, William Kennedy Dickson, receives a patent for motion picture film.

People (Births)

• 1873 – Adolph Zukor, Hungarian-American film producer, co-founded Paramount Pictures (d. 1976).
• 1933 – Elliott Kastner, American-English film producer (d. 2010).
• 1956 – David Caruso, American actor.
• 1964 – Nicolas Cage, American actor.
• 1971 – Jeremy Renner, American actor.

People (Deaths)

• 1988 – Trevor Howard, English actor (b. 1913).
• 2015 – Rod Taylor, Australian-American actor and screenwriter (b. 1930).

Adolph Zukor

Adolph Zukor (Hungarian: Zukor Adolf; 07 January 1873 to 10 June 1976) was a Hungarian-American film producer best known as one of the three founders of Paramount Pictures.

He produced one of America’s first feature-length films, The Prisoner of Zenda, in 1913.

Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production and distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldest film studio in the world, the second-oldest film studio in the United States (behind Universal Pictures), and the sole member of the “Big Five” film studios located within the city limits of Los Angeles.

In 1916, film producer Adolph Zukor put 24 actors and actresses under contract and honored each with a star on the logo. In 1967, the number of stars was reduced to 22 and their hidden meaning was dropped. In 2014, Paramount Pictures became the first major Hollywood studio to distribute all of its films in digital form only. The company’s headquarters and studios are located at 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, California.

Paramount Pictures is a member of the Motion Picture Association (MPA).

Elliott Kastner

Elliott Kastner (07 January 1930 to 30 June 2010) was an American film producer, whose best known credits include Where Eagles Dare (1968), The Long Goodbye (1973), The Missouri Breaks (1976), and Angel Heart (1987).

David Caruso

David Stephen Caruso (born 07 January 1956) is a retired American actor and producer, best known for his roles as Detective John Kelly on the ABC crime drama NYPD Blue (1993-1994) and Lieutenant Horatio Caine on the CBS series CSI: Miami (2002-2012). He appears in the feature films An Officer and a Gentleman, First Blood (1982), Twins (1988), Kiss of Death (1995) and Proof of Life (2000).

Nicolas Cage

Nicolas Kim Coppola (born 07 January 1964), known professionally as Nicolas Cage, is an American actor and film producer. Born into the Coppola family, he is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Golden Globe Award.

In the first few years of his career, he starred in a variety of films such as Valley Girl (1983), Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), Raising Arizona (1987), Moonstruck (1987) and Wild at Heart (1990). During this period, John Willis’ Screen World, Vol. 36 listed him as one of 12 Promising New Actors of 1984. For his performance in Leaving Las Vegas (1995), he won the Academy Award for Best Actor.

He subsequently appeared in more mainstream films, including The Rock (1996), Con Air (1997), Face/Off (1997), City of Angels (1998), Gone in 60 Seconds (2000), The Family Man (2000), Windtalkers (2002), the National Treasure film series (2004-2007), Lord of War (2005), The Wicker Man (2006), Ghost Rider (2007) and Knowing (2009). He received his second Academy Award nomination for his performance as Charlie and Donald Kaufman in Adaptation (2002). Between the 2010s and the 2020s, he starred in Kick-Ass (2010), Joe (2013), Mandy (2018), Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) and Pig (2021), roles that increased his popularity and solidified his cult following.

Cage owns the production company Saturn Films and has produced films such as Shadow of the Vampire (2000) and The Life of David Gale (2003). He also directed Sonny (2002), for which he was nominated for Grand Special Prize at Deauville Film Festival. In October 1997, he was ranked No. 40 in Empire magazine’s The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time list; and the next year he was placed No. 37 in Premiere’s 100 Most Powerful People in Hollywood.

Jeremy Renner

Jeremy Lee Renner (born 07 January 1971) is an American actor. He began his career by appearing in independent films such as Dahmer (2002) and Neo Ned (2005), then supporting roles in bigger films, such as S.W.A.T. (2003) and 28 Weeks Later (2007). Renner was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Hurt Locker (2008) and for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Town (2010).

Renner played Clint Barton / Hawkeye, a member of the Avengers in several Marvel Cinematic Universe films and television series beginning in 2011 film Thor, leading to the central title role in the Disney+ series Hawkeye (2021). He also appeared in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011), The Bourne Legacy (2012), Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013), American Hustle (2013), Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015), and Arrival (2016).

Trevor Howard

Trevor Wallace Howard-Smith (29 September 1913 to 07 January 1988) was an English stage, film, and television actor. After varied work in the theatre, he achieved star status with his role in the film Brief Encounter (1945), followed by The Third Man (1949). He is also known for his roles in Golden Salamander (1950), The Clouded Yellow (1951), Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968), Battle of Britain (1969), Lola (1969), Ryan’s Daughter (1970), Superman (1978), Windwalker (1981), and Gandhi (1982). For his performance in Sons and Lovers (1960) he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor.

Rod Taylor

Rodney Sturt Taylor (11 January 1930 to 07 January 2015) was an Australian actor. He appeared in more than 50 feature films, including The Time Machine (1960), One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), The Birds (1963), and Inglourious Basterds (2009).

Taylor was born in Lidcombe, a suburb of Sydney, to a father who was a steel construction contractor and commercial artist and a mother who was a children’s author. He began taking art classes in high school, and continued in college. He decided to become an actor after seeing Laurence Olivier in an Old Vic touring production of Richard III.

His first film role was in a re-enactment of Charles Sturt’s voyage down the Murrumbidgee and Murray Rivers, playing Sturt’s offsider, George Macleay. At the time, he was also appearing in a number of theatre productions for Australia’s Mercury Theatre. He made his feature film debut in the Australian Lee Robinson film King of the Coral Sea (1954). He soon started acting in television films, such as Studio 57 (1954), where he played multiple different characters.

He started to gain popularity after starring in The Time Machine (1960), as H. George Wells. He later starred in the Disney film One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), as Pongo. In one of his most famous roles, he played Mitch Brenner in The Birds, directed by Alfred Hitchcock (1963). By the late 1990s, Taylor had moved into semi-retirement. His final film role was in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds in 2009, portraying a fictionalised version of Winston Churchill in a cameo.