The year 1961 in film involved some significant events. [edit] Events [edit] Top grossing films (U.S.) | Rank | Title | Studio | Actors | Gross | | 1. | One Hundred and One Dalmatians* | Disney | | $68,648,000 | | 2. | West Side Story | United Artists | Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer | $19,646,000 | | 3. | The Guns of Navarone | Columbia | Gregory Peck and David Niven | $13,000,000 | | 4. | El Cid | Allied Artists | Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren | $12,000,000 | | 5. | Splendor in the Grass | Warner Brothers | Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty | $11,426,000 | | 6. | Breakfast at Tiffany's | Paramount | Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard | $11,322,000 | | 7. | La Dolce Vita* | Astor/AIP | Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg | $8,000,000 | | 8. | Lover Come Back | Universal | Doris Day and Rock Hudson | $7,625,000 | | 9. | The Parent Trap* | Disney | Hayley Mills, Maureen O'Hara and Brian Keith | $7,322,000 | | 10. | King of Kings | MGM | Jeffrey Hunter | $6,520,000 | (*) After theatrical re-issue(s) [edit] Awards Academy Awards: - Best Picture: West Side Story - Mirisch-B&P Enterprises, United Artists
- Best Director: Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins - West Side Story
- Best Actor: Maximilian Schell - Judgment at Nuremberg
- Best Actress: Sophia Loren - Two Women
- Best Supporting Actor: George Chakiris - West Side Story
- Best Supporting Actress: Rita Moreno - West Side Story
- Best Foreign Language Film: Through a Glass Darkly (Såsom i en spegel), directed by Ingmar Bergman, Sweden
Golden Globe Awards: - Drama:
- Best Picture: The Guns of Navarone
- Best Actor: Maximilian Schell - Judgement at Nuremberg
- Best Actress: Geraldine Page - Summer and Smoke
- Musical or comedy:
- Best Picture (tie): A Majority of One
- Best Picture (tie): West Side Story
- Best Actor: Glenn Ford - Pocketful of Miracles
- Best Actress: Rosalind Russell - A Majority of One
- Other
- Best Director: Stanley Kramer - Judgment at Nuremberg
Palme d'Or (Cannes Film Festival): - The Long Absence (Une aussi longue absence), directed by Henri Colpi, France
- Viridiana, directed by Luis Buñuel, Spain
Golden Lion (Venice Film Festival): - Last Year at Marienbad (L'année dernière à Marienbad), directed by Alain Resnais, France
Golden Bear (Berlin Film Festival): - La Notte (The Night), directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, Italy
[edit] Films released in 1961 - The Absent-Minded Professor
- Atlantis, the Lost Continent
- Babes in Toyland
- Bachelor in Paradise, starring Bob Hope and Lana Turner
- Back Street, starring Susan Hayward, John Gavin and Vera Miles
- Barabbas
- The Blonde from Buenos Aires, starring Mamie Van Doren
- Blue Hawaii starring Elvis Presley (his biggest box-office success)
- Breakfast at Tiffany's, starring Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard
- Bridge to the Sun
- Carry On Regardless
- The Children's Hour, starring Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, James Garner and Miriam Hopkins who also starred in the original film These Three
- The Comancheros
- Come September
- The Devil at 4 O'Clock, starring Frank Sinatra and Spencer Tracy, and Gregoire Aslan
- El Cid, starring Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren
- The Errand Boy, starring Jerry Lewis
- Fanny, starring Charles Boyer and Leslie Caron
- Flower Drum Song, starring Nancy Kwan
- The Fruit Is Ripe (Les Filles sèment le vent)
- The George Raft Story, starring Jayne Mansfield and Ray Danton
- Gidget Goes Hawaiian
- Goodbye Again
- Gorgo
- The Guns of Navarone, starring Gregory Peck, David Niven and Anthony Quinn
- Hoodlum Priest
- The Hustler, starring Paul Newman with Piper Laurie, George C. Scott and Jackie Gleason
- Judgment at Nuremberg, starring Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Marlene Dietrich, Maximilian Schell with Judy Garland and Montgomery Clift
- King of Kings
- Khovanshchina
- La dolce vita (U.S. release)
- La Notte Golden Bear winner
- The Ladies Man, starring Jerry Lewis
- The Last Sunset, starring Rock Hudson, Kirk Douglas and Dorothy Malone
- The Last Time I Saw Archie
- Last Year at Marienbad, Golden Lion winner
- The Long Absence (Une aussi longue absence) - Palme d'Or winner
- Lover Come Back, starring Doris Day and Rock Hudson
- A Majority of One
- The Mark
- The Misfits, starring Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable in both their last screen roles.
- Mothra
- Nefertiti, Queen of the Nile
- One-Eyed Jacks, directed by and starring Marlon Brando
- One Hundred and One Dalmatians
- One, Two, Three', starring James Cagney, Horst Buchholz, Pamela Tiffin, and Arlene Francis
- The Outsider, a biography starring Tony Curtis as famous WWII marine, Ira Hayes
- The Parent Trap
- Paris Blues
- Parrish
- The Pit and the Pendulum with Vincent Price
- Please, Not Now!, starring Brigitte Bardot
- Pocketful of Miracles, starring Bette Davis, Glenn Ford and Hope Lange
- Il Posto
- Question 7
- A Raisin in the Sun
- Return to Peyton Place (film mentioned in article)
- The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, starring Vivien Leigh and Warren Beatty
- Sennin Buraku
- Scarlet Sails (Алые Паруса)
- The Sins of Rachel Cade, starring Angie Dickinson
- Splendor in the Grass, starring Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty
- Summer and Smoke, starring Geraldine Page and Laurence Harvey
- Teen Kanya
- Through a Glass Darkly - (Såsom i en spegel)
- Town Without Pity
- Two Rode Together, starring James Stewart and Richard Widmark
- Victim
- Viridiana - Palme d'Or winner
- West Side Story, starring Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn with Rita Moreno and George Chakiris
- Wild in the Country starring Elvis Presley with Hope Lange, Tuesday Weld and Millie Perkins
- Two Women (U.S. release)
- Yojimbo
[edit] Short Film Series [edit] Births - January 5 - Suzy Amis, actress
- January 13 - Julia Louis-Dreyfus, actress
- February 11 - Carey Lowell, actress
- April 6 - Gene Eugene, actor, lead singer of Adam Again
- May 6 - George clooney American actor, writer, director, producer
- June 9 - Michael J. Fox, actor (in Back to the Future trilogy)
- July 15 - Forest Whitaker, actor
- July 18 - Elizabeth McGovern, actress
- October 31 - Peter Jackson, director
- November 19 - Meg Ryan, US actress
[edit] Deaths - February 2 - Anna May Wong, 56, American actress
- February 17 - Nita Naldi, 63, American actress
- March 6 - George Formby, 56, British actor, entertainer
- March 12 - Belinda Lee, 25, British actress
- May 4 - Anita Stewart, 66, American actress
- May 13 - Gary Cooper, 60, American actor
- May 22 - Joan Davis, 53, American actress
- June 17 - Jeff Chandler, 42, American actor
- August 4 - Maurice Tourneur, 88, French film director
- August 27 - Gail Russell, 36, American actress
- August 30 - Charles Coburn, 84, American actor
- September 10 - Leo Carrillo, 81, American actor
- September 22 - Marion Davies, 64, American actress
- October 11 - Chico Marx, 74, American actor, member of the Marx Brothers
- October 13 - Maya Deren, 44, American experimental filmmaker
- October 18 - Tsuru Aoki, 69, Japanese-born American actress
- October 22 - Joseph Schenck, 82, Russian-born American pioneer motion picture executive
- November 15 - Elsie Ferguson, 78, American stage and film actress
- November 24 - Ruth Chatterton, 67, American actress
[edit] Film Debuts |
