On December 12, 1967, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,
a groundbreaking movie about an interracial romantic
relationship starring Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy,
Sidney Poitier and Katharine Houghton, opened in theaters.

The film was the final role for Spencer Tracy. He was very
ill during production but insisted on continuing. Filming
of his role was completed just 17 days before his death
from a heart attack in June 1967. He was 67.

Hepburn never saw the completed film, saying it would be
too painful for her.    
    
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner was nominated for 10 Academy
Awards, including Best Picture, and collected two Oscars,
including Best Actress for Hepburn, the second of her career.  

Robert Redford (Charles Robert Redford, Jr.)

One of Hollywood‘s biggest superstars, Redford officially
announced his retirement from acting in August of 2018.

Redford is the founder of the Sundance Film Festival which
helps hundreds of young filmmakers find a market for their
movies.

Redford with Dustin Hoffman in All the President’s Men      
(1976).

1969

On August 11, 1973, the nostalgic teenage coming-of-age
movie American Graffiti, directed and co-written by George
Lucas, opened in theaters across the United States. Set in
California in the summer of 1962, the film was nominated 
for five Academy Awards, including Best Director and Best
Picture, and helped launch the big-screen careers of Richard 
Dreyfuss and Harrison Ford, as well as the former child actor
and future Oscar-winning filmmaker Ron Howard.

Wolfman-Jack

Harrison Ford

GINGER ROGERS AND FRED ASTAIRE

Ginger Rogers (Virginia Katherine McMath)
(July 16, 1911 – April 25, 1995)

On this day in history, July 16, 1911, American star Ginger
Rogers was born in Independence, Missouri.

Ginger Rogers was an American actress and dancer who
was best known for work with the legendary Fred Astaire
during that time period and much of the 20th century. 

Rogers won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her
starring role in Kitty Foyle (1940).

On July 6, 1994, the movie Forrest Gump opened in U.S.
theaters. A huge box-office success, the film starred Tom
Hanks in the title role of Forrest, a good-hearted man with
a low I.Q. who winds up at the center of key cultural and
historical events of the second half of the 20th century.

Forrest Gump was based on a 1986 novel of the same
name by Winston Groom, who (like his main character)
grew up in Alabama and served in the Army during
Vietnam.

Forrest and Jenny