On February 5, 1919, Hollywood heavyweights Charlie Chaplin,
Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith joined
forces to create their own film studio, which they called the
United Artists Corporation.

United Artists quickly gained prestige in Hollywood, thanks to
the success of the films of its stars, notably Chaplin’s The Gold
Rush (1925), as well as the work of actors such as Buster
Keaton, Rudolph Valentino and Gloria Swanson. Chaplin
directed UA films as well as acted in them, and Pickford
concentrated on producing after she retired from acting in
the 1930s. With the rise of sound during that decade, UA was
helped by the talents (and bankrolls) of veteran producers
like Joseph Schenck, Samuel Goldwyn, Howard Hughes and
Alexander Korda.

The corporation began to struggle financially in the 1940s,
however, and in 1951 the production studio was sold and
UA became only a financing and distributing facility.

From left, D. W. Griffith, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin
(seated) and Douglas Fairbanks Sr. signing the original
contract that created the United Artists studio in 1919.     

MIKE GRACIA

BRACE BEEMER (center) was original announcer then the second actor to portray The Lone Ranger on the radio
series.

The first of 2,956 episodes of The Lone Ranger premiered on
radio January 30, 1933 on WXYZ radio in Detroit, Michigan
and later on the Mutual Broadcasting System radio network
and then on NBC’s Blue Network (which became ABC, which
broadcast the show’s last new episode on September 3, 1954).

Stanley Rubin (second from the right) holds his Emmy award
for "The Necklace" at the first Emmy Awards, Los Angeles.

The first Emmy Awards ceremony was held on January 25, 1949
at the Hollywood Athletic Club. The awards recognize excellence
in television (which in the 1940s was a novel medium).

Hollywood’s first television academy had been founded three
years earlier by Sid Cassyd, a former film editor for Frank Capra
who later worked as a grip at Paramount Studios and an
entertainment journalist.

President John F. Kennedy introduced a new era of White
House communications when he hosted the first live
televised presidential press conference on this day in
history, Jan. 25, 1961.