Timelines for year 1961
Carl Reiner
Portrayed Rob Petrie in his 1959 television pilot "Head of the Family" which eventually became the basis for "The Dick Van Dyke Show" .
Betty White
Beloved frequent guest celebrity/panelist on numerous game shows, including every version of "Password All-Stars" , "The Hollywood Squares" , "Match Game 73" , "The $20,000 Pyramid" , and countless others.
Charlton Heston
Stated in his autobiography 'In The Arena' that while he felt Anthony Mann was a good director, he also felt that Mann's lack of experience in directing large scale historical films such as their 1961 epic El Cid hurt the overall product and also stated that El Cid may have benefited from being directed by William Wyler, who directed Heston in The Big Country and Ben-Hur , or someone like Wyler.
As president of the NRA, he would usually tell his audience in speeches that he had "marched for civil rights long before it became fashionable to do so". In reality he only attended two events, the first in 1961 and the second the March on Washington in August 1963. Due to his busy film career at the time, he was unable to appear more frequently to back the Civil Rights cause.
Doris Day
The film The Children's Hour was constructed with both Day and Katharine Hepburn as the two leading ladies. However both actresses backed out due to scheduling conflicts and as a result Shirley MacLaine was cast in Hepburn's role and Audrey Hepburn was cast in Day's role.
Winona Ryder
She owns some of Hollywood's stars' most priceless possessions (Louis Armstrong's bongo drums among others). She also has a collection of vintage Hollywood costumes, including Russ Tamblyn's jacket from West Side Story , Leslie Caron's dress from An American in Paris , Claudette Colbert's gown from It Happened One Night , Olivia de Havilland's blouse from Gone with the Wind , and Sandra Dee's bikini from the "Tammy movies".
Rod Serling
Robert Marshall Hosfeldt authored a 1961 MA Thesis at San Jose State College called "Analysis of the techniques and content of characterization in the Academy Award winning plays of Rod Serling." 'Academy,' in this case, referred to the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Gary Cooper
In 1960, for the first time since his arrival in Hollywood, there were no new Gary Cooper pictures. In the spring of that year he underwent several operations for prostate cancer, but in the autumn managed to film one final movie in England, The Naked Edge .
His estate was valued at $9 million at the time of his death in 1961.
On 8 January 1961 he was given a testimonial dinner in Hollywood at the Friar's Club. It was a coincidental thing, his terminal cancer was not suspected. The aged Carl Sandburg was there, calling Cooper "a tradition while he's living, something of a clean sport, the lack of a phony." Audrey Hepburn read a poem called "What is a Gary Cooper?". Cooper didn't look well that night, but most observers thought he looked marvelous anyway.
In the spring of 1960 he had two operations, one for prostate cancer and then after that a part of his colon removed which was cancerous also. The doctors were sure that they had gotten all of it. His body strengthened and he made the movie The Naked Edge in England, but while he was making this film he had a lot of pain in his neck and shoulders. When he returned home from England he went back to the doctor and it was then that he had to be told the cancer had metastasized to his lungs and bones. As he did in The Pride of the Yankees he took it in his stride and said, "If it is God's will, that's all right too." He opted not to take very much treatment.
Elvis Presley
Was director Robert Wise's original choice to play Tony in West Side Story .
Following a concert in Hawaii in 1961, Presley concentrated on making movies and he did not perform before a live audience again for seven years until his 1968 TV Special and subsequent return to Las Vegas in 1969.
Jean Stapleton
In an episode of the courtroom drama series, "The Defenders" , "The Hidden Jungle", which aired 1st December 1962, an unknown actress at this time, she played a woman who witnessed a murder. In the episode, while on the witness stand, she is asked to point out the murderer. The actor playing the murderer was another unknown named Carroll O'Connor, who later starred with her in "All in the Family" .
Dyan Cannon
Cary Grant first saw her on a TV show in 1961, when she was already a 24-year-old TV vet. They started lived together in 1963.
Paul Newman
Prior to filming The Hustler , Newman lacked talent at playing pool. But after brushing up on it for the role, he felt very confident in his ability. So he bet co-star Jackie Gleason $50 on a game of pool. Being the excellent pool player he was, Gleason beat Newman. Instead of paying him in dollar bills, Newman dumped $50 worth of pennies on the table for Gleason to take.
His performance as Fast Eddie Felson in The Hustler is ranked #64 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time .