On this day in 2008, a girl named Vivienne Marcheline and a boy named Knox Leon are born to actors Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie at Fondation Lenval hospital in Nice, France. The twins’ arrival made headlines around the world, as their celebrity parents had been a source of media […]
On this day in 2008, the film version of HBO’s iconic comedy series Sex and the City, starring Sarah Jessica Parker, premieres in more than 3,200 theaters around the country and goes on to become a big box-office success. The Sex and the City TV series, which debuted some 10 […]
On this day in 2008, the film director, producer and actor Sidney Pollack, whose string of hits included Tootsie, Out of Africa and The Firm, dies of cancer at his home in Los Angeles, at the age of 73. After high school, Pollack left his hometown of South Bend, Indiana, […]
On April 30, 2008, Pellicano himself addressed judge and jury. According to a report in the New York Times, he referred to himself in the third person, as Judge Dale Fischer had ordered him to do given that he was representing himself. He steadfastly denied that he was running a […]
On May 2, 2008, Iron Man, the latest big-budget action film based on a Marvel Comics character, debuts in some 4,100 theaters in the United States and Canada, raking in an estimated $32.5 million on its opening day. Co-created by Stan Lee, the legendary writer-editor behind Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, […]
Best known in his later years as the outspoken president of the National Rifle Association (NRA), the actor Charlton Heston first earned a reputation in Hollywood for playing larger-than-life figures in epic movies such as The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur. He died on this day in 2008, at the age […]
On this day in 2008, Hollywood mourns a talented young actor’s life cut tragically short, after the body of 28-year-old Heath Ledger is found by his masseuse and housekeeper on the floor of his rented apartment in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City. Best known for his Academy Award-nominated […]
Fans of the red carpet extravaganza that is the annual Golden Globe Awards presentation were disappointed in 2008, when the lavish ceremony was canceled due to the Writers Guild of America strike that began the previous fall. Under pressure from striking writers and the actors who threatened to boycott the […]
At the close of business on January 6, 2008, the Walt Disney World Resort theme park known as Disney-MGM Studios officially shut its doors after almost a decade of operation. Fans didn’t have to worry too much, however, as the park would reopen the next morning under its new name, […]
On this day in 2007, the seventh and final Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is released, with an initial print run of 12 million copies in the United States alone. Like each of the previous Harry Potter novels, Deathly Hallows was slated to be made into […]
Almost 12 million people tune in for the series finale of HBO’s critically acclaimed, multi-award-winning Mob-family drama The Sopranos on this day in 2007. The mastermind behind The Sopranos was David Chase, a longtime writer, producer and director for TV series such as The Rockford Files, I’ll Fly Away and […]
On this day in 2007, Fox’s long-running animated series The Simpsons airs its 400th episode. The Simpsons was created by Matt Groenig, whose comic strip Life Is Hell caught the attention of the Hollywood producer James L. Brooks. Brooks enlisted Groenig to create a cartoon short that would run during […]
On this day in 2006, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, an adventure film starring Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley, opens in theaters across America. The movie, the second in the Pirates of the Caribbean series, was part of a multi-billion dollar Disney franchise that included theme […]
On this day in 2006, in Swakopmund, Namibia, the actors Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt welcome the arrival of their first biological child, a daughter named Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt. Talented and famous, Jolie and Pitt were both fixtures on Hollywood’s A-list by the time they starred together as married assassins […]
Amid a firestorm of publicity and controversy, the director Ron Howard’s big-screen adaptation of Dan Brown’s mega-bestselling thriller The Da Vinci Code debuts in theaters on this day in 2006. Howard directed the $125 million film from a script by Akiva Goldsman; the pair had previously won Oscars for their […]
