Eero Saarinen’s TWA terminal at Kennedy Airport opened.
The National Automobile Show was reestablished after sixteen years.
Popular films
included
The King and I starring Yul
Brynner and
Deborah Kerr
Lust For Life starring Anthony
Quinn
Anastasia
starring Ingrid Bergman and Yul Brynner
Giant starring
Elizabeth Taylor,
Rock Hudson and James Dean
Around the World
in Eighty Days
starring David Niven and Shirley MacLaine.
Fiction included Nelson Algren’s A Walk on the Wild Side, John
Barth’s The Floating Opera, Saul Bellow’s Seize the Day,
Edwin O’Connor’s The Last Hurrah, Grace Metallious’s Peyton
Place, William
Brinkley’s Don’t Go Near The Water, and Patrick Dennis’s Auntie
Mame.
Popular songs included Den Martin’s “Memories Are Made of This,” The
Platters’ “The Great Pretender,” Kay Starr’s “Rock and Roll Waltz,”
Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel,” Perry Como’s “Hot Diggity,” and
Morris Stoloff’s “Moonglow” and the “Theme from Picnic.”
Elvis Presley
made his film debut in Love Me Tender.
Prince
Rainier of Monaco married the film actress Grace Kelly.
Disc Jockey Alan Freed starred in three movies, Rock around the Clock,
Rock, Rock, Rock and Don’t Knock the Rock.
The North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh opened.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum began construction.
The Joffrey Ballet Company was founded by Robert Joffrey.
April 2: “As The World
Turns” debuted on
CBS and became the #1 daytime serial.
April 20: T.S. Eliot delivers his
speech, “The Frontiers of Criticism” at the University of Minnesota
Baseball Museum.
June 29: The Federal Aid Highway Act
was passed by Congress.
August 10: Jackson Pollack is killed
in a drunk-driving accident.
August 13: CBS, NBC, and ABC
all covered
the Chicago Democratic Convention.
October 20: Johnny Cash released “I
Walk the Line.”
October 29: Maria Callas made her
New York debut at the Metropolitan in Norma.
November: CBS first used videotape,
killing syndication through the kinescope.
November 7: A Long Day’s Journey
Into Night by Eugene O’Neill opened at New York’s Helen Hayes Theater.
November 11: The U.S. Census Bureau
reported that women outnumbered men in the United States by 1.381
million.