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D. W. Griffith Timeline |
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| 1875 | ||||
| 22/1 - | Born in La Grange, near Crestwood, Kentucky to Jacob ‘Roaring Jake’ Griffith and Mary Perkins Oglesby. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| 1882 | ||||
| – Griffith’s father dies. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| 1889 | ||||
| – Moves to Louisville with his mother, who opens a boarding house. The venture soon fails. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| 1895 | ||||
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– Begins appearing as an actor onstage in Louisville. [MORE] [ADD] |
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| 1906 | ||||
| – Marries actress Linda Arvidson. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| 1907 | ||||
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– James K. Hackett produces Griffith’s play, A Fool and a Girl. It flops drastically. [MORE] [ADD] |
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| – Begins working as an actor for Edison Studios. His first role is in Edwin S. Porter’s Rescued from an Eagle’s Nest. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| 1908 | ||||
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– Leaves Edison for the struggling Biograph studio for a salary of $5 a day. [MORE] [ADD] |
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| – Reluctantly directs his first film for Biograph, The Adventures of Dollie, after Wallace McCutcheon, the studio’s principal director, falls ill. Arthur Marvin is the cameraman. The film premieres on 14th July. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| 1909 | ||||
| 10/10 - | Griffith’s Pippa Passes becomes the first film to be reviewed in the New York Times. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| 1910 | ||||
| 20/1 - | Makes the first of regular visits to California with his film crew to shoot films. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| 1913 | ||||
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– Makes his first feature film – Judith of Bethulia. [MORE] [ADD] |
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| – Leaves Biograph when the studio refuses to allow him to produce feature length films. With their star director gone – and much of their stock company following him - Biograph immediately goes into decline. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| 1914 | ||||
| – Forms Reliance-Majestic Studios with Harry Aitken and then enters into partnership with Mack Sennett and Thomas Ince in Triangle. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| 1915 | ||||
| 8/2 - | The twelve-reel Birth of a Nation premieres in Los Angeles. The film is a sensation despite the controversy provoked by its racist content. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| 1916 | ||||
| Intolerance, Griffith’s equally ambitious sequel to Birth of a Nation, fails to make a profit despite critical praise. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| – Issues a pamphlet, The Rise and Fall of Free Speech in America denouncing censors whom he claims are slowing the development of film as an art by censoring freedom of expression. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| 1919 | ||||
| – Founds United Artists with Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and Charles Chaplin. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| 1921 | ||||
| – Griffith’s Dream Street, the first American feature film with a fully synchronised music and effects soundtrack. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| 1924 | ||||
| – Leaves United Artists for Paramount following the failure of Isn’t Life Wonderful? [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| 1930 | ||||
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– Abraham Lincoln, Griffith’s first full sound picture is released. [MORE] [ADD] |
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| 1931 | ||||
| – The Struggle, Griffith’s final film, is released. It fails to win an audience and is withdrawn from cinemas after just one week. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| 1936 | ||||
| – Woody Van Dyke asks Griffith to help shoot the earthquake sequence for the film San Francisco, although he isn’t credited for his work. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| – Divorces Linda Arvidson twenty-five years after they separated to marry Evelyn Baldwin. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| – Receives a special Oscar from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences for his contributions to film art. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| 1940 | ||||
| – Hal Roach invites Griffith to Hollywood to supervise production of One Million B.C, a remake of one of his old films. Griffith is dismissed after he tries to take over production. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
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– Donates personal collection of his films to the Museum of Modern Art. [MORE] [ADD] |
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| 1948 | ||||
| 23/7 - | Dies of a cerebral haemorrhage in an ambulance after being discovered unconscious in his room at the Knickerbocker Hotel in Los Angeles. At his funeral, actor Donald Crisp, who worked on many of Griffith’s films, says, ‘I cannot help feeling that there should always have been a place for him and his talent in the motion picture field. It is hard to believe that the industry could not have found a use for his great gift.’ [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| 1950 | ||||
| – The Director’s Guild of America provide a stone and bronze monument for Griffith’s gravesite at Mount Tabor Methodist Church Graveyard in Centerfield, Kentucky. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| 1953 | ||||
| – The Director’s Guild of America introduce it’s highest honour – The D. W. Griffith Award. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| 1975 | ||||
| 5/5 - |
The U.S Postal Service issues a 10 cent stamp honouring Griffith. [MORE] [ADD] |
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| 1980 | ||||
| – It's revealed that all but 30 of Griffith’s 530 films have been preserved. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| 1999 | ||||
| 15/12 - | The Director’s Guild of America President Jack Shea and the National Board announce that the D. W. Griffith Award is to be renamed the DGA Lifetime Achievement Award because his film Birth of a Nation had ‘helped foster intolerable racial stereotypes.’ [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| 2008 | ||||
| 10/12 - | The Hollywood Heritage Museum screens a number of Griffith’s earliest films to commemorate the centennial of his first work as a film director. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| 2009 | ||||
| 22/1 - | A 15-seat theatre is opened at the Oldham History Center in Griffith’s birthplace, La Grange, Kentucky. [MORE] [ADD] |
D. W. Griffith