1909 in film

The year 1909 in film involved some significant events.

Events

Carl Laemmle founds the Independent Moving Pictures Company.
Selig Polyscope Company establish the first permanent film studio in Los Angeles in Edendale, Los Angeles.
The New York Motion Picture Company is founded and also open a film studio in Edendale. The studio is later used by Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios and then Mascot Pictures, which become part of Republic Pictures.
February 4 – The Paris Film Congress begins, an attempt by leading European producers to form a cartel similar to that of the Motion Picture Patents Company in the United States.
February 26 – Kinemacolor is shown to the public for the first time in the Palace Theatre in London.
March 16 – Charles Urban forms the Natural Color Kinematograph Company.
May 12 – Mr. Flip is released, the first film to feature someone being hit in the face with a pie.
May 23 – The first news cinema, The Daily Bioscope, opens in London.
June 17 – In the Sultan's Power, directed by Francis Boggs, is the first film ever completely made in Los Angeles, California.
October 25 – IMP release their first film, Hiawatha, based on the 1855 poem The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
November 5 - A Nature Movie by Arthur C. Pillsbury using film to explore the wonders of Yosemite. This first showing was for John Muir, a friend and associate of Pillsbury. Included was footage of the Hetch Hetchy. This film was then shown for the 1910 season at the Pillsbury Studio in Yosemite, advertised using postcards.
December 2 – Matsunosuke Onoe, who will become the first superstar of Japanese cinema, appears in his first film, Goban Tadanobu.
December 20 – James Joyce opens the Volta Cinematograph, the first cinema in Dublin.

Notable films

Films produced in the United States unless stated otherwise

Births

January 1 – Dana Andrews, actor
January 3 – Victor Borge, musician, actor
January 8 - Willy Millowitsch, actor
January 15 – Gene Krupa, musician, actor
January 22 – Ann Sothern, actress
January 24 – Ann Todd, actress
January 29 – Alan Marshal, actor
February 2 – Frank Albertson, actor
February 6 – Aino Talvi, Estonian actress
February 9
*Carmen Miranda, singer, actress
*Heather Angel, actress
February 11
*Max Baer – boxer, actor
*Joseph L. Mankiewicz – director, screenwriter, producer
February 16
*Hugh Beaumont, actor, director, writer
*Jeffrey Lynn, actor
March 19 – Louis Hayward, actor
March 26 – Chips Rafferty, actor
April 4 – Bobby Connelly, child actor
April 22– Ralph Byrd, actor
April 29 – Tom Ewell, actor
May 4 – Howard Da Silva, actor, director
May 15 – James Mason, actor
May 16 – Margaret Sullavan, actress
May 24 – Victoria Hopper, Canadian-born British actress and singer
May 30 – Benny Goodman, musician, actor
June 7 – Jessica Tandy, actress
June 8 – Robert Carson, actor
June 14 – Burl Ives, actor
June 20 – Errol Flynn, actor
June 26- Wolfgang Reitherman, director, producer, animator
July 1 – Madge Evans, actress
July 11
*Irene Hervey, actress
*John 'Dusty' King, actor, singer
July 12 – Curly Joe DeRita, actor
July 23 – Helen Martin, American actress
July 24 - Sydney Bromley, English character actor
August 25
*Ruby Keeler, singer, actress
*Michael Rennie, actor
August 26 – Jim Davis, American actor
September 7 – Elia Kazan, director
September 27 - Amerigo Tot, Hungarian actor
October 6 – Robert Carson, screenwriter
October 20 – Carla Laemmle, actress
October 29 – Douglass Montgomery, actor
November 11 – Robert Ryan, actor
November 26 – Frances Dee, actress
December 9 – Douglas Fairbanks Jr., actor
December 12 – Karen Morley, actress
December 20 – Diane Ellis, actress
December 22 - Patricia Hayes, English character actress

Deaths

January 27 – Benoît-Constant Coquelin, actor, Cyrano de Bergerac
September 4 – Clyde Fitch, author & playwright whose works have been adapted into films.

Film debuts

Fatty Arbuckle – Ben's Kid
Ethel Clayton – Justified
Dolores Costello – A Midsummer Night's Dream
Helene Costello – Les Misérables
Marie Dressler – Marie Dressler
Francis Ford – The Stolen Wireless
Annette Kellerman – The Bride of Lammermoor: A Tragedy of Bonnie Scotland
James Kirkwood – The Heart of an Outlaw
Florence La Badie – The Politician's Love Story
Tom Mix – The Cowboy Millionaire
Mary Pickford – Mrs. Jones Entertains
Billy Quirk – The Heart of an Outlaw
William A. Russell – Tag Day
William Stowell – The Cowboy Millionaire
Blanche Sweet – A Man with Three Wives
Rose Tapley – The Way of the Cross
Clara Kimball Young – Washington Under the American Flag

1909 in film

Events

Notable films

A

C

D

E

G

H

L

M

N

O

P

R

S

T

V

W

Births

Deaths

Film debuts