January 21, 1959 (Wednesday)
- Carl Switzer, who had portrayed "Alfalfa" of the Little Rascals, was shot and killed in North Hollywood during a fight with Bud Stilz, whom Switzer confronted over a claimed debt. Switzer, 31, had recently been in the Tony Curtis film The Defiant Ones. An inquiry concluded that Stilz had acted in self-defense.
- Legendary movie producer and director Cecil B. DeMille died at his home after a short illness at the age of 78. At the time of his death, DeMille had recently made plans for an epic film about the Boy Scouts, followed by a secret project that he only described as "something entirely different".
- European Court of Human Rights established.
- Born: Paulo Miklos, Brazilian musician and actor; in São Paulo, and Alex McLeish, footballer for Birmingham City and later Scotland national team manager; in Barrhead
Read more about this topic: January 1959
Famous quotes containing the word january:
“Here lies interred in the eternity of the past, from whence there is no resurrection for the days—whatever there may be for the dust—the thirty-third year of an ill-spent life, which, after a lingering disease of many months sank into a lethargy, and expired, January 22d, 1821, A.D. leaving a successor inconsolable for the very loss which occasioned its existence.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)