1969

The movies continued to break barriers in 1969 when Midnight Cowboy became the first, and only, X-rated film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, only a few years after the MPAA rating system was created.  1969 was the last year the MPAA used the M rating.

Boris Karloff died at age 81.  Judy Garland died of a prescription drug overdose at age 47. Actress Sharon Tate, wife of Roman Polanski, was brutally murdered by the Manson Family.  Shirley Temple was named Ambassador to the United Nations.

Two long-running television series debuted – “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” and “Sesame Street”.

Woodstock, a three-day rock music festival, attracted 400,000 young people for an outdoor concert marked by drug use, nudity, food shortages and profanity, as well as superb performances by the rock stars of the era.   The free concert was also remarkable for peaceful coexistence under trying circumstances.

On December 6, the Rolling Stones set out to replicate Woodstock on the West Coast by giving a free concert at the Altamont Speedway near San Francisco.  They decided the Hells Angels motorcycle gang would be an ideal choice to provide security.  In truth the audience needed protection from the Angels and the inevitable ensued, culminating in a murder before Mick Jagger’s horrified eyes.

The number one Billboard single of the year was “Sugar, Sugar” by the Archies (???!!!).  House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.  Howard Sackler’s The Great White Hope won for Drama. “The Middle Americans” were Time Magazine’s Persons of the Year.

U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the moon.

Richard M. Nixon was inaugurated President of the United States.  The Beatles made their final live appearance as a group, on the rooftop of Apple Studios in London.

At Chappaquiddick, having been drinking and partying with young women aides of his brother Robert Kennedy, Senator Edward M. (“Ted”) Kennedy, at this time a married man and a father, slipped away with 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne.  She was found trapped in his car submerged in just eight feet of water after he took a wrong turn off the Chappaquiddick bridge.  The Senator survived the incident.  He later plead guilty to leaving the scene of an incident causing serious injury for which he received a suspended sentence.

Investigative journalist Seymour Hirsch revealed the details of the Mai Lai massacre to a stunned American public.

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I’m again aiming at around 50 movies for 1969.  The list I’m working from is here.  If I’m missing something essential let me know.

Oscar winners