1976

The “sleeper” film Rocky made its debut. It was filmed in twenty-eight days with a budget of about $1 million, and ultimately grossed well over $100 million.  Sylvester Stallone supposedly wrote the script for the sports comeback film over a three-day period.  He became the third person in Oscar history to be nominated in a single year as both an actor and as a screenwriter.  The other two were Charles Chaplin for The Great Dictator (1940), and Orson Welles for Citizen Kane (1941).

The Steadicam (a stabilizing device for hand-held cameras), developed by Garrett Brown, was used for the first time in director Hal Ashby’s Bound for Glory,  for which DP Haskell Wexler won the Oscar for Best Cinematography.  Marathon Man and Rocky also used the new device.

The first VHS cassettes and players, which cost about $885 each, were released by JVC in October. The system was designed to compete with Sony’s Betamax magnetic tape system, with a longer recording time.  By 1987, VHS had acquired about 90-95% of the consumer market. The new technology was considered a threat to the film industry but in subsequent years was re-evaluated as a boon when studios discovered videos to be a major source of income. By 1986, the home video industry’s annual gross rentals exceeded rentals paid for films by theatres.

For his performance in Network, Peter Finch became the first person to win a posthumous Best Actor Oscar.  Beatrice Straight won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, the shortest role to win an acting Oscar, for her less than eight minutes of screen time in Network .  

Futureworld (1976) featured the first use of 3D CGI in a live-action film – it was a brief view of a computer-generated face and hand.

Sal Mineo was murdered.  We also lost Roger Livesy, Lee J. Cobb, Busby Berkeley, Luchino Visconti, Howard Hughes, Carol Reed, Fritz Lang, Alistair Sim, Dalton Trumbo, Edith Evans, Jean Gabin, and Rosalind Russell.  Albert Brooks, Amy Irving, Jessica Lange, Brooke Shields, and Deborah Winger made their film debuts.

“Silly Love Songs” by Wings spent 5 weeks atop the Billboard Charts making it the number one pop single of the year.  Humbolt’s Gift by Saul Bellow won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature.  A Chorus Line by Michael Bennett etal won for Drama.  Time Magazine’s Man of the Year was Jimmy Carter.

The United States celebrated 200 years of independence.  Jimmy Carter was elected President.  Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple.  The Viking 1 successfully landed on Mars. The first recognized outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease killed 29 at the American Legion convention in Philadelphia.

After the death of former leader Mao Zedong in September, Hua Guofeng was announced as the new leader of China. One of Hua Guonfeng’s first tasks was ordering the arrest of the so-called Gang of Four which consisted of party officials accused of treasonous actions.  Their arrest and Hua Guofeng’s leadership lead to the end of the Cultural Revolution.

Palestinian extremists hijacked an Air France plane in Greece with 246 passengers and 12 crew. They take it to Entebbe, Uganda, where Israeli commandos stormed the plane freeing the hostages. The first Concorde flights took off.

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The list of 1976 releases I will select from is here.  Suggestions or warnings will be appreciated!