Special Update! Pop Culture in 1964
Another year come and gone and it’s that time again! Let’s have a look at what was big in pop culture this year.
Billboard Year-End Hot 100 Singles of 1964 (Top 10)
- “I Want to Hold Your Hand” - The Beatles
- “She Loves You” - The Beatles
- “Hello Dolly!” - Louis Armstrong
- “Oh, Pretty Woman” - Roy Orbison
- “I Get Around” - The Beach Boys
- “Everybody Loves Somebody” - Dean Martin
- “My Guy” - Mary Wells
- “Where Did Our Love Go?” - The Supremes
- “Do Wah Diddy Diddy” - Manfred Mann
- “People” - Barbra Streisand
News in Music, through the year
January 16th - Bob Dylan’s third album,
The Times They Are a Changin’ is released in the United States.
February 1st - Indiana Governor Matthew E. Walsh declares The Kingsmen song “Louie, Louie” to be pornographic and asks that the record be banned.
March 6th - Elvis Presley’s 14th motion picture,
Kissin’ Cousins is released in the United States.
March 14th - Billboard Magazine reported that 60% of all singles sold in the past month in the United States were Beatles records.
April 16th - The Rolling Stones release their eponymous first album.
April - Drummer Keith Moon joins The Who.
May 20th - Judy Garland completes a successful concert tour of Australia and heads back to America to appear at the premiere of
Mary Poppins in August, in which she stars as Winifred Banks, mother to Jane and Michael, alongside Julie Andrews (the titular nanny) and Dick Van Dyke as Bert.
June 5th - The Rolling Stones start their first U.S. tour.
June 11th - Pete Townshend of The Who destroys his Rickenbacker guitar onstage after a show at the Railway. A Rock tradition is born.
July 6th - The Beatles’ first film,
A Hard Day’s Night is released and becomes a smash hit in the United States and United Kingdom.
August 8th - Bob Dylan released his fourth studio album:
Another Side of Bob Dylan.
August 22nd - The Supremes reach #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with the first of five massive number one hits, “Where Did Our Love Go?”
August 26th - The Kinks release their iconic single, “You Really Got Me”.
September 22nd -
Fiddler On the Roof opens on Broadway to rave reviews.
October - Dr. Robert Moog unveils his prototype synthesizers, which will come to revolutionize popular music.
October 25th - The Rolling Stones perform on The Ed Sullivan Show for the first time, as part of their second U.S. tour. They are touted as a “bad boy Rock N Roll band” as opposed to the squeaky clean Beatles. Fans of the two bands begin to antagonize each other in High Schools across the nation.
December 11th - Soul singer Sam Cooke is killed under mysterious circumstances in Los Angeles, California. Shortly thereafter, his arguably greatest song “A Change is Gonna Come” is released.
December 24th - The Beatles top the UK charts at Christmas for the second year in a row with “I Feel Fine”. Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel record their first handful of songs for Columbia Records.
1964 in Film - The Year’s Biggest
My Fair Lady - Musical. Directed by George Cukor, starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison. The highest grossing film of the year,
My Fair Lady raked in over $75,000,000 for Warner Brothers. A popular and enduring musical, several of the songs have since become American standards.
Goldfinger - Action/Espionage Thriller/007 Franchise. Directed by Guy Hamilton and starring Sean Connery as James Bond. The third film in the series,
Goldfinger is the first Bond film to be a major blockbuster, with its budget being roughly equal to the previous two entries combined. Marilyn Monroe was reportedly offered the role of Bond Girl Pussy Galore, but declined. Rumor has it that Monroe described the part as “demeaning, embarrassing, chauvinistic trash” and refused it due to her feminist activism. Nonetheless, the film went on to be a hit.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb - Political Satire/Black Comedy. Directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Peter Sellers in multiple comedic roles,
Dr. Strangelove offers a send up of Cold War fears of nuclear annihilation such as those suffered during the Cuban Missile Crisis only two years before. A masterpiece,
Strangelove would go on to be one of the first films preserved by the Library of Congress in 1989.
Mary Poppins - Musical/Fantasy. Directed by Robert Stevenson, starring Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke, and Judy Garland.
Everyone’s Favorite Television Programs in 1964
The Addams Family
Gilligan’s Island
Bewitched
The Dick Van Dyke Show
Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.
News in Television and Film
A new Sci Fi series boldly goes where no man has gone before...
March 11, 1964 - Gene Roddenberry drafts a short treatment for a science-fiction television series that he calls
Star Trek, inspired by his experience writing episodes for Western shows and films like
Forbidden Planet.
April, 1964 - Roddenberry presents the
Star Trek draft to Desilu Productions. He meets with Herbert F. Solow, Desilu Director of Production. Solow sees promise in the idea and signs a three year long development contract with Roddenberry. Lucille Ball, head of Desilu, is not personally involved, but is critical in getting the pilot produced. Desilu had a “first look” deal with CBS, but that network refuses to purchase the show, as they are already producing Lost in Space.
May 1964 - Solow, who previously worked at NBC, met with Grant Tinker, then head of the network's West Coast programming department. Tinker commissioned the first pilot – which became "The Cage". NBC turned down the resulting pilot, stating that it was "too cerebral". However, the NBC executives were still impressed with the concept, and they understood that its perceived faults had been partly because of the script that they had selected themselves.
NBC made the unusual decision to pay for a second pilot, using the script called "Where No Man Has Gone Before". Male lead Jeffrey Hunter, playing the part of Captain Christopher Pike in the pilot, is offered a rewritten part in the new series; a Captain James T. Kirk, but declines, citing his interest in pursuing film roles. Only the character of Spock, played by Leonard Nimoy, was retained from the first pilot, and only two cast members, Majel Barrett and Nimoy, were carried forward into the series. This second pilot proved to be satisfactory to NBC, and the network selected Star Trek to be in its upcoming television schedule for the fall of 1966. More on this in the 1966 update.
Throughout - Color broadcasting becomes the norm for most of NBC’s programs in the United States, including the early pilots of
Star Trek.
September 13th -
A Fistful of Dollars, an Italian “spaghetti western” film earns positive reviews and modest financial success in its home market. It is the first film to feature a brand new leading man by the name of Clint Eastwood.
October 18th - Jackie Mason appears on
The Ed Sullivan Show and is subsequently banned from future appearances when he is shown to be give Ed “the finger” on air. A week later, The Rolling Stones also appear on Sullivan’s program. Likewise due to their “offensive music and rude behavior”, they will never be invited back either.
November 11th - Marilyn Monroe stars in the titular role of
Harlow, a biographical film about the 30’s movie starlet alongside Peter Lawford, Leslie Nielsen, and others. Though production of the film had been delayed by six months to allow for Monroe’s recovery from her addictions and finish filming
The Birds, the producers declared that the end product was well worth the wait. A critical and commercial success,
Harlow cements Monroe’s reputation as one of Hollywood’s leading ladies, and bags her her first Academy Award, for Best Actress.
December 6th - NBC debuts the Christmas special
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. It will become a Holiday tradition, moving to CBS in 1972.
1964 in Sport:
AFL Championship Game: Quarterback Jack Kemp leads his Buffalo Bills to their first championship over the San Diego Chargers 11 - 7.
AFL MVP: WR Gino Cappelletti of the Boston Patriots
NFL Championship Game: Cleveland Browns win 27 - 0 over the Baltimore Colts.
NFL MVP: QB Johnny Unitas of the Baltimore Colts
The World Series: The New York Yankees win 4 games to 3 over the St. Louis Cardinals in a hotly contested Series. New York Centerfielder and future Hall of Famer, Mickey Mantle is named Series MVP. The Series marks Yogi Berra’s first Championship as the Yanks’ manager. Following the conclusion of the regular season, former Yankee and baseball great Joe DiMaggio announced that he would be taking a position as a hitting coach with the Los Angeles Dodgers, in order to be closer to Marilyn more often.
NBA Finals: The Boston Celtics pick up their second championship in a row. They go 4 games to 1 over the San Francisco Warriors.
Stanley Cup: The Toronto Maple Leafs win out over the Detroit Red Wings once again. This time 4 - 3.
Time Magazine’s Person of the Year: President John F. Kennedy
For a successful reelection campaign and seeing comprehensive Civil Rights legislation through Congress.
Nobel Laureates - 1964
Physics - Charles Hard Townes; Nikolay Basov; Alexander Prokhorov
Chemistry - Dorothy Hodgkin
Physiology or Medicine: Konrad Emil Broch, Feodor Felix Konrad Lynen
Literature: Jean-Paul Sartre
Peace: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Other Pop Culture Headlines from the Year
January 17th, 1964 - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl is published in the United States for the first time.
February 25th, 1964 - Boxer Cassius Clay defeats Sonny Liston for the World Heavyweight Championship.
March 15th, 1964 - Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, co-stars of
Cleopatra marry in Montreal. The media frenzy surrounding the event kicks off the celebrity relationship craze which will consume popular culture in the ensuing decades.
March 1964 - Marvel Comics creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby bring back Golden Age hero Captain America to lead their new team of superheroes: The Avengers. President Kennedy admits to being a huge fan of the character and applauds the decision.
April 17th, 1964 - The first Ford Mustang Sports Car is released for sale by the Ford Motor Company.
August 14th, 1964 - Coca Cola purchases the rights to make, bottle, and distribute Mountain Dew: a strange, citrus flavored soft drink from the Tip Corporation.
November 28th, 1964 - The Mariner 4 spacecraft is launched from Cape Canaveral. It’s mission: to study and photograph the surface of Mars. It reaches the surface of the Red Planet in July of the following year.
Throughout 1964 - “Buffalo style” Chicken wings, deep fried and covered in hot sauce, are made for the first time at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York.
Next Time on Blue Skies in Camelot: President Kennedy begins his second term and the War on Poverty.