In the weeks leading up to the Sept. 29, 1954 premiere of A Star Is Born, Jack Warner sent telegrams to every movie star in town. The Warner Bros. honcho was determined to create a celebrity-studded event for the first-ever nationally televised premiere, airing on NBC.
Lauren Bacall, then married to Humphrey Bogart, let Frank Sinatra light her cigarette at the afterparty.
Singer and actress Rosemary Clooney (aunt to George Clooney) with her husband, Puerto Rican actor and director Jose Ferrer.
Joan Crawford, flanked by actors Marie Wilson and Cesar Romero.
Doris Day (with husband and agent Marty Melcher) draped herself in mink for the premiere.
Marlene Dietrich danced with director Elia Kazan at the Cocoanut Grove.
A year earlier, she starred in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
Elizabeth Taylor attended with second husband, actor Michael Wilding. As Ann Robinson, who then was an actress with Paramount, remembers to THR: “God, you never saw so many stars in your life.”
Lauren Bacall and Charlton Heston attended the premiere.
"It was just chaos," Robinson recalled.
James Dean joked around with Swiss actress Ursula Andress, the year before his big film break in East of Eden.
He was turned down for the Star Is Born lead but came anyway.
Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra danced together at an afterparty for 800 guests at the Ambassador Hotel’s Cocoanut Grove nightclub.
The cast, Ball said at the premiere, “is going to take all the Academy Awards they have.”
She was nominated for an Oscar for the original A Star Is Born in 1937.
Among the few names who didn’t attend was the film’s director, George Cukor. And he was out of town scouting locations for his next film in India when Warner Bros. made its cuts. As the film’s production designer, Gene Allen, now 96, tells THR: “Jack Warner and others were snipping away at it. We were a long way away, and we couldn’t stop anything.”
Lennie Hayton and Lena Horne attended the gala.
The singer attended the premiere with his mother.
A “Rambling Reporter” column for The Hollywood Reporter on Oct. 1, 1954, reported that “Warner’s tip for the waiters alone was $1,500.” The day of the premiere, a Warner Bros. ad in THR called it “the most anticipated production of motion picture history.”
“I think everybody’s here,” he said on NBC’s telecast of the premiere.