Timeline August 1956

Events in August 1956 5

• 1882 – 1956 Bela Lugosi (1882-1956) Died 16 August 1956, aged 73 Hungarian-American actor best known for playing Count Dracula in the 1931 film and on stage. He struggled with drug addiction and declining roles in his later career, appearing in several low-budget films. He died of a heart attack in Los Angeles.
• 1898 – 1956 Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) Died 14 August 1956, aged 58 German playwright, poet, and theatre director known for developing epic theatre and plays such as Mother Courage and Her Children and The Threepenny Opera. He returned to East Germany after years of exile from Nazi rule and founded the Berliner Ensemble. He died of a heart attack in East Berlin.
• 1912 – 1956 Jackson Pollock Abstract Expressionism · USA Jackson Pollock (January 28, 1912 – August 11, 1956) was an American painter and pioneer of Abstract Expressionism whose drip technique revolutionised painting. He died in a car crash at 44, defining the archetype of the tortured American artist.
• 1956 US Championships 1956 Men: Ken Rosewall · Women: Shirley Fry
• 1956 Duke Ellington on the cover of Time After Newport Time cover story after the Newport triumph.