Timeline June 1959

Events in June 1959 7

• 1879 – 1959 Ethel Barrymore (1879-1959) Died 18 June 1959, aged 79 Barrymore was a celebrated American stage and film actress and a leading member of the Barrymore theatrical dynasty. Known as "The First Lady of the American Theatre," she won an Academy Award for None but the Lonely Heart in 1944. Her career spanned more than five decades on stage and screen.
• 1914 – 1959 George Reeves (1914-1959) Died 16 June 1959, aged 45 Reeves was an American actor best known for playing Superman in the television series Adventures of Superman during the 1950s. His death from a gunshot wound at his Los Angeles home was ruled a suicide, though the circumstances remain disputed. The role of Superman had come to overshadow his earlier film career.
• 1920 – 1959 Boris Vian (1920-1959) Died 23 June 1959, aged 39 Vian was a French novelist, poet, and jazz trumpeter whose surrealist novel Froth on the Daydream and satirical songwriting made him a fixture of postwar Parisian bohemian culture. He also wrote hardboiled crime fiction under the pseudonym Vernon Sullivan. He died of a heart attack at a screening of a film adaptation of one of his own novels.
• 1959 French Open 1959 Men: Nicola Pietrangeli · Women: Christine Truman
• 1959 Ray Charles releases What'd I Say Call and response An improvised show closer that becomes his first top-ten pop hit.
• 1959 Singapore attains self-government Lee Kuan Yew becomes prime minister Singapore was granted full internal self-government by Britain, ending direct colonial rule. Lee Kuan Yew was sworn in as the first Prime Minister of the State of Singapore. Full independence would follow later, first through merger with Malaysia and then separation in 1965.
• 1959 Brigitte Bardot marries Jacques Charrier She marries the actor, her co-star in Babette Goes to War.