1958

Did the camera industry experience a major manufacturing change in the mid to late 50's?

The more I learn about old brands and models the more I think i notice that 1958 seems to be "the" year everything changed from folding cameras, to rigid bodies.

Does anyone know which company came out with the very first camera that wasn't a folding camera?

I think it was Minolta's SR-2 that changed it all. Sure there might have been a SLR before but this was the mass market game changer (I could be wrong though)....
Dead Link Removed

If you have to say 1958, Thanks to the Original SLR the Kine Exakta in 1936, lead to the modern SLR lay out with the 1957 Asahi Pentax. And thanks to all that you get a Nikon F in 1959.

*If you ask that, the old Kodak brownie is a Box camera instead of a folder. So you'll have to think sometime before that even.

maybe it had something to do with charles bronson ( man with a camera )
or the first IHOP opening ?

The Argus C3, a 35mm rangefinder goes back to about 1939. I bought mine at the very end of 1957 or so and I remember prior to that drooling over the Exactas and such that were way beyond what I could afford. Plus TLRs go farther back, at least to the thirties. It might be that the post-WWII recovery of manufacturing in Europe and Japan combined with the relative prosperity of the 1950s may have expanded the market and encouraged more use by "the masses."

By 1958 it was the advent of the Japanese cameras that was radically changing the market place. It wasn't particularly any one make although Nikon were spearheading the professional market for photojournalists.

In contrast American and European manufacturers were mostly making lack lustre often clumsy cameras, there were exceptions like Leica and Hasselblad, and some of the more innovative European cameras were being made in East Germany but poor quality control held them back. The Praktina system was the firts full SLR system with a motor drive etc.Later the Prakticamat was the first SLR with TTL metering just beating the Spotmatic into the dealers.

Looking at adverts for the time it's easy to spot the complacency in companies like Kodak who were still selling Box bownies and a motley range of other cheap cameras, in comparison Fuji were offering high end SLRs and Rangefinder cameras.

Perhaps the biggest mistake after WWII was the reliance on leaf shutters in many West German cameras this made SLR design particularly awkward and the arrival of well engineered, well designed, reliable Japanese cameras with their clean ergonic styling which also made them much easier to use just devastated the German market which couldn't repsond quickly to change.

Ian

Folders were produced after 1958 but the popularity of the TLR & SLR were by far outpacing the demand for them. So I guess you could say that year might have been a turning point.
For most of the last 4 decades I've used SLR's & TLR's. It's only in the last few years I've found a fondness for the folders.
6x6, 6x9 & 4x5 (Crown Graphic) folders that are starting to see some use now.

Perhaps the Hasselblad 500C introduced in 1957 was the trigger?

i think it was elvis presley's enlistment in the army
... or the last tom and jerry cartoon..

could have been a lot of things

ChristopherCoy said:

Did the camera industry experience a major manufacturing change in the mid to late 50's?

The more I learn about old brands and models the more I think i notice that 1958 seems to be "the" year everything changed from folding cameras, to rigid bodies.

Does anyone know which company came out with the very first camera that wasn't a folding camera?

Click to expand...

1959

That was the watershed year. Nikon F debuted. Rangefinders are dead. Long live SLRs.

Exacta introduced the 1st practical SLR and there were offerings from Contax such as the Contaflex and Contarex. Also, Alpa but, not a major market player. In the '50s with the introduction of the 1st slr with the now common mechanical layout, the Contax and then the Ashahiflex (think it was called that), the slr market was established. When Ashahi added the internal metering (Spotmatic), the die was cast against all other designs that made up the majority of the market. I remember attending a photo show as a kid after the slr offerings took hold and a marketing manager from Asahi said every camera maker had to either go slr or go broke. It was like the transition from tubes to solid state, persons could not get rid of obsolete Rolleiflexes, Leicas, Nikon and other rangefinders and cameras like the Speed Graphic and other mf and lf cameras used by news agencies, etc. were relegated to the scrap heap as suddenly the 35mm was legit where for deacades before, none would consider it good enough to use even for a newspaper photo. A great time to collect some great vintage cameras for next to nothing.

Brian, you're muddling the early SLR Contax cameras with focal plane shutters made in Dresden by Zeiss Ikon just after WWII with the quite differeent West German, Stuttgart, made Contaflex/Contarex etc which used leaf shutters. The East German Contax S, D etc, is the now classic simple layout, later renamed as Pentacon.

There's an interesting article in the BJP written in 1950/1 by HS Newcombe author of the 35mm -Miniature CameraPractice, as well as other books and article. Newcombe was also the owner of a large retail shop and discusses the dire shortage of good high quality cameras at the time. In the UK this was partly due to severe import restrictions but also because quality UK made cameras were in short supply and more basic cameras were of poor quality.

Miniature Camera Practice details the main serious 35mm cameras of it's time and one striking thing is the number of companies who had disappeared bt the 1960's or stopped camera manufacture.My copy (1953) lists 45 manufactuers across the world, and only one of the companies Hansa (Canon) still makes cameras. Of course two other names are in use Voightlander and Zeiss but on Cosina made cameras.

This really highlights the major shift from European made cameras nwhich had dominated between the wars and early 1950's and the growth of the Japanese brands which began in the mid 1950's and had become noticable by 1958.

I think I have a late 1960's or early 70's BJP Annula article highlighting these changes, I may well have scanned it.

Ian

Many slrs became available at reasonable prices and the folders and many rfs were dropped from production. I remember it well, because I really wanted a slr then.

My oldest non-folding cameras date from 1936 and 1939 respectively - both Zeiss Ikon. Voigtlander introduced their Vito B in 1954 to replace the folding Vito II.

Certainly, the cameras being produced in 1960 were very different to those produced in 1950. But I don't think you can put an exact date on it. There were many small gradual changes to camera designs over the decade.

Ian Grant said:

Brian, you're muddling the early SLR Contax cameras with focal plane shutters made in Dresden by Zeiss Ikon just after WWII with the quite differeent West German, Stuttgart, made Contaflex/Contarex etc which used leaf shutters.

Click to expand...

Ian, m'friend, please don't tar the Contarex with the Contaflex brush. The Contarex was a heavy somewhat klutzy very complex 35 mm SLR with a focal plane shutter and superlative optics, was improved considerably over time. The Contaflex was a cheap complex 35 mm SLR with leaf shutter.

They were all in the market when was setting up but I couldn't justify buying any German (BRD, DDR) 35 mm SLR. At the time my quartet's second violinist was a Leicanut, spoke fervently about the Leicaflex "if you must have an SLR." Not for me, and none of that lot ever will be. But Contarexes are lovely artifacts.

Dan Fromm said:

Ian, m'friend, please don't tar the Contarex with the Contaflex brush. The Contarex was a heavy somewhat klutzy very complex 35 mm SLR with a focal plane shutter and superlative optics, was improved considerably over time. The Contaflex was a cheap complex 35 mm SLR with leaf shutter.

They were all in the market when was setting up but I couldn't justify buying any German (BRD, DDR) 35 mm SLR. At the time my quartet's second violinist was a Leicanut, spoke fervently about the Leicaflex "if you must have an SLR." Not for me, and none of that lot ever will be. But Contarexes are lovely artifacts.

Click to expand...

Dan you're right the last Contarex cameras were the best, I remember being photographed by one of my school teachers who used one and still have some prints. In fact the late models where innovative in their own way taking interchangable 35mm backs.

But your "Klutzy" comment sums them up along with many other West German SLR's of the era, UK buit cameras like the Wraflex were even worse, it took the Japapnese to streamline and popularise the SLR and also introduce good modestly priced Rangefinder cameras.

Ian

ChristopherCoy said:

Did the camera industry experience a major manufacturing change in the mid to late 50's?

The more I learn about old brands and models the more I think i notice that 1958 seems to be "the" year everything changed from folding cameras, to rigid bodies.

Does anyone know which company came out with the very first camera that wasn't a folding camera?

Click to expand...

The Pentax was the first SLR with a built in, coupled rangefinder.

January
January 1
European Economic Community (EEC) founded.
First Carrefour store opens, in Annecy.
January 4 – Sputnik 1 (launched on October 4, 1957) falls to Earth from its orbit and burns up.
January 8 – 14-year-old Bobby Fischer wins the United States Chess Championship.
January 18 – Armed Lumbee Indians confront a handful of Klansmen in Maxton, North Carolina.
January 20 – Anne de Vries releases the fourth and final volume of Journey Through the Night.
January 28 – Hall of Fame baseball player Roy Campanella is involved in an automobile accident that ends his career and leaves him paralyzed.
January 31 – The first successful American satellite, Explorer 1, is launched into orbit.
[edit]February
February 1 – Egypt and Syria unite to form the United Arab Republic.
February 2 – The word Aerospace is coined, from the words Aircraft (aero) and Spacecraft (space), taking into consideration that the Earth's atmosphere and outerspace is to be one, or a single realm.
February 5
Gamel Abdel Nasser is nominated as the first president of the United Arab Republic.
The Tybee Bomb, a 7,600 pound (3,500 kg) Mark 15 hydrogen bomb, is lost in the waters off Savannah, Georgia.
February 6 – Seven Manchester United footballers are among the 21 people killed in the Munich air disaster in West Germany on the return flight from a European Cup game in Yugoslavia. 23 people survive, but four of them, including manager Matt Busby and players Johnny Berry and Duncan Edwards, are in a serious condition.[1]
February 11
The strongest ever known solar maximum is recorded.[2]
Marshal Chen Yi succeeds Zhou Enlai as Chinese Minister of Foreign affairs.
Ruth Carol Taylor is the first African American woman hired as a flight attendant. Hired by Mohawk Airlines, her career lasts only six months, due to another discriminatory barrier – the airline's ban on married flight attendants.
February 14 – The Hashemite Kingdoms of Iraq and Jordan unite in the Arab Federation of Iraq and Jordan with Iraqi King Faisal II as head of state.
February 17 – Pope Pius XII declares Saint Clare the patron saint of television.
February 20 – A test rocket explodes at Cape Canaveral.
February 21 – A peace symbol is designed and completed by Gerald Holtom, commissioned by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, in protest against the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment.
February 23
Cuban rebels kidnap five-time world driving champion Juan Manuel Fangio, releasing him 28 hours later.
Arturo Frondizi is elected president of Argentina.
February 24 – In Cuba, Fidel Castro's Radio Rebelde begins broadcasting from Sierra Maestra.
February 25 – Bertrand Russell launches the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
February 28 – One of the worst school bus accidents in U.S. history occurs at Prestonburg, Kentucky; 29 are killed.
[edit]March
March 1 – The Turkish passenger ship Uskudar capsizes and sinks at Izmit Bay, Kocaeli, Turkey; at least 300 die.
March 2 – A British team led by Sir Vivian Fuchs completes the first crossing of the Antarctic in snowcat caterpillar tractors and dogsled teams in 99 days.
March 8 – The USS Wisconsin is decommissioned, leaving the United States Navy without an active battleship for the first time since 1896 (it is recommissioned October 22, 1988).
March 11 – A U.S. B-47 bomber accidentally drops an atom bomb on Mars Bluff, South Carolina. Its conventional explosives destroy a house and injure several people, but no nuclear fission occurs.
March 17 – Convention on the Inter-Governmental Maritime Consultative Organization (IMCO) enters into force, founding the IMCO as a specialized agency of the United Nations.
March 17 – The United States launches the Vanguard 1 satellite.
March 19 – Monarch Underwear Company fire in New York.
March 24 – The U.S. Army inducts Elvis Presley, transforming The King Of Rock & Roll into U.S. private #53310761.
March 25 – Canada's Avro Arrow makes its debut flight.
March 26
The United States Army launches Explorer 3.
The 30th Academy Awards ceremony takes place; The Bridge on the River Kwai wins seven awards, including Academy Award for Best Picture.
March 27 – Nikita Khrushchev becomes Premier of the Soviet Union.
[edit]April
April – Unemployment in Detroit reaches 20%, marking the height of the Recession of 1958 in the United States.
April 1 – The BBC Radiophonic Workshop is established.
April 3 – Castro's revolutionary army begins its attacks on Havana.
April 4 – April 7 – In the first protest march for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament from Hyde Park, London to Aldermaston, Berkshire, demonstrators demand the banning of nuclear weapons.
April 4 – Cheryl Crane, daughter of actress Lana Turner, fatally stabs her mother's gangster lover Johnny Stompanato (the stabbing is eventually ruled as self-defense).
April 6 – Soraya Esfandiary Bakhtiari divorces the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi after she is unable to produce any children.
April 14
The satellite Sputnik 2 disintegrates in space after several orbits.
Van Cliburn wins the Tchaikovsky International Competition for pianists in Moscow, breaking Cold War tensions.
April 15 – The San Francisco Giants beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 8–0 at San Francisco's Seals Stadium, in the first Major League Baseball regular season game ever played in California.
April 17 – King Baudouin of Belgium officially opens the World Fair in Brussels, also known as Expo '58. The Atomium forms the centrepiece.
April 21 - United Airlines Flight 736 is involved in a mid-air collision with a U.S. Air Force F-100F-5-NA Super Sabre jet fighter near Las Vegas, Nevada. All 49 persons in both aircraft are killed.
[edit]May
May 1
Arturo Frondizi becomes President of Argentina.
The Nordic Passport Union comes into force.
May 9 – Actor-singer Paul Robeson, whose passport has been reinstated, sings in a sold-out one-man recital at Carnegie Hall. The recital is such a success that Robeson gives another one at Carnegie Hall a few days later; but, after this, Robeson is seldom seen in public in the United States again. His Carnegie Hall concerts are later released on records and on CD.
May 10 – Interviewed in the Chave d'Ouro café, when asked about his rival António de Oliveira Salazar, Humberto Delgado utters one of the most famous comments in Portuguese political history: "Obviamente, demito-o! (Obviously, I'll sack him!)".
May 12 – A formal North American Aerospace Defense Command agreement is signed between the United States and Canada.
May 13
French Algerian protesters seize government offices in Algiers, leading to a military coup.
During a visit to Caracas, Venezuela, Vice President Richard M. Nixon's car is attacked by anti-American demonstrators.
May 15 – The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 3.
May 18 – An F-104 Starfighter sets a world speed record of 1,404.19 mph (2,259.82 km/h).
May 20 – Fulgencio Batista's government launches a counteroffensive against Castro's rebels.
May 21 – United Kingdom Postmaster General Ernest Marples announces that from December, Subscriber Trunk Dialling will be introduced in the Bristol area.[3]
May 23 – Explorer 1 ceases transmission.
May 30 – The bodies of unidentified United States soldiers killed in action during World War II and the Korean War are buried at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery.
[edit]June
June 1
Charles de Gaulle is brought out of retirement to lead France by decree for 6 months.
Iceland extends its fishing limits to 12 miles (22.2 km).
June 2 – In San Simeon, California, Hearst Castle opens to the public for guided tours.[4]
June 4 – French President Charles De Gaulle visits Algeria.
June 8 – The SS Edmund Fitzgerald is launched; she will be the largest Lake freighter for more than a dozen years.
June 16 – Imre Nagy is hanged for treason in Hungary.
June 20 – The iron barque Omega of Callao, Peru (built in Scotland, 1887), sinks on passage carrying guano from the Pachacamac Islands for Huacho, the world’s last full rigged ship trading under sail alone.[5]
June 27 – The Peronist Party becomes legal again in Argentina.
June 29 – Brazil beats Sweden 5–2 to win the football World Cup.

ALSO----> http://www.348-409.com/1958flash.html

July
July 5 – Gasherbrum I, the 11th highest mountain in the world, is first ascended.
July 7
President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Alaska Statehood Act into United States law.
The first International House of Pancakes (IHOP) opens in Toluca Lake, Los Angeles.
July 9 – A 7.5 Richter scale earthquake in Lituya Bay, Alaska, causes a landslide that produces a huge 520-meter high wave.
July 10 – The first parking meters are installed in Britain.
July 11 – Count Michael Rhédey von Kis-Rhéde, direct descendant of Samuel Aba, King of Hungary, at the age of 60 is pistol-whipped and murdered over a few hectares of land by Czechoslovak Communists during the collectivization process at his residence in Olcsvar, Slovakia.
July 15 – In Lebanon, 5,000 United States Marines land in the capital Beirut in order to protect the pro-Western government there.
July 17 – British paratroopers arrive in Jordan; King Hussein has asked help against pressure from Iraq.
July 19 - The Beatles, then The Quarrymen, pay 17 shillings and 6 pence to have their first recording session where they record That'll Be The Day by Buddy Holly and In Spite Of All The Danger by Paul McCartney and George Harrison.
July 20 – Various rebel groups in Cuba join forces but the communists do not join them.
July 24 – The first life peerage under the Life Peerages Act 1958 is created in the United Kingdom.
July 26
Explorer program: Explorer 4 is launched.
Elizabeth II gives her son and heir apparent The Prince Charles the customary title of Prince of Wales.
July 29 – The U.S. Congress formally creates the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
July 31 – Tibetan resistance movement against rule by China receives support from the United States Central Intelligence Agency.
[edit]August
August 1 – The last Tom and Jerry episode (Tot Watchers) made by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera is released. Tom and Jerry will not be released to theatres again until 1961.
August 3 – The nuclear powered submarine USS Nautilus becomes the first vessel to cross the North Pole under water.
August 6 – Australian athlete Herb Elliott clips almost three seconds off the world record for the mile run at Santry Stadium, Dublin, recording a time of 3 minutes 54.5 seconds.
August 14 – A 4-engine Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation aircraft belonging to KLM crashes into the sea with 99 people on board.
August 17 – The first Thor-Able rocket is launched, carrying Pioneer 0, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 17. The launch fails due to a first stage malfunction.
August 18
Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel Lolita is published in the United States.
Brojen Das from East Pakistan swims across the English Channel in a competition, as the first Bangali as well as the first Asian to ever do it. He is first among 39 competitors.
August 23
Chinese Civil War: The Second Taiwan Strait crisis begins with the People's Liberation Army's bombardment of Quemoy.
President of the United States Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Federal Aviation Act, transferring all authority over aviation in the USA to the newly created Federal Aviation Agency (FAA, later renamed Federal Aviation Administration).
August 27 – Operation Argus: The United States begins nuclear tests over the South Atlantic.
August 29 – Michael Jackson, King Of Pop entertainment legend is born in Gary, Indiana.
August 30 – September 1 – Notting Hill race riots: Riots between blacks and whites in Notting Hill, London.[6]
[edit]September
September 1 – The first Cod War begins between the United Kingdom and Iceland.
September 6 – Paul Robeson performs in concert at the Soviet Young Pioneer camp Artek.
September 12 – Jack Kilby invents the first integrated circuit.
September 14 – Two rockets designed by German engineer Ernst Mohr (the first German post-war rockets) reach the upper atmosphere.
September 27 – Typhoon Ida kills at least 1,269 in Honsh?, Japan.
September 28 – In France, a majority of 79% says yes to the constitution of the Fifth Republic.
September 30 – The U.S.S.R. performs a nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya.
[edit]October
October 1
Tunisia and Morocco join the Arab League.
NASA starts operations and replaces the NACA.
October 2 – Guinea declares itself independent from France.
October 4 – BOAC uses the new De Havilland Comet jets, to become the first airline to fly jet passenger services across the Atlantic.
October 9 – Pope Pius XII dies.
October 11 – Pioneer 1, the second and most successful of the 3 project Able space probes, becomes the first spacecraft launched by the newly formed NASA.
October 16 – First broadcast of the long-running BBC Television children's programme Blue Peter.[7]
October 21 – The Life Peerages Act entitles women to sit in the British House of Lords for the first time. The Baronesses Swanborough (Stella Isaacs, Marchioness of Reading) and Wooton (Barbara Wooton) are the first to take their seats.
October 26 – First transatlantic flight of a Pan American World Airways Boeing 707.
October 28 – Pope John XXIII succeeds Pope Pius XII as the 261st pope.
[edit]November
November 3 – The new UNESCO building is inaugurated in Paris.
November 10 – The Bossa nova is born in Rio de Janeiro, with João Gilberto's recording of Chega de Saudade.
November 18 - The SS Carl D. Bradley sinks in a storm on Lake Michigan, killing 33 of the 35 crewmen on board.
November 22 – The Menzies Liberal government in Australia is re-elected for a fifth term.
November 23 – Have Gun, Will Travel debuts on American radio.
November 25 – French Sudan gains autonomy as a self-governing member of the French colonial empire.
November 28 – Chad, the Republic of the Congo, and Gabon become autonomous republics within the French colonial empire.
November 29 - Ted Kennedy marries Joan Bennett at St. Joseph's Church in Bronxville, New York.
November 30 – Gaullists win the French parliamentary election.
[edit]December
December 1
Adolfo López Mateos takes office as President of Mexico.
Our Lady of the Angels School Fire: At least ninety students and three nuns are killed in a fire in Chicago.
December 5
Subscriber trunk dialling (STD) is inaugurated in the UK by the Queen, when she dials a call from Bristol to Edinburgh and speaks to the Lord Provost.[8]
The Preston bypass, the United Kingdom's first motorway, opens to traffic for the first time. This stretch is now part of the M6 and M55 motorways.
December 6 – The 3rd launch of a Thor-Able rocket, carrying Pioneer 2, is unsuccessful due to a 3rd stage ignition failure.
December 9 – The right-wing John Birch Society is founded in the USA by Robert Welch, a retired candy manufacturer.
December 14 – The 3rd Soviet Antarctic Expedition becomes the first ever to reach the Southern Pole of Inaccessibility.
December 15 – Arthur L. Schawlow and Charles H. Townes of Bell Laboratories publish a paper in Physical Review Letters setting out the principles of the optical laser.
December 16 - A fire breaks out in the Vida Department Store in Bogota, Colombia and kills 84 persons.
December 19 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower broadcasts a message from a Project SCORE satellite.
December 21 – General Charles de Gaulle is elected president of France with 78.5% of the votes.
December 24 – A BOAC Bristol Britannia (312 G-AOVD) crashes near Winkton, England during a test flight.
December 25 – Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker (the George Balanchine version) is shown on prime-time television in color for the first time, as an episode of the CBS anthology series Playhouse 90.
December 28 – The Baltimore Colts beat the New York Giants 23–17 to win the NFL Championship Game, the first to go into sudden death overtime and "The Greatest Game Ever Played".[9].
December 29 – Rebel troops under Che Guevara begin to invade Santa Clara, Cuba. Fulgencio Batista resigns two days later, on the night of the 31st.
December 31 – Tallies reveal that, for the first time, the total of passengers carried by air this year exceeds the total carried by sea in transatlantic service.
[edit]Date unknown
Nikita Khrushchev orders Western allies to evacuate West Berlin within 6 months but backs down in the face of the allies' unity.
USA, USSR and Great Britain agree to stop testing atomic bombs for 3 years.
During the International Geophysical Year, Earth's magnetosphere is discovered.
The last legal female genital cutting occurs in the United States.
Denatonium, the bitterest substance known, is discovered. It is used as an aversive agent in products such as bleach to reduce the risk of children drinking them.
The Jim Henson Company is founded.
Instant noodles go on sale for the first time.
The Japanese 10 yen coin ceases having serrated edges after a 5-year period beginning in 1953. All 10 yen coins since have smooth edges.
The British Rally Championship begins its first year.
The Amirkabir University of Technology is founded in Tehran.
The University of New Orleans established
Illinois observes the centennial of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates.
Sicilian writer Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's novel Il Gattopardo is published posthumously.
Welsh cultural critic Raymond Williams publishes Culture and Society.
Based on birth rates (per 1,000 population), the post-war baby boom ends in the United States as an 11-year decline in the birth rate begins (the longest on record in that country).
[edit]Births

[edit]January
January 1 – Grandmaster Flash, African-American hip-hop/rap DJ
January 2 – Vladimir Ovchinnikov, Russian pianist
January 4 – Matt Frewer, Canadian/American actor (Max Headroom)
January 4 – James J. Greco, American businessman
January 9 – Mehmet Ali A?ca, Turkish militant, would-be assassin of Pope John Paul II
January 11 – Vicki Peterson, American rock musician
January 13 – Ricardo Acuña, Chilean tennis player
January 15 – Boris Tadi?, Serbian president
January 20 – Lorenzo Lamas, American actor, martial artist and reality show participant
January 21 – Hussein Saeed Mohammed, Iraqi football player
January 24 – Jools Holland, British musician
January 25 – Dinah Manoff, American Tony-winning actress
January 26 – Ellen DeGeneres, American actress and comedian
January 27 – Kadri Mälk, Estonian artist and jewelry designer
January 28 - Lagaf', French singer, humorist, animator TV and actor
January 29 - Stephen Lerner, American labor and community activist
[edit]February
February 1 – Ryo Horikawa, Japanese voice actor
February 4 – Tomasz Pacy?ski, Polish writer (d. 2005)
February 8 – Sherri Martel, American professional wrestler (d. 2007)
February 11
Michael Jackson, British broadcasting executive
Regina Maršíková, Czechoslovakian tennis player
February 13 – Pernilla August, Swedish actress
February 14
Grant Thomas, Australian rules footballer
Francisco Javier Lopez Pena, Basque separatist
February 16 – Ice-T, African-American rapper, songwriter, and actor
February 19 – Steve Nieve, English musician
February 21
Jake Burns, Irish punk singer
Mary Chapin Carpenter, American singer
February 25 – Kurt Rambis, American basketball player
February 26 – Susan Helms, American astronaut
February 28 – Natalya Estemirova, Russian activist (d. 2009)
[edit]March
March 1 – Nik Kershaw, English singer
March 3 – Miranda Richardson, English actress
March 5 – Andy Gibb, English-born singer (d. 1988)
March 7
Rik Mayall, English comedian and actor
Donna Murphy, American actress and singer
March 8 – Gary Numan, British singer
March 9 – Linda Fiorentino, American actress
March 10
Steve Howe, American baseball player (d. 2006)
Sharon Stone, American actress and producer
March 13 – Linda Robson, English actress
March 14 – Albert II, Prince of Monaco
March 18
Kayo Hatta, American film director (d. 2005)
John Elefante, American singer and producer (Kansas)
March 20 – Holly Hunter, American actress
March 21 – Gary Oldman, English actor and filmmaker
March 25 – James McDaniel, American actor
March 26 – Todd Joseph Miles Holden, American-born social scientist, author, basketball coach
March 27 – Jessica Soho, Philippine television celebrity and reporter
March 28
Bart Conner, American gymnast
Edesio Alejandro, Cuban music composer
Mr. Perfect, American professional wrestler (d. 2003)
[edit]April
April 3
Alec Baldwin, American actor (30 Rock)
Francesca Woodman, American photographer (d. 1981)
April 4 – Cazuza, Brazilian poet, singer and composer (d. 1990)
April 10
Yefim Bronfman, Russian-born pianist
Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, African-American musician and record producer
April 11 – Luc Luycx, Belgian coin designer
April 12 – Ginka Zagorcheva, Bulgarian athlete
April 15
Keith Acton, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
Benjamin Zephaniah, British writer and musician
April 21 – Andie MacDowell, American actress
April 24 – Brian Paddick, British former deputy assistant commissioner and most senior openly gay police officer
April 25 – Fish, Scottish singer
April 28 – Hal Sutton, American golfer
April 29 – Michelle Pfeiffer, American actress
[edit]May
May 4 – Keith Haring, American artist
May 10 – Rick Santorum, former U.S. Senator
May 11 – Christian Brando, American actor and eldest child of Marlon Brando (d. 2008)
May 12
Dries Van Noten, Belgian designer
Eric Singer, American rock drummer
May 15 – Ron Simmons, American professional wrestler
May 18 – Toyah Willcox, English actress & singer
May 20 – Ron Reagan, political pundit and son of U.S. president Ronald Reagan
May 21 – Tom Feeney, American Republican politician from the state of Florida
May 23
Mitch Albom, American author
Drew Carey, American comedian and actor
Lea DeLaria, American comedian and actress
May 25
Paul Weller, English singer-songwriter
Carrie Newcomer, American Singer-Songwriter & Musician
May 26 – Margaret Colin, American actress
May 26 – Moinul Ahsan Saber, Bangladeshi writer, editor.
May 27 – Neil Finn, New Zealand singer and songwriter
May 29
Annette Bening, American actress
Juliano Mer-Khamis, Israeli actor, director, filmmaker and political activist (d. 2011)
May 30 – Marie Fredriksson, Swedish singer-songwriter

June
June 2 – Lex Luger, former American professional wrestler
June 3 – Margot Käßmann, Lutheran theologian, German bishop
June 4 – Gordon P. Robertson, American televangelist and son of Pat Robertson
June 7 – Prince, American musician
June 8
Cyril O'Reilly, American actor
Keenen Ivory Wayans, African-American comedian, actor, and director
June 12
Rebecca Holden, American actress, singer, and entertainer
Meredith Brooks, American singer/songwriter and guitarist
June 14
Masami Yoshida, Japanese athlete (d. 2000)
Eric Heiden, American speed skater
June 15 – Wade Boggs, American baseball player
June 17 – Jello Biafra, American punk musician and activist (Dead Kennedys)
June 20 – Chuck Wagner, American actor
June 22 – Bruce Campbell, American actor, producer, writer and director
June 24 – Curt Fraser, American ice hockey coach
June 27 – Magnus Lindberg, Finnish composer
June 28 – Félix Gray, French singer and songwriter
June 29
Jeff Coopwood, American actor, broadcaster and singer
Rosa Mota, Portuguese long-distance runner
June 30 – Esa-Pekka Salonen, Finnish conductor and composer
[edit]July
July 2 – Thomas Bickerton, American Methodist bishop
July 3 – Didier Mouron, Swiss artist.
July 5 – William Watterson, American cartoonist (Calvin and Hobbes)
July 6 – Jennifer Saunders, British comedienne and actress
July 7 – Michala Petri, Danish recorder player
July 8
Kevin Bacon, American actor
Pauline Quirke, British actress
July 15
Mac Thornberry, American politician
Austin Hayes, Irish footballer (d. 1986)
July 16 – Michael Flatley, Irish-born dancer
July 20 – Billy Mays, American infomercial salesperson (d. 2009)
July 22 – Tatsunori Hara, Japanese professional-baseball coach and player
July 28 – Terry Fox, Canadian athlete and cancer activist (d. 1981)
July 30 – Kate Bush, British singer and songwriter
July 31 – Mark Cuban, American entrepreneur and basketball team owner
[edit]August
August 1 – Adrian Dunbar, Irish actor and director
August 7
Bruce Dickinson, English musician (Iron Maiden)
Russell Baze, champion jockey
August 10 – Don Swayze, American actor
August 15 – Victor Shenderovich, Russian writer
August 16
Madonna, American-born singer, songwriter, and actress
Angela Bassett, African-American actress
August 17 – Belinda Carlisle, American singer
August 19 – Anthony Muñoz, American football player
August 20 – Nicholas Bell, English actor based in Australia
August 22 – Colm Feore, American-born actor
August 24 – Steve Guttenberg, American actor
August 25 – Tim Burton, American film director
August 27 – Normand Brathwaite, African-Canadian comedian and television and radio host
August 29
Lenny Henry, British comedian
Michael Jackson, American singer, songwriter and dancer (d. 2009)
[edit]September
September 6
Jeff Foxworthy, American comedian, actor, author
Sione Vailahi, professional wrestler ("The Barbarian")
September 8
Mitsuru Miyamoto, Japanese voice actor
Reiko Terashima, Japanese manga artist and illustrator
September 10
Chris Columbus (filmmaker), American film director/writer/producer
Siobhan Fahey, Irish singer
September 11 – Julia Nickson-Soul, Singapore actress
September 13 – Pawel Przytocki, Polish conductor
September 14
Michael Bollner, German actor
Jeff Crowe, New Zealand cricketer
September 16
Orel Hershiser, American baseball player
Jennifer Tilly, Canadian/American actress
September 19
Lita Ford, British musician
Azumah Nelson, Ghanaian boxer
September 21 – Bruno Fitoussi, French poker player
September 22
Andrea Bocelli, Italian tenor
Joan Jett, American musician
September 23 – Marvin Lewis, American football coach
September 24 – Kevin Sorbo, American actor
September 25
Michael Madsen, American actor
Eamonn Healy, Irish chemist
September 27 – Irvine Welsh, Scottish writer
September 30 – Marty Stuart, American singer
[edit]October
October 14 – Thomas Dolby, English rock musician
October 16 – Tim Robbins, American actor
October 17 – Alan Jackson, American country singer and songwriter
October 20
October 24 - Vincent K. Brooks, American Lieutenant General
Viggo Mortensen, American actor
Mark King, British musician
Scott Hall, American professional wrestler
October 25
Phil Daniels, English actor
Kornelia Ender, German swimmer
October 27 – Simon Le Bon, English rock singer
October 29 – Blazej Balaz, Slovak painter
[edit]November
November 2 – Willie McGee, African-American baseball player
November 8 – Jeff Speakman, American actor and martial artst
November 10 – Vicky Rosti, Finnish singer, former Eurovision contestant
November 12 – Megan Mullally, American actress, singer and media personality
November 14 - Donna Wilkes, American film actress
November 16
Marg Helgenberger, American actress
Boris Krivokapi?, Serbian academic
November 17 – Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, American actress and singer
November 18 – Laura Miller, Mayor of Dallas, Texas
November 19 – Michael Wilbon, American sportswriter
November 21 – David Reivers, Jamaican actor
November 22
Jamie Lee Curtis, American actress
Bruce Payne, English actor and producer
November 25 - Darlanne Fluegel, American actress
November 27 – Tetsuya Komuro, Japanese music producer and song writer
November 28 – Dave Righetti, American baseball player
November 30 – Juliette Bergmann, Dutch bodybuilder
[edit]December
December 1
Charlene Tilton, American actress
Javier Aguirre, Mexican football player and manager
December 5 – Dynamite Kid, English professional wrestler
December 6
Nick Park, English filmmaker and animator
Debbie Rowe, Ex-wife of pop star Michael Jackson, and the mother of two of his children
December 10 – Cornelia Funke, German author
December 11 – Nikki Sixx, American rock musician
December 12
Monica Attard, Australian journalist
Lucie Guay, Canadian canoer
Dag Ingebrigtsen, Norwegian musician
Sheree J. Wilson, American actress
December 13 – Lynn-Holly Johnson, American ice skater and actress
December 14
Mike Scott, Scottish singer-songwriter (The Waterboys)
Spider Stacy, English musician (The Pogues)
François Zocchetto, French politician
December 21 – Kevin Blackwell, English football manager
December 25
Hanford Dixon, American football player
Rickey Henderson, African-American baseball player
December 28 – Twila Paris, American Christian musician
December 29 – Lakhdar Belloumi, Algerian football player
December 31 – Bebe Neuwirth, American actress
[edit]Date unknown
Helena Klakocar, Dutch cartoonist
[edit]Deaths

[edit]January–June
January 1
Edward Weston, American photographer (b. 1886)
Archibald Alphonso Alexander, American designer/governor (b. 1888)
January 7 – Margaret Anglin, stage actress (b. 1876)
January 8 – Paul Pilgrim, American athlete (b. 1883)
January 11 – Edna Purviance, American actress (b. 1895)
January 13 – Jesse L. Lasky, American film produer (b. 1880)
January 16 – Aubrey Mather, English actor (b. 1885)
January 19 – Cândido Rondon, Brazilian military officer (b. 1865)
January 30 – Jean Crotti, Swiss artist (b. 1878)
February 1 – Clinton Davisson, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1888)
February 2 – Walter Kingsford, English actor (b. 1881)
February 4
Monta Bell, American actor (b. 1891)
Henry Kuttner, American author (b. 1915)
February 6
Geoff Bent (b. 1932)
Roger Byrne (b. 1929)
Eddie Colman (b. 1936)
Mark Jones (b. 1933)
David Pegg (b. 1935)
Tommy Taylor (b. 1932)
Liam "Billy" Whelan (b. 1935), all footballers that perished in the Munich air disaster
February 10 – Aleksander Klumberg, Estonian decathlete (b. 1899)
February 13
Christabel Pankhurst, English suffragette (b. 1880)
Georges Rouault, French painter (b. 1871)
Helen Twelvetrees, American actress (b. 1908)
February 17 – Marguerite Snow, American actress (b. 1889)
February 20 – Thurston Hall, American actor (b. 1882)
February 21 – Duncan Edwards English footballer (b. 1936), injury in the Munich air disaster
February 27 – Harry Cohn, American film producer (b. 1891)
March 11 – Princess Ingeborg of Denmark (b. 1878)
March 20 – Adegoke Adelabu, Nigerian politician (b. 1915) (car crash)
March 21 – Cyril M. Kornbluth, American writer (b. 1923)
March 22 (in plane crash)
Mike Todd, American film producer (b. 1909)
Art Cohn, American screenwriter (b. 1909)
March 24 – Herbert Fields, American librettist and screenwriter (b. 1897)
March 25 – Tom Brown, American musician (b. 1888)
March 26 – Phil Mead, English cricketer (b. 1887)
March 28 – W. C. Handy, African-American blues composer (b. 1873)
April 2 – Willie Maley, Scottish football player and manager (b. 1868)
April 8 – George Jean Nathan, American drama critic (b. 1882)
April 15 – Estelle Taylor, American actress (b. 1894)
April 16 – Rosalind Franklin, British crystallographer (b. 1920)
April 19 – Billy Meredith, Welsh footballer (b. 1874)
May 2 – Henry Cornelius, South African-born director (b. 1913)
May 3 – Frank Foster, English cricketer (b. 1889)
May 7 – Mihkel Lüdig, Estonian composer, organist and choir conductor (b. 1880)
May 18 – Jacob Fichman, Israeli poet and essayist (b. 1881)
May 19 – Ronald Colman, English actor (b. 1891)
May 26 – Constantin Cantacuzino, Romanian aviator (b. 1905)
May 29 – Juan Ramón Jiménez, Spanish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1881)
June 6
Lloyd Hughes, American actor (b. 1897)
Virginia Pearson, American actress (b. 1886)
June 9 – Robert Donat, English actor (b. 1905)
June 13 – Edwin Keppel Bennett, British writer (b. 1887)
June 16
Aleksandr Chervyakov, Prime Minister of the Byelorussian SSR (suicide) (b. 1892)
Imre Nagy, Prime Minister of Hungary (executed) (b. 1896)
June 20 – Kurt Alder, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1902)
June 21 – Herbert Brenon, American film director (b. 1880)
June 26 – George Orton, Canadian athlete (b. 1876)
June 28 – Alfred Noyes, English poet (b. 1880)
[edit]July–December
July 2 – Martha Boswell, American singer (b. 1905)
July 14 (killed during coup d'état):
King Faisal II of Iraq (b. 1935)
'Abd al-Ilah, former regent of Iraq (b. 1913)
July 15 – Julia Lennon, English mother of John Lennon (b. 1914)
July 18 – Henry Farman, pioneer French aviator and aircraft company founder (b. 1874)
July 20 – Franklin Pangborn, American actor (b. 1889)
July 24 – Mabel Ballin, American actress (b. 1887)
July 27
Claire Lee Chennault, American aviator and general, leader of the Flying Tigers (b. 1893)
Harry Warner, American studio executive (b. 1881)
August 3 – Peter Collins, Formula 1 driver (b. 1931)
August 8 – Barbara Bennett, American actress (b. 1906)
August 14
Frédéric Joliot, French physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (b. 1900)
Gladys Presley, American, mother of Elvis Presley (b. 1912)
August 16 – Paul Panzer, German actor (b. 1872)
August 18 – Bonar Colleano, American actor (b. 1924)
August 22 – Roger Martin du Gard, French writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1881)
August 24 – Paul Henry, Northern Irish artist (b. 1876)
August 26 – Ralph Vaughan Williams, English composer (b. 1872)
August 27 – Ernest Lawrence, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1901)
September 11
Hans Grundig, German artist (b. 1901)
Robert W. Service, Scottish-born Canadian poet (b. 1874)
September 16 – Alma Bennett, American actress (b. 1904)
September 23 – Alfred Piccaver, British-American operatic tenor (b. 1884)
October 9 – Pope Pius XII (b. 1876)
October 17
Charlie Townsend, English cricketer (b. 1876)
Paul Outerbridge American photographer (b. 1896)
October 15 – Jack Norton, American actor (b. 1882)
October 24 – G. E. Moore, British philosopher of (Principia Ethica) (b. 1873)
October 27 – Marshall Neilan, American actor and director (b. 1891)
October 29 – Zoë Akins, American playwright, poet, and author (b. 1886)
November 15
Samuel Hopkins Adams, American writer (b. 1871)
Tyrone Power, American actor (b. 1914)
November 19 – Vittorio Ambrosio, Italian general (b. 1879)
November 21 – Mel Ott, American baseball player (b. 1909)
November 24
Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, English politician and diplomat, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1864)
Harry Parke, American comedian (b. 1904)
November 27 – Artur Rodzi?ski, Polish conductor (b. 1892)
December 1 – Boots Mallory, American actress (b. 1913)
December 8 – Tris Speaker, American baseball player (b. 1888)
December 12 – Albert Walsh, Lieutenant Governor of Newfoundland (b. 1900)
December 13 – Tim Moore, American comedian (b. 1887)
December 15 – Wolfgang Ernst Pauli, Austrian-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1900)
December 21 – H.B. Warner, English actor (b. 1875)
December 29 – Doris Humphrey, American dancer and choreographer (b. 1895)

Nobel Prizes


Physics – Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov, Ilya Mikhailovich Frank, Igor Yevgenyevich Tamm
Chemistry – Frederick Sanger
Physiology or Medicine – George Wells Beadle, Edward Lawrie Tatum, Joshua Lederberg
Literature – Boris Leonidovich Pasternak
Peace – Georges Pire

Jim Noel said:

The Pentax was the first SLR with a built in, coupled rangefinder.

Click to expand...

Which Pentax, Jim? I've always thought that Alpa did that -- SLR with coupled RF for luck or something -- first, also last.

Dan Fromm said:

Which Pentax, Jim? I've always thought that Alpa did that -- SLR with coupled RF for luck or something -- first, also last.

Click to expand...

The KW made Praktina had a direct view finder which was later copied by Pentax with the Asahiflex 1 (their first SLR) I'd guess this is being muddled with a rangefinder.

Most early SLR's had to be stopped down manually to the working aperture after focussing so the direct finder gave an alternative bright way of framing. It was the lack of instant return mirrors, no preset aperture stop down, which made early SLR's less easy to use. Even early Pentax cameras were poor in this respect.

It would be interesting to list what cameras etc were released around 1958 because that's the watershed when Pentax brought out the first of their modern Asahi Pentax SLR's with semi-auto aperture control, instant return mirror, better Pentaprism and shutter speeds, that's mirrored by other Japanese manufacturers like Minolta with the SR-2, Nikon joining them a year later.

So the OP's right to highlight 1958 as a key fime of change.

Ian

Ian Grant said:

The KW made Praktina had a direct view finder which was later copied by Pentax with the Asahiflex 1 (their first SLR) I'd guess this is being muddled with a rangefinder.

Most early SLR's had to be stopped down manually to the working aperture after focussing so the direct finder gave an alternative bright way of framing. It was the lack of instant return mirrors, no preset aperture stop down, which made early SLR's less easy to use. Even early Pentax cameras were poor in this respect.

It would be interesting to list what cameras etc were released around 1958 because that's the watershed when Pentax brought out the first of their modern Asahi Pentax SLR's with semi-auto aperture control, instant return mirror, better Pentaprism and shutter speeds, that's mirrored by other Japanese manufacturers like Minolta with the SR-2, Nikon joining them a year later.

So the OP's right to highlight 1958 as a key fime of change.

Ian

Click to expand...

Focusing on a single year or single innovation doesn't help much in understanding how change unfolded. Among the key innovations was marketing--something the Japanese and mostly American agencies had to puzzle out quickly in the late 50s-early 60s. Nikon arguably overshadowed and helped the SLR competition with its huge aspirational cachet, thanks to growing popularity among pro shooters--something Pentax and Minolta just didn't have. The watershed metaphor is a bit misleading.