from historychannel.com

This Day In History, February, 16....


Entertainment

~1933 : David O. Selznik becomes VP and producer at MGM~
On this day in 1933, David O. Selznick becomes vice president and producer at MGM, leaving RKO to return to the company where he launched his career. The son of film magnate Lewis Selznick, he had made two documentaries by the time he was 21. In 1926, his father's former business partner Louis B. Mayer of MGM hired him as assistant story editor. Selznick married Mayer's daughter Irene a few years later. He left for Paramount, then joined RKO before returning to MGM in 1933. In 1936, he founded Selznick International and produced Gone with the Wind in 1939, which became one of the most profitable films of all time.

~1950 : What's My Line debuts on TV~
TV game show What's My Line debuts on this day in 1950. The show, produced by game show magnates Mark Goodson and Bill Todman, became the longest-running prime-time game show in the history of television. It ran for 18 years. A radio version launched in 1952 but was cancelled in 1953.

~1979 : Saturday Night Fever wins Grammy~
The Bee Gees receive the Grammy for Best Album of 1978 for Saturday Night Fever and also win the Best Pop Group award. The group, featuring brothers Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb, had dominated the charts in late 1977 and 1978 with three consecutive No. 1 hits from the Saturday Night Fever album.

The Australian brothers began performing together as children in the late 1950s. They signed with Festival Records of Australia in 1962, when Barry, the oldest, was 15 and his twin brothers were 13. They released two albums during the next five years, writing all their own material. The brothers hosted an Australian television show, but their music didn't become famous until they moved to England in 1967 and added drummer Cohn Peterson, bassist Vince Melouney, and manager Robert Stigwood. The group began racking up such hits as "To Love Somebody" (1967), "Holiday" (1967), "Words" (1968), and "I've Got to Get a Message to You" (1968).

In 1969, the non-family members left the band, and the brothers began fighting. Robin branched off into a solo career while Barry and Maurice recorded duos. The three reunited for a few more hits, then recorded a series of duds. In the mid-1970s, the group hired a new producer, moved to Miami, and altered their style into a funkier R&B-type sound with distinctive falsetto singing, just in time for the rise of disco. In 1978, the group recorded music for the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, which sold 30 million copies. Meanwhile, their 18-year-old brother, Andy Gibb, also climbed the charts in 1977 and 1978 with songs like "I Just Want to Be Your Everything" and "Love Is Thicker than Water," written with help from his brothers.

By 1979, the Bee Gees had recorded five platinum albums and some two-dozen hit singles. They again pursued individual ventures when the band's popularity began to wane, but they reunited in 1987 to record E-S-P, which flopped in the United States but hit the top of the charts virtually everywhere else.

When Andy Gibb died in 1988 of a heart condition purportedly brought on by drug and alcohol abuse, the devastated Bee Gees retired temporarily. They began releasing albums again in the early 1990s and also wrote and produced songs for other artists, including Kenny Rogers, Diana Ross, and Barbra Streisand. During a history spanning more than 30 years, the group achieved nine No. 1 hits, more than any other rock group in history except the Beatles and the Supremes, and received Lifetime Achievement awards from the American Music Awards, Brit Awards, German Bambi Awards, Australian Record Industry, and World Music Awards.

~1982 : Thelonious Monk dies~
Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk dies at the age of 65. Monk's influential work in the 1940s won him the title "High Priest of Bebop." Among his best known songs were "I Mean You," "Mysterioso," and "Round Midnight."