Timeline of Greatest Film Milestones and Turning Points in Film History The Year 1963 Timeline of Greatest Film History Milestones and Turning Points (by decade and year) ,,,,,,,,, The Year 1963 Year Event and Significance 1963 Sidney Poitier won the Best Actor Academy Award (awarded in 1964) for Lilies of the Field (1963), thereby becoming the first African-American actor to win this award for a leading role. This was the only instance in the 20th century that this award was given to an African-American. At the age of 37, he was the youngest African-American actor to win in the category. [Note: Poitier was Bahamian.] 1963 Cleopatra (1963), the most expensive film ever made (in terms of real costs adjusted for inflation) to date opened. It was one of the biggest flops in film history (cost-overruns made the $2 million budget become $44 million).
The epic starred Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison, and Richard Burton. Negative publicity was generated by the off-screen extra-marital affair conducted between major stars Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton (as Marc Antony) (married to Eddie Fisher and Sybil Burton respectively) - in the long run, it was beneficial for the film's bottom line, since it became the most expensive film made-to-date, and took two and a half years of filming. The stars' off-screen indiscretions helped (although they were criticized on moral grounds), but it took many years for the film to recoup its enormous costs. 1963 Elizabeth Taylor was the first female star (or actress) to sign and be paid a record $1 million for a film, for her lead role in the legendary epic film Cleopatra (1963) from 20th Century Fox. 1963 The superhero Ironman, an armored metal man of iron or cyborg, was created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Don Heck and Jack Kirby, and first appeared as billionaire industrialist Tony Stark (loosely based on Howard Hughes) in a Marvel Comics' Tales of Suspense comic-book in March of 1963. It would be 45 years later that the first Ironman film appeared - director Jon Favreau's and Paramount's Iron Man (2008) starring Robert Downey, Jr.