The Godfather Part II, Chinatown, The Conversation, Lenny and The Towering Inferno. If you are wondering what these five films have in common, they were the Best Picture nominees for the 47th Annual Academy Awards. And one of the movies, The Towering Inferno, was officially released on this day in 1974.
Celebrating 50 years, The Towering Inferno from Irwin Allen capitalized on the then red hot – pun intended – disaster themed movie category. Adapted from the novels The Tower by Richard Martin Stern and The Glass Inferno by Thomas N. Scortia, The Towering Inferno followed a fire that broke out in a San Francisco high-rise building during the opening ceremony attended by a host of A-list guests. It focused on an overworked fire chief (Steve McQueen) and the building’s architect (Paul Newman), who struggled to save lives and subdue panic while a corrupt, cost-cutting contractor (William Holden) tried to evade responsibility for the disaster.
The ensemble cast included Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire, Richard Chamberlain, Susan Blakely, Jennifer Jones, O.J. Simpson, Robert Vaughn, and Robert Wagner.
The Towering Inferno was nominated for eight Oscars, and won three: Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, and Best Song (We May Never Love Like This Again). And we celebrate the five decade landmark with these factoids about The Towering Inferno:
1) It was the second highest grossing film of 1974 (behind comedy Blazing Saddles from Mel Brooks), with a reported $116,000,000 in the U.S. and Canada box office (according to The Numbers). Earthquake, the year’s other high profile disaster flick, finished No. 5 (with $79,700,000 million).
2) Steve McQueen and Paul Newman were each paid $1 million for appearing in the film, which today would be estimated at approximately $6.4 million.
3) The Towering Inferno marked the final film appearance for Jennifer Jones. Earlier in her career, she reached a career zenith with a Best Actress in a Leading Role Oscar win for The Song of Bernadette in 1944.
4) The Towering Inferno was only one of four films that the legendary Fred Astaire did not sing or dance in. Astaire was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Supporting Actor category for The Towering Inferno, but lost to Robert De Niro for The Godfather II.
5) Fred Astaire was the only actor to receive an Academy Award nomination for The Towering Inferno. But Faye Dunaway was on the ballot that year in the Best Lead Actress category for Chinatown. She lost to Ellyn Burstyn for Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.
6) Prior to Steve Mc Queen, the original choice to play the fire chief in The Towering Inferno was Ernest Borgnine, which was originally intended as a smaller role. When McQueen stepped in it was expanded. Two years earlier, Borgnine appeared as Detective Lieutenant Mike Rogo in The Poseidon Adventure.
7) The Towering Inferno invented the concept of “Diagonal Billing” due to the star power of its leads Steve McQueen and Paul Newman, who were professional rivals at the time.
8) When a real fire broke out on the set, Steve McQueen found himself briefly helping out real firefighters.
9) The Towering Inferno reportedly inspired writer Roderick Thorp to write the 1979 book Nothing Lasts Forever, who changed the story to a single policeman fighting terrorists. Nothing Lasts Forever was adapted into the Bruce Willis 1988 film Die Hard.
10) There was a very Brady face in The Towering Inferno, Mike Lookinland, who played young Philip Allbright (and, of course, Bobby on The Brady Bunch). Three years after The Towering Inferno, Lookinland returned to his Brady roots in the short-lived variety-themed The Brady Bunch Hour.
Fifty years later we celebrate The Towering Inferno.
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