As the University of Southern California Cinema-Television School celebrates its 75th anniversary, TCM salutes what Steven Spielberg calls "the greatest cinema school in the world today." The first motion picture course ever offered at an American university was held in USC's historic Bovard Auditorium in 1929. The history of the School that sprang from that course mirrors that of the film industry itself, with a list of founding faculty that includes such motion picture legends as Douglas Fairbanks Sr., D. W. Griffith, Ernst Lubitsch, Irving Thalberg, and Darryl F. Zanuck. Today, the school offers groundbreaking degree programs in critical studies, film and television production, writing for television and film, interactive media, animation and digital arts.

One of the school's most distinguished former students is director Ron Howard, who spent two years in the USC film program after his graduation from high school. Howard is represented in the TCM tribute by Parenthood (1989), his multi-character study of the joys and trials of being a parent. Caleb Deschanel, one of the film world's outstanding cinematographers and the winner of four Oscar® nominations, also trained at the School. Deschanel's exquisite work is epitomized by The Black Stallion (1979), with its unforgettable shots of two castaways - a boy and a magnificent horse - on a deserted island.

Other noted former USC students include producer-director George Lucas; stop-motion animation legend Ray Harryhausen; directors Sam Peckinpah, Taylor Hackford and John Milius; and actors John Wayne and Robert Stack.

by Roger Fristoe