December 16, 1974: “The Towering Inferno” Premieres

December 16, 1974: The Towering Inferno premieres, directed by John Guillerman and produced by Irwin Allen, "The Master of Disaster." Within the past 2 years, the 1,368-foot, 110-story World Trade Center had opened in New York; the 1,454-foot, 110-story Sears Tower had opened in Chicago; and the 1,815-foot CN Tower in Toronto, with a 1,122-foot-high observation deck, had begun construction.

It's a film with "a cast of thousands." Steve McQueen and Paul Newman were two of the biggest stars in the movies at the time, and each wanted top billing. So a compromise was reached: Their names were staggered on the posters, so that McQueen was listed on the left, but Newman's name was higher, allowing each man to claim top billing. Each man was paid $1 million -- about $5.75 million in 2022 money.

The film was based on the novels The Tower by Richard Martin Stern, and The Glass Inferno by Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson. In the film, the skyscraper is known as the Glass Tower, designed by architect Doug Roberts (Newman). It's 1,688 feet high (a height that wouldn't be reached in real life until 2007) and 138 stories above the streets of San Francisco.

The Tower's electrical system gets overloaded, and a fire starts on the 81st floor. McQueen plays Battalion Chief Michael O'Hallorhan, leading the firefighters. Maureen McGovern, previously in Allen's disaster film The Poseidon Adventure, plays a singer, and, as she did in the previous film with "The Morning After" (which hit Number 1 for her in 1973), sings the theme song.

Older stars: Fred Astaire, William Holden, Jennifer Jones, Olan Soule. Younger stars: Richard Chamberlain, Dabney Coleman, Faye Dunaway, Susan Flannery, Mike Lookinland, Felton Perry, Gregory Sierra, Robert Vaughn, Robert Wagner... and football star O.J. Simpson.

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December 16, 1974 was a Monday. Despite this, ABC did not air a Monday Night Football game, having aired a Saturday night game 2 nights earlier. Baseball was out of season. No games were played in the NBA, the ABA, the NHL or the WHA. So there were no scores on this historic day.