* Austin Osman Spare ( 1886 – 1956 ), English artist and magician

* 1956 – Sebastian Spreng, Argentinean artist and journalist

* 1956 – Dilip Vengsarkar, Indian cricketer and administrator

* 1956 – Andy García, Cuban actor

* 1956 – Herbert Grönemeyer, German singer

* 1956 – Former Vice President and Senator Alben Barkley dies during a speech in Virginia.

* 1956 – Lars von Trier, Danish director

* 1956 – After going bankrupt in 1955, the American broadcaster DuMont Television Network makes its final broadcast, a boxing match from St. Nicholas Arena in New York in the Boxing from St. Nicholas Arena series.

* 1956 – Stepfanie Kramer, American actress

* 1878 – Aino Kallas, Finnish-Estonian author ( d. 1956 )

* 1956 – Fulvio Melia, Italian-American physicist, astrophysicist, and author

* 1956 – Jim Neidhart, American wrestler

* 1956 – Isabel Pantoja, Spanish singer

* 2003 – Leslie Cheung, Hong Kong actor and singer ( b. 1956 )

* 1956 – Tom Leykis, American radio host

* 1956 – Kirk Brandon, English singer-songwriter and guitarist ( Theatre of Hate, Spear of Destiny and Dead Men Walking )

* 1956 – Balwinder Sandhu, Indian cricketer

* 1956 –, the world's first successful container ship, leaves Port Newark, New Jersey for Houston, Texas.

Prominent leaders include co-founders Lucien Febvre ( 1878 – 1956 ) and Marc Bloch ( 1886 – 1944 ).

* 1867 – Emil Nolde, German painter ( d. 1956 )

* 1956 – Chris Foreman, English guitarist and songwriter ( Madness )

* 1956 – David Grant, English singer ( Linx )

* 1956 – Branscombe Richmond, American actor

* 1956 – Cecilia Roth, Argentine actress

The first of these, It's Always Fair Weather ( 1956 ) co-directed with Donen, was a musical satire on television and advertising, and includes his famous roller skate dance routine to " I Like Myself ", and a dance trio with Michael Kidd and Dan Dailey which allowed Kelly to experiment with the widescreen possibilities of Cinemascope.

* Order of St Michael and St George ( UK ), 1956.

Michael George Francis Ventris, OBE ( 12 July 1922 – 6 September 1956 ) was an English architect who, along with John Chadwick and Alice Kober, deciphered Linear B, a previously unknown ancient script discovered at Knossos by Arthur Evans.

A British Pathe News film of 1956 shows artist Michael Farrar-Bell at work producing inn signs.

* 1956 – Michael Feinstein, American singer, pianist, and archivist

In Herman Melville's Moby-Dick ( 1956 ), Ishmael ( Richard Basehart ) narrates the story and sometimes comments on the action in voice-over, as does Joe Gillis ( William Holden ) in Sunset Boulevard ( 1950 ) and Eric Erickson ( William Holden ) in The Counterfeit Traitor ( 1962 ); adult Pip ( John Mills ) in Great Expectations ( 1946 ) and Michael York in a television remake ( 1974 ).

In the BBC radio dramatizations, Gandalf has been voiced by Norman Shelley in The Lord of the Rings ( 1955 – 1956 ), Heron Carvic in The Hobbit ( 1968 ), Bernard Mayes in The Lord of the Rings ( 1979 ) and Sir Michael Hordern in The Lord of the Rings ( 1981 ).

Niven enjoyed success in 1956, when he starred as Phileas Fogg in Michael Todd's immensely successful production of Around the World in 80 Days.

* 1956 And All That: A Memorable History Of England Since The War To End All Wars ( Two ) Ned Sherrin and Neil Shand ( Michael Joseph, 1984 )

" In 1956 he made his feature film debut in the Michael Curtiz-directed musical film The Vagabond King.

Michael Caine's first film role was as one of the privates in George Baker's platoon in the 1956 film A Hill in Korea.

* J. Michael Fay ( born 1956 ), conservationist.

* Balfour, Michael, and John Mair, Four-Power Control in Germany and Austria 1945-1946, Oxford University Press, 1956.

Peter Michael Ainsworth ( born 16 November 1956 ) is a former Conservative politician in the United Kingdom.

Mimi gave birth to their first son, Phillippe, on July 3, 1955, and a second, Michael, in November 1956.

Michael " Kidd Funkadelic " Hampton ( guitar ; born November 15, 1956 )

* Michael Corbett ( born 1956 ), author and actor.

On the evening of May 12 1956, while filming Raintree County, Clift was involved in a serious auto accident when he smashed his car into a telephone pole after leaving a dinner party at the Beverly Hills home of his Raintree County co-star and close friend Elizabeth Taylor and her second husband, Michael Wilding.

Michael Hampton ( born November 15, 1956 in Cleveland, Ohio ) is a funk / rock guitarist.

During the 1950s, Bogarde came to prominence playing a hoodlum who shoots and kills a police constable in The Blue Lamp ( 1950 ) co-starring Jack Warner and Bernard Lee ; a handsome artist who comes to rescue of Jean Simmons during the World's Fair in Paris in So Long at the Fair, a film noir thriller ; an accidental murderer who befriends a young boy played by Jon Whiteley in Hunted ( aka The Stranger in Between ) ( 1952 ); in Appointment in London ( 1953 ) as a young Wing-Commander in Bomber Command who, against orders, opts to fly his 90th mission with his men in a major air offensive against the Germans ; an unjustly imprisoned man who regains hope in clearing his name when he learns his sweetheart, Mai Zetterling, is still alive in Desperate Moment ( 1953 ); Doctor in the House ( 1954 ), as a medical student, in a film that made Bogarde one of the most popular British stars of the 1950s, and co-starring Kenneth More, Donald Sinden and James Robertson Justice as their crabby mentor ; The Sleeping Tiger ( 1954 ), playing a neurotic criminal with co-star Alexis Smith, and Bogarde's first film for American expatriate director Joseph Losey ; Doctor at Sea ( 1955 ), co-starring Brigitte Bardot in one of her first film roles ; as a returning Colonial who fights the Mau-Mau with Virginia McKenna and Donald Sinden in Simba ( 1955 ); Cast a Dark Shadow ( 1955 ), as a man who marries women for money and then murders them ; The Spanish Gardener ( 1956 ), co-starring Michael Hordern, Jon Whiteley, and Cyril Cusack ; Doctor at Large ( 1957 ), again with Donald Sinden, another entry in the " Doctor films series ", co-starring later Bond-girl Shirley Eaton ; the Powell and Pressburger production Ill Met by Moonlight ( 1957 ) co-starring Marius Goring as the German General Kreipe, kidnapped on Crete by Patrick " Paddy " Leigh Fermor ( Bogarde ) and a fellow band of adventurers based on W. Stanley Moss ' real-life account of the WW2 caper ; A Tale of Two Cities ( 1958 ), a faithful retelling of Charles Dickens ' classic ; as a Flt.

They had four children: Tony ( b. 1953 ), Michael ( b. 1954 ), Linda ( b. 1956 ) and Scott ( b. 1958 ).

He and his wife had five children, Christopher Joseph McCarthy ( April 30, 1940 – April 30, 1940 ), Eleanor McCarthy Howell ( born October 30, 1947 ), Mary Abagail McCarthy ( April 29, 1949 – July 28, 1990 ), Michael Benet McCarthy ( born April 5, 1952 ) and Margaret Alice McCarthy Brown ( born July 17, 1956 ).

In 1968, DJ-turned-singer Jim Lowe ( who hit the top of the charts in 1956 with " The Green Door ") recorded " Michael J. Pollard for President " on the Buddah Records label.

The Battle of the River Plate is a 1956 British war film by director-writer team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, starring John Gregson, Anthony Quayle and Peter Finch.