On 22 December 1946 Humphrey Bogart signs a record fifteen-year contract with Warner Bros.

Novelist Willa Cather is given the gold medal by the National Institute of Arts and Letters on 27 January 1944.

On 8 May 1944 Charlie Chaplin is ordered to stand trial in a paternity suit filed by Joan Berry. On 4 April he is acquitted of a Mann Act violation, and a mistrial is declared on 4 January 1945. On 17 April 1945 Chaplin is named the father of Joan Berry's daughter.

On 16 October 1942 Aaron Copland's ballet Rodeo is performed in New York City by the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo.

W. E. B. DuBois becomes the first black elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters on 18 December 1943.

On 23 January 1943 Duke Ellington debuts his fifty-minute-long tone poem for jazz orchestra, Black, Brown, and Beige, at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

Edna Ferber's unpublished novel Saratoga Trunk is sold to...