Year 1931 (MCMXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1931 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar.

John Ford (February 1, 1894 – August 31, 1973) was an American film director. He was famous for both his Westerns such as Stagecoach, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and adaptations of such classic 20th-century American novels as The Grapes of Wrath. His four Academy Awards for Best Director (1935, 1940, 1941, 1952) is a record, and one of those films, How Green Was My Valley, also won Best Picture.

In a career that spanned more than 50 years, Ford directed more than 140 films (although nearly all of his silent films are now lost) and he is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers of his generation. Ford's films and personality were held in high regard by his colleagues, with Ingmar Bergman and Orson Welles among those who have named him as one of the greatest directors of all time.

In particular, Ford was a pioneer of location shooting and the long shot which frames his characters against a vast, harsh and rugged natural terrain.

Ford was born John Martin "Jack" Feeney (though he later often gave his given names as Sean Aloysius, sometimes with surname O'Feeny or O'Fearna; an Irish language equivalent of Feeney) in Cape Elizabeth, Maine to John Augustine Feeney and Barbara "Abbey" Curran, on February 1, 1894 (though he occasionally said 1895 and that date is erroneously inscribed on his tombstone). His father, John Augustine, was born in Spiddal,County Galway, Ireland in 1854. Barbara Curran had been born in the Aran Islands, in the town of Kilronan on the island of Inishmore (Inis Mór). John A. Feeney's grandmother, Barbara Morris, was said to be a member of a local (impoverished) gentry family, the Morrises of Spiddal, headed at present by Lord Killanin.

Douglas Elton Fairbanks, Jr. KBE (December 9, 1909 – May 7, 2000) was an American actor and a highly decorated naval officer of World War II.

Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. was born in New York City as the only child of actor Douglas Fairbanks, and his first wife, Anna Beth Sully. His parents divorced when he was nine years old, and although both remarried, they had no more children. He lived with his mother in New York, California, Paris and London.

Fairbanks' father was one of cinema's first icons, noted for such swashbuckling adventure films as The Mark of Zorro, Robin Hood and The Thief of Bagdad. Largely on the basis of his father's name, Fairbanks, Jr. was given a contract with Paramount Pictures at age 14. After making some undistinguished films, he took to the stage, where he impressed his father, his stepmother Mary Pickford, and Charlie Chaplin, who encouraged him to continue with acting.

He began his career during the silent film era. He initially played mainly supporting roles in a range of films featuring many of the leading female players of the day: Belle Bennett in Stella Dallas (1925), Esther Ralston in An American Venus (1926) and Pauline Starke in Women Love Diamonds (1927). In the last years of the silent period, he was upped to star billing opposite Loretta Young in several pre-Code films and Joan Crawford in Our Modern Maidens (1929). He supported John Gilbert and Greta Garbo in Woman of Affairs (1929). Progressing to sound, he played opposite Katharine Hepburn in her Oscar-winning role in the film Morning Glory (1933).

Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. (May 23, 1883 – December 12, 1939) was an American actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films such as The Thief of Bagdad, Robin Hood, and The Mark of Zorro.

An astute businessman, Fairbanks was a founding member of United Artists. Fairbanks was also a founding member of The Motion Picture Academy and hosted the first Oscars Ceremony in 1929. With his marriage to Mary Pickford in 1920, the couple became Hollywood royalty and Fairbanks was referred to as "The King of Hollywood", a nickname later passed on to actor Clark Gable. His career rapidly declined with the advent of the "talkies".

Fairbanks was born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman (spelled "Ulman" by Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. in his memoirs) in Denver, Colorado, the son of H. Charles Ullman (born September 15, 1833) and Ella Adelaide Marsh (born 1847). He had a half-brother, John Fairbanks, Jr. (born 1873), and a full brother, Robert Payne Ullman (March 13, 1882 – February 22, 1948).

Rose Hobart (May 1, 1906 – August 29, 2000) was an American actress.

Born in New York City, her father was a cellist in the New York Symphony. She began her career as a stage actress where, in 1929, one of her best-known roles was as Grazia, in Death Takes a Holiday.

Her first film role was the part of Julie in the first talking picture version of Ferenc Molnár's Liliom, made by Fox Film Corporation in 1930, starring Charles Farrell in the title role, and directed by Frank Borzage. She co-starred with Fredric March and Miriam Hopkins in Rouben Mamoulian's original 1931 film version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. She played the role of Muriel, Jekyll's fiancée. Ironically, her co-star in Dr. Jekyll and Mr, Hyde, Fredric March, starred in the 1934 film version of Death Takes a Holiday, but Ms. Hobart did not play Grazia in the film. The role went instead to Evelyn Venable.

In 1931, Hobart appeared in a B-movie called East of Borneo. In 1936, Surrealist artist Joseph Cornell, who bought a print of the movie to screen at home, became smitten with the actress, and cut out nearly all the parts that did not include her. He also showed the film at silent film speed and projected it through a blue tinted lens. He named the resulting work Rose Hobart. Hobart often played the "other woman" in movies during the 1940s, with her last major film role in Bride of Vengeance (1949).