George Cukor

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George Cukor
Born July 7, 1899
New York, New York, USA
Died January 24, 1983
Los Angeles, California, USA

George Dewey Cukor (July 7, 1899 – January 24, 1983) was an American film director. Cukor's career flourished at RKO Studios where he directed a string of impressive films including What Price Hollywood? (1932), A Bill of Divorcement (1932), Dinner at Eight (1933), Little Women (1933), David Copperfield (1935), Romeo and Juliet (1936), and Camille (1937).

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[edit] Life and career

Cukor was born in New York City to Hungarian Jewish immigrants, Victor F. and Helen (Gross) Cukor. (His name means sugar in Hungarian.) As a teenager, he was infatuated with theater and often cut classes to attend afternoon matinees. Following his graduation from De Witt Clinton High School in 1916, he spent a year with the Students Army Training Corps. He then obtained a job as an assistant stage manager for a Chicago theater company. After gaining three years of experience, he formed his own stock company in Rochester, New York in 1920, and worked there for seven years. He then returned to Broadway where he worked with such formidable actresses as Ethel Barrymore, Dorothy Gish, Estelle Winwood, and Jeanne Eagels.

When Hollywood began to recruit New York theater talent for sound films, Cukor answered their call and moved there in 1929. His first job was as a dialog director at Paramount Pictures for the film River of Romance (1929), followed by All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) at Universal Pictures. He then co-directed three films at Paramount before making his solo debut directing Tallulah Bankhead in Tarnished Lady (1931). Cukor left Paramount after a legal dispute resulting from his dismissal from an earlier Paramount film, One Hour With You (1932), and went to work with David O. Selznick at RKO Studios.

Cukor's career flourished at RKO where he directed a string of impressive films including What Price Hollywood? (1932), A Bill of Divorcement (1932), Dinner at Eight (1933), Little Women (1933), David Copperfield (1935), Romeo and Juliet (1936), and Camille (1937).

By this time, Cukor had established a reputation as a director who could coax great performances from actresses and he became known as a "woman's director," a title which he resented.[1] One of Cukor's first ingenues was actress Katharine Hepburn, who debuted in A Bill of Divorcement and whose looks and personality left RKO officials at a loss as to how to use her. Cukor ended up directing her in her most successful films and they became close friends off the set.

Cukor was hired to direct Gone with the Wind by David O. Selznick in 1937 and he spent two years with pre-production duties as well as spending long hours coaching Vivien Leigh and Olivia de Havilland, the film's stars. Cukor was replaced after less than three weeks of shooting, but continued to coach Leigh and De Havilland off the set. [2]

Following the Gone with the Wind debacle, Cukor directed The Women (1939), a popular film notable for its all female cast and The Philadelphia Story (1940) starring Katharine Hepburn. He also directed another of his favorite actresses, Greta Garbo, in Two Faced Woman (1941), her last film before she retired from the screen.

The 1940s was a decade of hits and misses for Cukor. He was off track with Two Faced Woman as well as Her Cardboard Lover (1942) starring Norma Shearer. However, he did achieve more success with films such as A Woman's Face (1941) with Joan Crawford, Gaslight (1944) with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer, and Adam's Rib (1949) with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy.

Cukor's reputation as an actor's director continued as he helped several actors win Academy Awards. James Stewart won a Best Actor Oscar for The Philadelphia Story, Ronald Colman won a Best Actor Oscar for A Double Life (1947) and Judy Holliday won for Best Actress for Born Yesterday (1950}. In 1954, Cukor made his first film in color, A Star Is Born which featured an impressive come-back performance by Judy Garland. A decade later, Cukor won an Academy Award himself, for Best Director, for My Fair Lady (1964), for which Rex Harrison won a Best Actor Oscar too.

He continued to work into his 80s and directed his last film, Rich and Famous (1981) with Candice Bergen.

Cukor was well known in his personal life as a man having a good time. During the heyday of Hollywood, his celebrated home was the site of weekly Sunday parties and his guests knew that they would always find interesting company, good food, and a beautiful atmosphere when they visited. Cukor's friends were of paramount importance to him and he kept his home filled with their photographs. Regular attendees at his soirees included Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, Joan Crawford and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. , Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, Claudette Colbert, Marlene Dietrich, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, Richard Cromwell, Judy Garland, Noel Coward, Cole Porter, James Whale, Edith Head, and Norma Shearer, especially after the death of her first husband, Irving Thalberg.

During his Hollywood years, he and Cole Porter competed within the Hollywood gay elite, earning them the title "the rival Queens of Hollywood".

George Cukor died on January 24, 1983 at the age of 83. He was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

[edit] Filmography

Awards
Preceded by:
Tony Richardson
for Tom Jones		 Academy Award for Best Director
1964
for My Fair Lady		 Succeeded by:
Robert Wise
for The Sound of Music

[edit] References

  1. ^ Ironically, no director has directed more performances that won the Academy Award for Best Actor: James Stewart in The Philadelphia Story, Ronald Colman in A Double Life, and Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady.
  2. ^ Myrick, Susan (1982). White Columns in Hollywood: Reports from the GWTW Sets. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 126-127. ISBN 0-86554-044-6. From a private letter from journalist Susan Myrick to Margaret Mitchell in February 1939:
    George [Cukor] finally told me all about it. He hated [leaving the production] very much he said but he could not do otherwise. In effect he said he is an honest craftsman and he cannot do a job unless he knows it is a good job and he feels the present job is not right. For days, he told me he has looked at the rushes and felt he was failing... the thing did not click as it should. Gradually he became convinced that the script was the trouble... David [Selznick], himself, thinks HE is writing the script... And George has continually taken script from day to day, compared the [Oliver] Garrett-Selznick version with the [Sidney] Howard, groaned and tried to change some parts back to the Howard script. But he seldom could do much with the scene... So George just told David he would not work any longer if the script was not better and he wanted the Howard script back. David told George he was a director — not an author and he (David) was the producer and the judge of what is a good script... George said he was a director and a damn good one and he would not let his name go out over a lousy picture... And bull-headed David said "OK get out!"
    Selznick had already been unhappy with Cukor ("a very expensive luxury") for not being more receptive to directing other Selznick assignments, even though Cukor had remained on salary since early 1937. In a confidential memo written in September 1938, Selznick flirted with the idea of replacing him with Victor Fleming. (Memo from David O. Selznick, 179-180.) Louis B. Mayer had been trying to have Cukor replaced with an MGM director since negotiations between the two studios began in May 1938. In December 1938, Selznick wrote to his wife about a phone call he had with Mayer: "During the same conversation, your father made another stab at getting George off of Gone With the Wind." (Scott Eyman, Lion of Hollywood: The Life and Legend of Louis B. Mayer, pp. 258-259.)

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Further reading

  • Wakeman, John. World Film Directors. New York: H.W. Wilson Company, 1987. ISBN 0-8242-0757-2
  • Hillstrom, Laurie Collier. International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers. Detroit: St. James Press, 1997. ISBN 1-55862-302-7
  • Katz, Ephraim. The Film Encyclopedia. New York: HarperCollins, 2001. ISBN 0-06-273755-4

[edit] External links

Persondata
NAME Cukor, George
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION American film director
DATE OF BIRTH July 7, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH New York, New York, USA
DATE OF DEATH January 24, 1983
PLACE OF DEATH Los Angeles, California, USA
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