William A. Wellman

William Wellman
William Wellman on location during filming of The High and Mighty
Born	William Augustus Wellman February 29, 1896 Brookline, Mass. U.S.
Died	December 9, 1975 (aged 79) Los Angeles, Cal. U.S.
Occupation	director, actor
Years active	1919–1958
Spouse	Helene Chadwick (1918–1923, divorce) Margery Chapin (1925–1926, divorce) Marjorie Crawford (1931–1933, divorce) Dorothy Coonan (1934–1975, his death)

William Augustus Wellman (February 29, 1896–December 9, 1975) was an American film director. Although Wellman began his film career as an actor, he worked on over 80 films, as director, producer and consultant but most often as a director, notable for his work in crime, adventure and action genre films, often focusing on aviation themes, a particular passion. He also directed several well regarded satirical comedies.

Wellman directed the 1927 film Wings, which became the first film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture at the 1st Academy Awards ceremony.^[1]

Early life

Wellman's father, Arthur Gouverneur Wellman, was a New England Brahmin of English-Welsh-Scottish and Irish descent. William was a great-great-great grandson of Francis Lewis of New York, one of the signatories to the Declaration of Independence. His much beloved mother was an Irish immigrant named Cecilia McCarthy.

Wellman was kicked out of Newton High School in Newton Highlands, Massachusetts,^[2] for dropping a stink bomb on the principal's head.^[3] Ironically, his mother was a probation officer who was asked to address Congress on the subject of juvenile delinquency.^[4] Wellman worked as a salesman and then at a lumber yard, before ending up playing professional ice hockey, which is where he was first seen by Douglas Fairbanks, who suggested that with Wellman's good looks he could become a film actor.

World War I

Corporal William Wellman and Celia Nieuport 24 fighter c. 1917 (one of a series of aircraft all named after his mother)

In World War I Wellman enlisted in the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps as an ambulance driver.^[5] While in Paris, Wellman joined the French Foreign Legion and was assigned in December 3, 1917 as a fighter pilot and the first American to join N.87 escadrille in the Lafayette Flying Corps (not the sub-unit Lafayette Escadrille as usually stated),^[6][7] where he earned himself the nickname "Wild Bill" and received the Croix de Guerre with two palms.^[8] N.87, les Chats Noir (Black Cat Group) was stationed at Lunéville in the Alsace-Lorraine sector and was equipped with Nieuport 17 and later Nieuport 24 "pursuit" aircraft. Wellman's combat experience culminated in three recorded "kills", along with five probables, although he was ultimately shot down.^[9] Wellman survived the crash but he walked with a pronounced limp for the rest of his life. (He used the limp to his advantage, often exaggerating it when he had to "meet a pretty girl.")^[5]

After the Armistice, Wellman returned to the United States, wrote a book about his exploits (with the help of a ghostwriter), and joined the United States Army Air Service. Stationed at Rockwell Field, San Diego, he taught combat tactics to new pilots.

Film career

While in San Diego, Wellman would fly to Hollywood for the weekends in his Spad fighter, using Fairbanks' polo field in Bel Air as a landing strip.^[5] Fairbanks was fascinated with the true-life adventures of "Wild Bill"^[5] and promised to recommend him for a job in the movie business; he was responsible for Wellman being cast in the juvenile lead of The Knickerbocker Buckaroo (1919).^[3] Wellman was hired for the role of a young officer in Evangeline (1919), but was fired for slapping the leading lady, who happened to be the wife of director Raoul Walsh.^[4]

William Wellman as a flight instructor at Rockwell Field, San Diego (1919)

It didn't matter, because Wellman hated being an actor, thought it was unmasculine,^[10] and disliked how he looked on film. He soon switched to working behind the camera, aiming to be a director, and progressed up the line as "a messenger boy, as an assistant cutter, an assistant property man, a property man, an assistant director, second unit director and eventually... director."^[3] His first assignment as an assistant director for Bernie Durning provided him with a work ethic that he adopted for future film work. One strict rule that Durning enforced was no fraternization with screen femme fatales, which almost immediately Wellman broke, leading to a confrontation and a thrashing from the director. Despite his transgression, both men became lifelong friends, and Wellman steadily progressed to more difficult first unit assignments.^[5]

Wellman made his uncredited directorial debut in 1920 at Fox with The Twins of Suffering Creek. The first films he was credited with directing were The Man Who Won and Second Hand Love, released on the same day in 1923. After directing a dozen low-budget 'horse opera' films (some of which he would rather forget),^[3] Wellman was hired by Paramount in 1927 to direct Wings, a major war drama dealing with fighter pilots during World War I that was highlighted by air combat and flight sequences. The film culminates with the epic Battle of Saint-Mihiel. In the 1st Academy Awards it was one of two films to win Best Picture (the other was Sunrise).

Wellman's other notable films include The Public Enemy (1931), the first version of A Star Is Born (1937), Nothing Sacred (1937), the 1939 version of Beau Geste starring Gary Cooper, Thunder Birds (1942), The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), Lady of Burlesque (1943), The Story of G.I. Joe (1945), Battleground (1949) and two films starring and co-produced by John Wayne, Island in the Sky (1953) and The High and the Mighty (1954).

While he was primarily a director, Wellman also produced ten films, one of them uncredited, all of which he also directed. His last film was Lafayette Escadrille (1958), which he produced, directed, wrote the story for and narrated. He wrote the screenplay for two other films that he directed, and one film that he did not direct, 1936's The Last Gangster. He also wrote the story for A Star Is Born and received a story credit for both remakes in 1954 and 1976.

Wellman was known for his disdain for actors in general, and actresses in particular. Many actors disliked working with him, because he bullied them to get the performance he wanted.^[4] Wellman liked to work fast. Even though he hated their narcissism, he preferred working with men, because they didn't need as much preparation time before shooting as women did.^[11] Despite all this, Wellman managed to elicit Oscar-nominated performances from seven different actors: Fredric March and Janet Gaynor (A Star Is Born), Brian Donlevy (Beau Geste), Robert Mitchum (The Story of G.I. Joe), James Whitmore (Battleground), and Jan Sterling and Claire Trevor (The High and Mighty).

In his career, Wellman won a single Academy Award, for the story of A Star Is Born. He was nominated as best director three times, for A Star Is Born, Battleground and The High and Mighty, for which he was also nominated by the Directors Guild of America as best director. In 1973, the DGA honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Wellman also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 6125 Hollywood Blvd.^[12]

Several filmmakers have examined Wellman's career. Richard Schickel devoted an episode of his PBS series The Men Who Made the Movies to Wellman in 1973,^[13] and in 1996, Todd Robinson made the feature-length documentary Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick^[14].

Family

Wellman married four times:

• Helene Chadwick: married (1918–1923) separated after a month; later divorced
• Margery Chapin: married (1925–1926); together for a short time
• Marjorie Crawford: married (1931–1933) divorced
• Dorothy Coonan: married (March 20, 1934–1975); until his death; they had seven children - four daughters, three sons. ^[15]

Dorothy starred in Wellman's 1933 film Wild Boys of The Road and had seven children with Wellman,^[1] including actors Michael Wellman, William Wellman Jr., Maggie Wellman, and Cissy Wellman. His daughter Kathleen "Kitty" Wellman married actor James Franciscus, although they later divorced. His first daughter is Patty Wellman, and he had a third son, Tim Wellman.

His son William Jr. wrote a book about Wellman, The Man And His Wings: William A. Wellman and the Making of the First Best Picture, and has appeared a number of times on Turner Classic Movies to introduce films made by his father.

William Wellman died in 1975 of leukemia. He was cremated, and his ashes were scattered at sea.^[16] His widow, Dorothy Wellman, died on September 16, 2009, in Brentwood, California, at the age of 95.^[1]

Partial filmography

References

Notes

Bibliography

External links

• 1978 interview with Wellman
• William A. Wellman at the Internet Movie Database
• William A. Wellman at Allmovie
• William A. Wellman at the TCM Movie Database
• William A. Wellman at Find a Grave