Henry Hathaway

Henry Hathaway
Born	Marquis Henri Léopold de Fiennes (1898-03-13)March 13, 1898 Sacramento, California, United States
Died	February 11, 1985(1985-02-11) (aged 86) Hollywood, California, United States
Resting place	Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, California
Years active	1925–74

Henry Hathaway (March 13, 1898 – February 11, 1985) was an American film director and producer. He is best known as a director of Westerns, especially starring Randolph Scott and John Wayne.

Background

Born Marquis Henri Léopold de Fiennes in Sacramento, California,^[1] he was the son of an American actor and stage manager, Rhody Hathaway (1868–1944), and a Hungarian-born Belgian aristocrat, Marquise Lillie de Fiennes (Budapest, 1876–1938), who acted under the name Jean Hathaway.

This branch of the De Fiennes family came to America in the 19th century on behalf of King Leopold I of Belgium and was part of the negotiations with the Belgian Prime Minister, Charles Rogier (1800–1885), to secure the 1862 treaty ^[2] between Belgium and what was then known as the Sandwich Islands and is now called Hawaii.

The title 'Marquis', commissioned by the King of the Belgians, comes from his grandfather, Marquis Henri Léopold de Fiennes, who settled in San Francisco, California after failing to acquire the Sandwich Islands for his King.

Early career

In 1925, Hathaway began working in silent films as an assistant to notable directors such as Victor Fleming and Josef von Sternberg and made the transition to sound with them. He was the assistant director to Fred Niblo in the 1925 version of Ben-Hur starring Francis X. Bushman and Ramon Novarro. During the remainder of the 1920s, Hathaway learned his craft as an assistant, helping direct future stars such as Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, Adolphe Menjou, Fay Wray, Walter Huston, Clara Bow, and Noah Beery.

Maturity

The 1930s

Henry Hathaway made his directorial debut in 1932 with a Western film production, Heritage of the Desert. Based on a Zane Grey novel, Hathaway gave Randolph Scott his first starring role in film that led to a lengthy career for Scott as a cowboy star. Hathaway too, was a fan of stories of the settling of the American West and would make a number of films involving the subject. In 1935, he directed The Lives of a Bengal Lancer which received several Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and for which Hathaway won his only nomination for the Academy Award for Directing. He followed this with Go West, Young Man (1936), starring Mae West, based on Lawrence Riley's Broadway hit Personal Appearance. Once again, he used Randolph Scott in this film, but not as a cowboy this time.

Film Noir

During the 1940s Hathaway began making films in a semidocumentary vein, often using the then-popular film noir style. These included The House on 92nd Street (1945), for which he was nominated for a Best Director award by the New York Film Critics Circle, 13 Rue Madeleine (1945), and Call Northside 777 (1948), in which Hathaway presented one of the first on-screen uses of a Fax machine. His film noir thriller Niagara (1953) starred the up-and-coming Marilyn Monroe.

In Hathaway's 1958 film From Hell to Texas, the young Dennis Hopper attempted to assert himself artistically on the set. Perhaps influenced by his recent experience with fellow actor James Dean's rebellious attitude on the sets of Rebel Without a Cause and Giant, Hopper forced Hathaway to shoot more than 80 takes of a scene before he acquiesced to Hathaway's demands. After the shoot, Hathaway reportedly told the young actor that his career in Hollywood was over, and for many years Hathaway's statement held true.^[3][4]

Later career and death

In the 1960s, Hathaway directed John Wayne in several notable films, including Circus World (1964). Wayne asked Hathaway to cast John Smith in the role of Steve McCabe in the film; Smith from 1959 to 1963 had played the part of rancher Slim Sherman on NBC's Laramie series. According to Smith's Internet biography, Hathaway developed an intense dislike for Smith and stopped him from landing choice roles thereafter in Hollywood.^[5]

Hathaway also directed Wayne in his Oscar-winning performance in True Grit (1969).

He directed Nevada Smith, a 1966 Western starring Steve McQueen that was extrapolated from a brief section of Harold Robbins' novel The Carpetbaggers. In addition, Hathaway was one of three directors on the epic Cinerama Western, How the West Was Won (1962), directing the bulk of the film, including the river, prairie, and train robbery sequences.

Hathaway may have stepped in for George Seaton in directing some winter outdoor scenes for the blockbuster hit Airport (1970), which stars Dean Martin, who had previously been in Hathaway's Western films The Sons of Katie Elder with John Wayne and 5 Card Stud with Robert Mitchum. Hathaway made his 65th and final film in 1974.

Hathaway died from a heart attack in 1985 in Hollywood and is interred at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California. Although often overlooked as a director, his body of work earned him a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1638 Vine Street.

Filmography

References

External links

• Henry Hathaway at the Internet Movie Database
• Henry Hathaway's Gravesite