George Cukor
| George Cukor | ||
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| Background information | ||
| Born as: | George Dewey Cukor | |
| Born | Jul 7, 1899 New York City, U.S. | |
| Died | Jan 24, 1983 - age 84 Los Angeles, California, U.S. | |
| Occupation: | Film director, film producer | |
| Years active | 1930–1981 | |
| Awards: | Academy Award for Best Director 1965 My Fair Lady Golden Globe Award for Best Director - 1965 My Fair Lady | |
George Dewey Cukor (/ˈkjuːkɔːr/;[1] ✦July 7, 1899 – †January 24, 1983) was an American film director and film producer. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations. His career flourished at RKO when David O. Selznick, the studio's Head of Production, assigned Cukor to direct several of RKO's major films, including What Price Hollywood? (1932), A Bill of Divorcement (1932), Our Betters (1933), and Little Women (1933). When Selznick moved to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1933, Cukor followed and directed Dinner at Eight (1933) and David Copperfield (1935) for Selznick and Romeo and Juliet (1936) and Camille (1936) for Irving Thalberg.
He was replaced as one of the directors of Gone with the Wind (1939), but he went on to direct The Philadelphia Story (1940), Gaslight (1944), Adam's Rib (1949), Born Yesterday (1950), A Star Is Born (1954), Bhowani Junction (1956), and won the Academy Award for Best Director for My Fair Lady (1964), which was his fifth time nominated. He continued to work into the 1980s.
Early life
Cukor was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the younger child and only son of Hungarian-Jewish immigrants Viktor, an assistant district attorney, and Helén Ilona Gross. His parents selected his middle name in honor of Spanish–American War hero George Dewey. The family was not particularly religious (pork was a staple on the dinner table), and when he started attending the temple as a boy, Cukor learned Hebrew phonetically, with no real understanding of the meaning of the words or what they represented. As a result, he was ambivalent about his faith and dismissive of old-world traditions from childhood. As an adult, he embraced Anglophilia to remove himself even further from his roots.
As a child, Cukor appeared in several amateur plays and took dance lessons, and at the age of seven, he performed in a recital with David O. Selznick, who in later years became a mentor and friend. As a teenager, Cukor frequently was taken to the New York Hippodrome by his uncle. Infatuated with theatre, he often cut classes at DeWitt Clinton High School to attend afternoon matinees. During his senior year, he worked as a supernumerary with the Metropolitan Opera, earning 50¢ per appearance, and $1 if he was required to perform in blackface.
Following his graduation in 1917, Cukor was expected to follow in his father's footsteps and pursue a career in law. He halfheartedly enrolled in the City College of New York, where he entered the Students Army Training Corps in October 1918. His military experience was limited; Germany surrendered in early November, and Cukor's duty ended after only two months. He left school shortly afterward.
Personal life
It was an open secret in Hollywood that Cukor was gay, at a time when society was against it. However, he was discreet about his sexual orientation and "never carried it as a pin on his lapel," as producer Joseph L. Mankiewicz put it. He was a celebrated bon vivant whose luxurious home was the site of weekly Sunday afternoon parties attended by closeted celebrities and the attractive young men they met in bars and gyms and brought with them. At least once, in the midst of his reign at MGM, he was arrested on vice charges, but studio executives managed to get the charges dropped, and all records of it expunged, and the incident was never publicized by the press. In the late 1950s, Cukor became involved with a considerably younger man named George Towers. He financed his education at the Los Angeles State College of Applied Arts and Sciences and the University of Southern California, from which Towers graduated with a law degree in 1967. That fall Towers married a woman, and his relationship with Cukor evolved into one of father and son, and for the remainder of Cukor's life the two remained very close.
By the mid-1930s, Cukor was not only established as a prominent director, but socially as an unofficial head of Hollywood's gay subculture. His home, redecorated in 1935 by gay actor-turned-interior designer William Haines with gardens designed by Florence Yoch and Lucile Council, was the scene of many gatherings for the industry's homosexuals. The close-knit group reputedly included Haines and his partner Jimmie Shields, writer W. Somerset Maugham, director James Vincent, screenwriter Rowland Leigh, costume designers Orry-Kelly and Robert Le Maire, and actors John Darrow, Anderson Lawler, Grady Sutton, Robert Seiter, and Tom Douglas. Frank Horn, secretary to Cary Grant, was also a frequent guest.
Death and legacy
Cukor died of a heart attack on January 24, 1983, and was interred in Grave D, Little Garden of Constancy, Garden of Memory (private), Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale), California. Records in probate court indicated his net worth at the time of his death was $2,377,720.
In 1983, a version of A Star Is Born, considered by many to be his greatest picture, was restored to its original runtime of 181 minutes. The film was initially released at 181 minutes and received enormous critical and box office success. Finding that the length restricted the number of daily showings, the studio cut the movie to 154 minutes. Cukor believed this re-release "butchered" the gradual development of the Garland-Mason relationship.
In 2013, The Film Society of Lincoln Center presented a comprehensive weeks-long retrospective of his work titled "The Discreet Charm of George Cukor."
In 2019, Cukor's film Gaslight was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Career
- Wikipedia article: George Cukor Career
Filmography
- Wikipedia article: George Cukor Filmography
External links
- George Cukor at the Internet Movie Database
- George Cukor at the Internet Broadway Database
- George Cukor at the Turner Classic Movie Database
- George Cukor @ Find A Grave
- Wikipedia article: George Cukor
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Note: George Cukor was a volunteer at the Hollywood Canteen |
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