Ford, Huston, Hughes... and the Others
Which of these directors named John is your personal favorite?
After voting,you may discuss the list [link=]here[/link]
After voting,you may discuss the list [link=]here[/link]
List activity
1.4K views
• 0 this weekCreate a new list
List your movie, TV & celebrity picks.
14 people
- Director
- Producer
- Actor
John Ford came to Hollywood following one of his brothers, an actor. Asked what brought him to Hollywood, he replied "the train". He became one of the most respected directors in the business, in spite of being known for his westerns, which were not considered "serious" film. He won six Oscars, counting (he always did) the two that he won for his WWII documentary work. He had one wife; a son and daughter; and a grandson, Dan Ford who wrote a biography on his famous grandfather.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
An eccentric rebel of epic proportions, this Hollywood titan reigned supreme as director, screenwriter and character actor in a career that endured over five decades. The ten-time Oscar-nominated legend was born John Marcellus Huston in Nevada, Missouri, on August 5, 1906. His ancestry was English, Scottish, Scots-Irish, distant German and very remote Portuguese. The age-old story goes that the small town of his birth was won by John's grandfather in a poker game. John's father was the equally magnanimous character actor Walter Huston, and his mother, Rhea Gore, was a newspaperwoman who traveled around the country looking for stories. The only child of the couple, John began performing on stage with his vaudevillian father at age 3. Upon his parents' divorce at age 7, the young boy would take turns traveling around the vaudeville circuit with his father and the country with his mother on reporting excursions. A frail and sickly child, he was once placed in a sanitarium due to both an enlarged heart and kidney ailment. Making a miraculous recovery, he quit school at age 14 to become a full-fledged boxer and eventually won the Amateur Lightweight Boxing Championship of California, winning 22 of 25 bouts. His trademark broken nose was the result of that robust activity.
John married his high school sweetheart, Dorothy Harvey, and also took his first professional stage bow with a leading role off-Broadway entitled "The Triumph of the Egg." He made his Broadway debut that same year with "Ruint" on April 7, 1925, and followed that with another Broadway show "Adam Solitaire" the following November. John soon grew restless with the confines of both his marriage and acting and abandoned both, taking a sojourn to Mexico where he became an officer in the cavalry and expert horseman while writing plays on the sly. Trying to control his wanderlust urges, he subsequently returned to America and attempted newspaper and magazine reporting work in New York by submitting short stories. He was even hired at one point by mogul Samuel Goldwyn Jr. as a screenwriter, but again he grew restless. During this time he also appeared unbilled in a few obligatory films. By 1932 John was on the move again and left for London and Paris where he studied painting and sketching. The promising artist became a homeless beggar during one harrowing point.
Returning again to America in 1933, he played the title role in a production of "Abraham Lincoln," only a few years after father Walter portrayed the part on film for D.W. Griffith. John made a new resolve to hone in on his obvious writing skills and began collaborating on a few scripts for Warner Brothers. He also married again. Warners was so impressed with his talents that he was signed on as both screenwriter and director for the Dashiell Hammett mystery yarn The Maltese Falcon (1941). The movie classic made a superstar out of Humphrey Bogart and is considered by critics and audiences alike--- 65 years after the fact--- to be the greatest detective film ever made. In the meantime John wrote/staged a couple of Broadway plays, and in the aftermath of his mammoth screen success directed bad-girl 'Bette Davis (I)' and good girl Olivia de Havilland in the film melodrama In This Our Life (1942), and three of his "Falcon" stars (Bogart, Mary Astor and Sydney Greenstreet) in the romantic war picture Across the Pacific (1942). During WWII John served as a Signal Corps lieutenant and went on to helm a number of film documentaries for the U.S. government including the controversial Let There Be Light (1980), which father Walter narrated. The end of WWII also saw the end of his second marriage. He married third wife Evelyn Keyes, of "Gone With the Wind" fame, in 1946 but it too lasted a relatively short time. That same year the impulsive and always unpredictable Huston directed Jean-Paul Sartre's experimental play "No Exit" on Broadway. The show was a box-office bust (running less than a month) but nevertheless earned the New York Drama Critics Award as "best foreign play."
Hollywood glory came to him again in association with Bogart and Warner Brothers'. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), a classic tale of gold, greed and man's inhumanity to man set in Mexico, won John Oscars for both director and screenplay and his father nabbed the "Best Supporting Actor" trophy. John can be glimpsed at the beginning of the movie in a cameo playing a tourist, but he wouldn't act again on film for a decade and a half. With the momentum in his favor, John hung around in Hollywood this time to write and/or direct some of the finest American cinema made including Key Largo (1948) and The African Queen (1951) (both with Bogart), The Asphalt Jungle (1950), The Red Badge of Courage (1951) and Moulin Rouge (1952). Later films, including Moby Dick (1956), The Unforgiven (1960), The Misfits (1961), Freud (1962), The Night of the Iguana (1964) and The Bible in the Beginning... (1966) were, for the most part, well-regarded but certainly not close to the level of his earlier revered work. He also experimented behind-the-camera with color effects and approached topics that most others would not even broach, including homosexuality and psychoanalysis.
An ardent supporter of human rights, he, along with director William Wyler and others, dared to form the Committee for the First Amendment in 1947, which strove to undermine the House Un-American Activities Committee. Disgusted by the Hollywood blacklisting that was killing the careers of many talented folk, he moved to St. Clerans in Ireland and became a citizen there along with his fourth wife, ballet dancer Enrica (Ricki) Soma. The couple had two children, including daughter Anjelica Huston who went on to have an enviable Hollywood career of her own. Huston and wife Ricki split after a son (director Danny Huston) was born to another actress in 1962. They did not divorce, however, and remained estranged until her sudden death in 1969 in a car accident. John subsequently adopted his late wife's child from another union. The ever-impulsive Huston would move yet again to Mexico where he married (1972) and divorced (1977) his fifth and final wife, Celeste Shane.
Huston returned to acting auspiciously with a major role in Otto Preminger's epic film The Cardinal (1963) for which Huston received an Oscar nomination at age 57. From that time forward, he would be glimpsed here and there in a number of colorful, baggy-eyed character roles in both good and bad (some positively abysmal) films that, at the very least, helped finance his passion projects. The former list included outstanding roles in Chinatown (1974) and The Wind and the Lion (1975), while the latter comprised of hammy parts in such awful drek as Candy (1968) and Myra Breckinridge (1970).
Directing daughter Angelica in her inauspicious movie debut, the thoroughly mediocre A Walk with Love and Death (1969), John made up for it 15 years later by directing her to Oscar glory in the mob tale Prizzi's Honor (1985). In the 1970s Huston resurged as a director of quality films with Fat City (1972), The Man Who Would Be King (1975) and Wise Blood (1979). He ended his career on a high note with Under the Volcano (1984), the afore-mentioned Prizzi's Honor (1985) and The Dead (1987). His only certifiable misfire during that era was the elephantine musical version of Annie (1982), though it later became somewhat of a cult favorite among children.
Huston lived the macho, outdoors life, unencumbered by convention or restrictions, and is often compared in style or flamboyancy to an Ernest Hemingway or Orson Welles. He was, in fact, the source of inspiration for Clint Eastwood in the helming of the film White Hunter Black Heart (1990) which chronicled the making of "The African Queen." Illness robbed Huston of a good portion of his twilight years with chronic emphysema the main culprit. As always, however, he continued to work tirelessly while hooked up to an oxygen machine if need be. At the end, the living legend was shooting an acting cameo in the film Mr. North (1988) for his son Danny, making his directorial bow at the time. John became seriously ill with pneumonia and died while on location at the age of 81. This maverick of a man's man who was once called "the eccentric's eccentric" by Paul Newman, left an incredibly rich legacy of work to be enjoyed by film lovers for centuries to come.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
John Cassavetes was a Greek-American actor, film director, and screenwriter. He is considered a pioneer of American independent film, as he often financed his own films.
Cassavetes was born in New York City in 1929 to Nicholas John Cassavetes (1893-1979) and his wife, Katherine Demetre (1906-1983). Nicholas was an immigrant from Greece, while Katherine was Greek-American who had been born in New York City. The Cassavetes family moved back to Greece in the early 1930s, and John learned Greek as his primary language. The family moved back to the United States around 1936, possibly to evade Greece's new dictatorship, the 4th of August Regime (1936-1941). Young John had to learn to speak English. He spent his late childhood and most of his teenage years in Long Island, New York. From 1945-47, he attended the Port Washington High School. He wrote for the school newspaper and the school yearbook. The 18-year-old Cassavetes was then transferred to the Blair Academy, a boarding school located in Blairstown, New Jersey. When the time came for him to start college, Cassavetes enrolled at Champlain College (in Burlington, Vermont) but was expelled owing to poor grades.
After a brief vacation to Florida, Cassavetes enrolled at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (AADA), in New York City. Several of his old friends were already students there and had recommended it to Cassavetes, who would be mentored by Don Richardson (1918-1996). After graduating, he began to regularly perform on stage while also appearing in small roles in films and television shows.
Cassavetes's first notable film role was that of Robert Batsford, one of the three villains (along with Vince Edwards and David Cross) in The Night Holds Terror (1955). His next major role was juvenile delinquent Frankie Dane in the crime film "Crime in the Streets" (1956). He won a lead role in Edge of the City (1957) as drifter Axel Nordmann. His co-star for the film was Sidney Poitier, who played stevedore Tommy Tyler. The film helped break new ground, portraying a working-class interracial friendship. Cassavetes gained critical acclaim for his role, and film critics compared him to Marlon Brando. Cassavetes's success as an actor led to his becoming a contract player for MGM. In 1959, he directed his first film, Shadows (1958). It depicted the lives of three African-American siblings in New York City. It won the Critics Award at the Venice Film Festival.
His next directing effort, Too Late Blues (1961), was about the professional and romantic problems of a struggling jazz musician. The film was poorly received at the time, though its autobiographical elements are considered remarkable. Cassavetes then directed A Child Is Waiting (1963), which depicted life in a state institution for mentally handicapped and emotionally disturbed children. The film was a documentary-style portrayal of problems in the social services. It was praised by critics but failed at the box office.
In 1968, Cassavetes had a comeback as a director with Faces (1968), which depicts a single night in the life of a middle-aged married couple. After 14 years of marriage, the two feel rather miserable and seek happiness in the company of friends and the beds of younger lovers, but neither manages to cure their sense of misery. The film gained critical acclaim, and, in 2011, was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
Cassavetes returned to the theme of a midlife crisis in his next film, Husbands (1970). The film depicts three middle-aged men, professionally successful and seemingly happily married. The death of a close childhood friend reminds them of their own mortality, and of their fading memories of youth. They flee their ordinary lives with a shared vacation to London, but their attempts to rejuvenate themselves fail. This film attracted mixed reviews, with some critics praising its "moments of piercing honesty" and others finding fault with its rambling dialogue.
Cassavetes's next film was Minnie and Moskowitz (1971), about the romantic relationship between a seemingly incompatible couple, jaded museum curator Minnie Moore and the temperamental drifter Seymour Moskowitz. It was well received and garnered Cassavetes a Writers Guild of America Award for Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen. His next film was A Woman Under the Influence (1974), concerning the effects of mental illness on a working-class family. In the film, ordinary housewife Mabel Longhetti starts displaying signs of a mental disorder. She undergoes psychiatric treatment for six months while her husband, Nick Longhetti, attempts to play the role of a single father. But Nick seems to be a social misfit in his own right, and neither parent seems to be "normal". Cassavetes was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director for this film, but the award was won by Francis Ford Coppola.
Cassavetes next directed the gritty crime film, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976). In the film, Korean War veteran and cabaret owner Cosmo Vittelli owes a large debt to a criminal organization and is coerced to serve as their hit-man in an assassination scheme. He has been told that the target is an insignificant bookie, but after the assassination Vittelli learns that he just killed a high-ranking crime boss of the Chinese mafia and that he himself is now a target for assassination. The film gained good reviews and a cult following.
His next film, Opening Night (1977), was more enigmatic, mixing drama with horror elements. Protagonist Myrtle Gordon (played by Cassavetes's wife, Gena Rowlands) is a famous actress, but aging and dissatisfied with the only theatrical role available to her. After seeing teenager Nancy Stein, one of her obsessive fans , get killed in a car accident, Myrtle starts having visions of Nancy's ghost. As she keeps fighting the ghost, drinking heavily and chain-smoking, the film ends without explaining what seems to be going wrong with Myrtle's perception of reality. The film was a hit in Europe but flopped in the United States.
Cassavetes had another directing comeback with "Gloria" (1980). In the film, Gloria Swenson (formerly a gangster's girlfriend) is asked to protect Phil Dawn, the young son of an FBI informant within a New York crime family. After the apparent assassination of Phil's parents, Gloria finds herself targeted by gangsters and wanted by the police as a kidnapping suspect. The film won the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival, and protagonist Gena Rowlands was nominated for several acting awards.
Cassavetes's 11th directing effort was the rather unconventional drama Love Streams (1984), about the relationship between two middle-aged siblings. In the film, Sarah Lawson suffers from depression following a messy divorce and moves in with her brother, Robert Harmon, an alcoholic writer with self-destructive tendencies. Though estranged from his ex-wife and his only son and unable to protect himself from violent foes, in the end Robert finally has someone for whom to care. The film won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival.
Cassavetes' swan song as a director was the comedy Big Trouble (1986), replacing the much younger Andrew Bergman. The film concerns an insurance agent who needs $40,000 for college tuition for his three daughters. He agrees to cooperate in an insurance scam with the wife of one of his clients, though the plan may require them to murder her husband. Several elements of the film were recycled from the plot of the iconic film noir Double Indemnity (1944), and "Big Trouble" served as its unofficial remake. The film was unsuccessful, and Cassavetes himself reportedly disliked the script.
In the late 1980s, Cassavetes suffered from health problems and his career was in decline. He died in 1989 from cirrhosis of the liver caused by many years of heavy drinking. He was only 59 years old. He is buried at the Westwood Village Memorial Park in Los Angeles, having left more than 40 unproduced screenplays and an unpublished novel. His son, Nick Cassavetes, eventually used one of the unproduced screenplays to direct a new film, the romantic drama, She's So Lovely (1997). It was released eight years after the death of John Cassavetes, and was well received by critics.- Music Department
- Writer
- Composer
John Howard Carpenter was born in Carthage, New York, to mother Milton Jean (Carter) and father Howard Ralph Carpenter. His family moved to Bowling Green, Kentucky, where his father, a professor, was head of the music department at Western Kentucky University. He attended Western Kentucky University and then USC film school in Los Angeles. He began making short films in 1962, and won an Academy Award for Best Live-Action Short Subject in 1970, for The Resurrection of Broncho Billy (1970), which he made while at USC. Carpenter formed a band in the mid-1970s called The Coupe de Villes, which included future directors Tommy Lee Wallace and Nick Castle. Since the 1970s, he has had numerous roles in the film industry including writer, actor, composer, producer, and director. After directing Dark Star (1974), he has helmed both classic horror films like Halloween (1978), The Fog (1980), and The Thing (1982), and noted sci-fi tales like Escape from New York (1981) and Starman (1984).- Writer
- Producer
- Director
John Hughes was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter. He was credited for creating some of the most memorable comedy films of the 1980s and the 1990s, when he was at the height of his career. He had a talent for writing coming-of-age stories, and for depicting fairly realistic adolescent characters.
In 1950, Hughes was born in Lansing, Michigan. The city's main employers for much of the 20th century were manufacturing plants for automobiles. Lansing housed the headquarters of companies such as Oldsmobile and the REO Motor Car Company. Hughes' father John Hughes Sr. was a salesman, while Hughes' mother Marion Crawford worked as a volunteer for charity organizations.
Hughes had three sisters and no brothers. His family moved often. For most of his childhood, the Hughes family lived in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, a commuter suburb of Metro Detroit. According to an interview of Hughes, he was the only boy in his neighborhood while growing up. He was surrounded by girls and "old people," and there was no boys around for him to befriend. He spend a lot of time alone, and used his active imagination to keep himself entertained.
In 1963, the Hughes family moved to Northbrook, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. Hughes attended first the Grove Middle School, and then the Glenbrook North High School. His high school experiences reportedly provided inspiration for his teen-themed films of his career. According to interviews with Hughes' friends, Hughes had a poor relationship with his parents who often criticized him.
As an adolescent, Hughes felt the need to escape his problems. He became an avid film fan, as he found that films satisfied his need for escapism. He was a fan of both the Rat Pack (an informal group of actors and singers), and the music group The Beatles.
After graduating high school, Hughes enrolled in the University of Arizona. He eventually dropped out of the University, and tried to make a living as a comedy writer. He wrote jokes for professional comedians, such as Rodney Dangerfield (1921 - 2004) and Joan Rivers (1933 - 2014).
In 1970, Hughes was hired by the advertising company Needham Harper & Steers (1925-1986). That same year, Hughes married his former high school classmate Nancy Ludwig. Hughes worked in the advertising industry for several years. In 1974, Hughes was hired by the advertising agency Leo Burnett Worldwide. This company's most notable clients included the Pillsbury Company, StarKist, Heinz, Green Giant, and Philip Morris.
As a marketing agent, Hughes was assigned to handle Virginia Slims, a brand of cigarettes produced by Philip Morris. The assignment required him to regularly travel to New York City, where Philip Morris' headquarters were located. Hughes took the opportunity to visit the offices of the popular humor magazine "National Lampoon" (1970-1998) in New York City. He successfully negotiated a new position as a regular contributor to the magazine.
Hughes reportedly impressed the magazine's editors by producing quality work at a fast pace. Among his first short stories was "Vacation '58," based on his recollections of his family's vacations during his childhood. The story was eventually adapted into the road comedy film "National Lampoon's Vacation" (1983).
"National Lampoon" co-produced films written by their staff writers. Hughes provided the script for the black comedy "National Lampoon's Class Reunion" (1982), depicting a serial killer who targets his former classmates. The film was poorly received and under-performed at the box office, but it inspired Hughes to try to make a career as a screenwriter.
Hughes subsequently wrote the scripts for both "National Lampoon's Vacation" (1983) and "Mr. Mom" (1983), comedy films which were box office hits. He then signed a contract for three films with the studio Universal Pictures. He made his directing debut in the coming-of-age comedy film "Sixteen Candles" (1984). The film depicted the misadventures of high school sophomore Samantha "Sam" Baker (played by Molly Ringwald). It performed well at the box office, and was well-received by critics.
Hughes quickly established himself as a leading director of teen films. His films "The Breakfast Club" (1985), "Weird Science" (1985), and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" (1986) are considered classics of the genre. To cover new ground, he then directed "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" (1987), featuring a duo of adult protagonists. The stars of the film were experienced comic actors Steve Martin and John Candy. The film was a hit. More importantly, Hughes and Candy became close friends. They would often work together in subsequent films.
Hughes' next film as a director was "She's Having a Baby" (1988), about the life of a newlywed couple. The film fared poorly financially and was considered rather "blasé" by critics. Hughes made a comeback with "Uncle Buck" (1989), about a lifelong bachelor who has to take care of his two nieces and a nephew. The film was a box office hit, earning about 80 million dollars at the box office.
Hughes' final film as a director was the comedy-drama "Curly Sue" (1991), about homeless con artist Bill Dancer (played by Jim Belushi) who desperately tries to keep the custody of his surrogate daughter. While moderately successful at the box office at the box office, the film was widely ridiculed for being overly sentimental.
In the 1990s, Hughes found success as a screenwriter, scripting several box office hits. Among his most notable films in this period were "Home Alone" (1990) and "Beethoven" (1992), with both films starting lucrative media franchises. Hughes also wrote the scripts of the sequels "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York" (1992) and "Home Alone 3" (1997). He also scripted a notable comic strip adaptation, "Dennis the Menace" (1993). It was based on the long-running comic strip "Dennis the Menace" (1951-) by Hank Ketcham (1920-2001).
In 1994, Hughes moved to the Chicago metropolitan area. At about that time, he started actively avoiding publicity. He rarely gave any interviews until the end of his life. In 1995, Hughes co-founded the production company Great Oaks Entertainment, which mainly handled co-production of Disney produced films. Hughes handled the scripting of two of the company's films: "101 Dalmatians" (1996) and "Flubber" (1997). Both were remakes of older films.
In 1997, Hughes severed his partnership with Ricardo Mestres. A year later, their final co-production, "Reach the Rock," was released. The film was scripted by Hughes, though it was uncharacteristically dramatic for a Hughes film. The film depicted the conflict between an alienated young man and a police chief.
In the 2000s, Hughes only scripted three more films. The most notable among them the romantic drama "Maid in Manhattan" (2002), a hit for protagonist Jennifer Lopez. It earned about 164 million dollars.
In August 2009, Hughes visited New York City with his wife. He wanted to visit one of his sons who lived there, and to meet his new grandson. On August 6, Hughes suffered a heart attack while walking in Manhattan. He was transported to Roosevelt Hospital, but died shortly after. He was fifty-nine years old.
Hughes was buried in Lake Forest Cemetery, a rural cemetery located in Lake Forest, Illinois. He was survived by his wife, their two children, and several grandchildren.- Director
- Producer
- Editor
John Sturges was an American film director, mostly remembered for his outstanding Western films. In 1992, Sturges was awarded a Golden Boot Award for his lifelong contribution to the Western genre.
Sturges was born in the village of Oak Park, Illinois, within the Chicago metropolitan area. By 1930, the village had a population of 64,000 people.
Sturges started his film career in 1932, as a film editor. During World War II, he started directing documentaries and training films for the United States Army Air Forces.
Sturges made his directing debut in 1946, in the drama film "The Man Who Dared" (1946) by the studio Columbia Pictures. The film's protagonist frames himself for murder, in order to prove that innocent people may be convicted by circumstantial evidence. His next film project was the film noir "Shadowed" (1946), about a corpse being found in a golf club, and how an innocent man finds his life threatened by a gang leader. Sturges' last film of the year was the crime drama "Alias Mr. Twilight" (1946), about an elderly con-artist who uses his earnings to provide for his beloved granddaughter.
Sturges was entrusted with directing the third film in the then -popular Rusty film series, about the adventures of a German shepherd. The film was called "For the Love of Rusty" (1947), and introduced the new dog actor Flame. Flame portrayed Rusty in four of the eight Rusty films.
Sturges' next film project was "Keeper of the Bees" (1947), the third film adaptation of the 1925 novel by Gene Stratton-Porter (1863-1924). The film involved aging beekeeper Michael Worthington (played by Harry Davenport ) who recruits a nomadic painter and an orphan girl as his new employees. Despite a high-profile cast, the film is considered a lost film.
Sturges' last film of the year was the war documentary "Thunderbolt" (1947), concerning Operation Strangle (March 19-May 11, 1944). The aerial operation had American aircraft attacking German supply routes in Central Italy, in order to force the Germans to withdraw. The documentary included actual combat footage from the operation, and part of its profits was used to finance the Army Air Force Relief Society.
Sturges returned to the film noir genre with the film "The Sign of the Ram" (1948). The film's villain protagonist Leah St. Aubyn (played by Susan Peters) was depicted as an invalid woman with an obsessive desire to control and dominate the life of her family and friends, and going to extremes in order to achieve her goal.
Sturges next directed the historical drama "Best Man Wins", an adaptation of the short story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" (1865) by Mark Twain (1835-1910). The film depicts professional gambler Jim Smiley (played by Edgar Buchanan) trying to use his jumping frog Daniel Webster to win bets. He hopes to use his earnings to win back the love of his ex-wife, and to buy the love of his estranged son.
Sturges' first Western was "The Walking Hills" (1949), which used film noir tropes in a new setting. The film involves treasure hunters searching for a lost wagon train carrying gold bars. But many of the characters are hiding secrets, and a there is a manhunt for a wanted fugitive in the area.
Sturges had a critically successful film with the biographical film "The Magnificent Yankee", which dramatized the life of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841-1935), Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1902 to 1932. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards, but won neither.
Sturges next projects included the film noir "The Capture" (1950), the film noir "Mystery Street" (1950), and the sports drama "Right Cross" (1950). His crime drama "Kind Lady" (1951) was a remake of a 1935 film with the same title, directed by George B. Seitz. In the film, wealthy art collector Mary Herries (played by Ethel Barrymore) allows painter Henry Springer Elcott (played by Maurice Evans) to move into her London house. But her new house-guest is planning to rob her.
Sturges' film noir "The People Against O'Hara" (1951) was a film noir with elements from courtroom drama. It was a box office hit, and had Sturges working with lead actor Spencer Tracy. Sturges was one of seven film directors who co-directed the anthology film "It's a Big Country", concerning life in the United States.
Sturges' biographical film "The Girl in White" (1952) dramatized the life of female surgeon Emily Dunning Barringer (1876-1961). The real-life Barringer was "the world's first female ambulance surgeon and the first woman to secure a surgical residency". Sturges returned to the film noir genre with "Jeopardy" (1953), an adaptation of a radio play by Maurice Zimm.
Sturges directed the sports comedy "Fast Company" (1953), about an exceptional race horse, and a struggle over its ownership. He returned to the Western genre with the American Civil War-themed film "Escape from Fort Bravo" (1953). In the film the prisoners confined in a Union prison camp attempt to escape. This color film used the Anscocolor process.
Sturges had a career highlight with the thriller film "Bad Day at Black Rock" (1955), which combined elements from both film noir and the Western. It involves a town hiding a secret, and mysterious stranger John J. Macreedy (played by Spencer Tracy) trying to uncover the elusive truth. Sturges was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director, but the award was won instead by rival director Delbert Mann (1920-2007).
Sturges' next film project was the treasure-hunting themed adventure "Underwater!" (1955). His historical drama "The Scarlet Coat" (1955) dramatized the plot of military officer Benedict Arnold (1741-1801) to surrender West Point to the British Army during the American Revolutionary War. The film also dramatized the life of British spy John André (1750-1780).The film's American counterspy John Bolton was loosely based on historical spymaster Benjamin Tallmadge (1754-1835).
Sturges returned to the Western genre with popular films such as "Backlash" (1956), "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" (1957), "The Law and Jake Wade" (1958), "Last Train from Gun Hill" (1959). He also directed the adventure drama "The Old Man and the Sea" (1958), an adaptation of the 1952 novella by Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961). For this film, Sturges once again worked with leading actor Spencer Tracy.
Sturges' World War II-themed war film "Never So Few" (1959), featured a cast of rising actors, such as Frank Sinatra, Gina Lollobrigida, and Steve McQueen,. Sturges had another career highlight with a film remake, the Western "The Magnificent Seven" (1960). It was a loose adaptation of the Japanese film "Seven Samurai" (1954) by Akira Kurosawa. The film under-performed in the United States, but was a smash hit in Europe, and very profitable for the film studio United Artists. It sold 89,118,696 tickets sold in overseas territories, and broke box office records in the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union. Kurosawa himself liked this adaptation, and the film received three sequels, two remakes of its own, and a television series adaptation.
Sturges' next film project included the law-firm drama "By Love Possessed" (1961), which included controversial themes such as rape, suicide, and embezzlement. Sturges next Western film was "Sergeants 3", loosely based on the poem "Gunga Din" (1890) by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936). This film is mostly remembered as the " last film to feature all five members of the Rat Pack".
Sturges' next film was more sexually explicit: "A Girl Named Tamiko" (1962). Lead character Ivan Balin (played by Laurence Harvey) is a man who desperately wants to emigrate to the United States, and uses his sex-appeal to seduce women who may help him achieve his goal. His next war film was "The Great Escape" (1963) about prisoners of war trying to escape from Stalag Luft III. It was one of the highest-grossing films of its year of release.
Sturges directed his first science fiction film at age 55, and that film was "The Satan Bug" (1965). The film depicted the manufacture of bio-weapons, and their potential release against American major cities. Sturges also directed the Western comedy "The Hallelujah Trail" (1965), about a predicted harsh winter threatening the whiskey supply of a frontier town. He next directed a more serious Western, "Hour of the Gun" (1967). It was his second film about the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1881), but attempted to be more historically accurate than previous film depictions of the events.
Sturges' next film project was the Cold War thriller "Ice Station Zebra" (1968), loosely based on the missing experimental Corona satellite capsule (Discoverer II) which fell to Norway in 1959, and the efforts to recover it before it fell on Soviet hands. The film was mildly controversial, since it dramatized events that were still classified secret at the time of production. Sturges used former American agents as technical advisers.
Sturges' second science fiction film was Marooned (1969), depicting a potentially deadly accident affecting the Apollo program. Released at a time of high public interest on the Apollo program, it attracted an audience but was a box office flop. The film's visual effects expert won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.
Sturges partially directed the auto racing film "Le Mans" (1971), but quit before the film was completed. He was replaced by fellow director Lee H. Katzin (1935-2002). Sturges returned to the Western genre with the peasant-revolt themed "Joe Kidd" (1972). It featured bounty hunter Joe Kidd (played by Clint Eastwood) hunting down a Mexican revolutionary who is campaigning for land reform. The film is considered an example of the Revisionist Western, a more cynical take on the genre.
Sturges last Western was the Italian-produced "Chino" (1973). He returned to the film noir genre with the neo-noir "McQ" (1974), with lead character Lon "McQ" McHugh (played by John Wayne) being an aging police detective who is trying find out who was behind a failed attempt on his life. Sturges' last film was the war film "The Eagle Has Landed" (1976), depicting a German plot by Abwehr leader Wilhelm Canaris (1887-1945) to kidnap Winston Churchill. His last film was a box office hit in its own right.
Sturges retired from film directing at the age of 66. He continued living in retirement until his death in 1992. He was 82-years-old, and several of his film were finding retrospective critical acclaim.- Director
- Producer
- Writer
John McTiernan was born on 8 January 1951 in Albany, New York, USA. He is a director and producer, known for Die Hard (1988), Rollerball (2002) and Last Action Hero (1993). He has been married to Gail Sistrunk since 2012. He was previously married to Kate Harrington, Donna Dubrow and Carol Land.- Director
- Additional Crew
- Producer
Born in New York and raised in Queens, John Frankenheimer wanted to become a professional tennis player. He loved movies and his favorite actor was Robert Mitchum. He decided he wanted to be an actor but then he applied for and was accepted in the Motion Picture Squadron of the Air Force where he realized his natural talent to handle a camera. After his military discharge he began a TV career in 1953 convincing CBS to hire him as an assistant director, which consisted mainly working as a cameraman at that time. He eventually started to direct the show he was working on as an assistant director. Frankenheimer still didn't want to direct films. He liked to direct live television, and he would have continued to do it if the profession itself hadn't cease to exist. He first turned to the big screen with The Young Stranger (1957) which he hated to do because he thought he didn't understand movies and wasn't used to work with only one camera. Disappointed his with first feature film experience he returned to his successful television career directing a total of 152 live television shows between 1954 and 1960. He took another chance to move to the cinema industry, working with Burt Lancaster in The Young Savages (1961) ending up becoming a successful filmmaker best known by expressing on films his views on important social and philosophical topics.- Actor
- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Oscar-winning director John Schlesinger, who was born in London, on February 16, 1926, was the eldest child in a solidly middle-class Jewish family. Berbard Schlesinger, his father, was a pediatrician, and his mother, Winifred, was a musician. He served in the Army in the Far East during World War II. While attending Balliol College at Oxford, Schlesinger was involved with the Undergraduate Dramatic Society and developed an interest in photography. While at Oxford, he made his first short film, "Black Legend," in 1948. He took his degree in 1950 after reading English literature and then went into television. From 1958 through 1961, he made documentaries for the British Broadcasting Corp.
His 1960 documentary, Terminus (1961), which was sponsored by British-Transport, won him a British Academy Award and the Gold Lion at the Venice Film Festival. He made the transition to feature films in 1962, with the "kitchen sink" drama A Kind of Loving (1962), which got him noticed on both sides of the Atlantic. His next film, the Northern comedy Billy Liar (1963), was a success and began his association with actress Julie Christie, who had a memorable turn in the film. Christie won the Best Actress Academy Award and international superstardom and Schlesinger his first Oscar nomination as Best Director with his next film, the watershed Darling (1965), which dissected Swinging London. Subsequently, Schlesinger and Christie collaborated on Far from the Madding Crowd (1967), an adaptation of Thomas Hardy's classic novel, in 1967. The movie was not a success with critics or at the box office at the time, though its stature has grown over time. His next film, Midnight Cowboy (1969), earned him a place in cinema history, as it was not only a huge box office hit but also widely acclaimed as a contemporary classic. It won the Oscar for Best Picture and garnered Schlesinger an Oscar for Best Director.
Schlesinger earned his third, and last, Oscar nomination for the highly acclaimed Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971). He continued to operate at a high state of aesthetic and critical achievement with The Day of the Locust (1975), Marathon Man (1976) and Yanks (1979), but his 1981 comedy, Honky Tonk Freeway (1981), was one of the notable flops of its time, bringing in only $2 million on a $24-million budget when breakeven was calculated as three times negative cost. Although Schlesinger continued to work steadily as a director in movies and TV, he never again tasted the sweet fruits of success that he had for more than a decade, beginning in the mid-'60s.
Schlesinger's artistic fulfillment increasingly came from directing for the stage and, specifically, opera. He directed William Shakespeare's "Timon of Athens" for the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in 1964, and after his movie career faded, he directed plays, musicals, and opera productions. After Laurence Olivier was eased out of the National Theatre in 1973, Schlesinger was named an associate director of the NT under Olivier's successor, Sir Peter Hall of the RSC.
Schlesinger suffered a stroke in December 2000. His life partner, Michael Childers, took him off life support, and he died the following day, July 24, 2003, in Palm Springs, Claifornia. He was 77 years old.- Producer
- Director
- Writer
John Boorman attended Catholic school (Salesian Order) although his family was not, in fact, Roman Catholic. His first job was for a dry-cleaner. Later, he worked as a critic for a women's journal and for a radio station until he entered the television business, working for the BBC in Bristol. There, he started as assistant but worked later as director on documentaries, such as The Newcomers (1964). His friendship with Lee Marvin allowed him to work in Hollywood (e.g. Point Blank (1967) and Hell in the Pacific (1968)) from where he returned to the UK (e.g. Leo the Last (1970), Zardoz (1974) or Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)). He became famous for Excalibur (1981), The Emerald Forest (1985) and his autobiographic story Hope and Glory (1987) where he tells his own experiences as a child after World War II and which brought him another Academy Award Nomination after Deliverance (1972).- Director
- Editor
- Producer
John G. Avildsen was born on 21 December 1935 in Oak Park, Illinois, USA. He was a director and editor, known for Rocky (1976), The Karate Kid Part III (1989) and Rocky V (1990). He was married to Tracy Brooks Swope and Marie Olga Maturevich. He died on 16 June 2017 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Director
- Producer
- Writer
John Madden was born on 8 April 1949 in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, UK. He is a director and producer, known for Shakespeare in Love (1998), The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011) and Proof (2005).- Producer
- Writer
- Director
Son of Danny Singleton, a mortgage broker, and Sheila Ward, a pharmaceutical company sales executive, and raised in separate households by his unmarried parents, John Singleton attended the Film Writing Program at USC, after graduating from high school in 1986. While studying there, he won three writing awards from the university, which led to a contract with Creative Artists Agency during his sophomore year. Columbia Pictures bought his script for Boyz n the Hood (1991) and budgeted it at $7 million. Singleton noted that much of the story comes from his own experiences in South Central LA and credited his parents with keeping him off the street.- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Born in southern China, John Woo grew up in Hong Kong, where he began his film career as an assistant director in 1969, working for Shaw Brothers Studios. He directed his first feature in 1973 and has been a prolific director ever since, working in a wide variety of genres before A Better Tomorrow (1986) established his reputation as a master stylist specializing in ultra-violent gangster films and thrillers, with hugely elaborate action scenes shot with breathtaking panache. After gaining a cult reputation in the US with The Killer (1989), Woo was offered a Hollywood contract. He now works in the US.