George Cukor

George Dewey Cukor was born on July 7, 1899, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the son of Viktor Cukor, an assistant district attorney, and Helén Ilona Gross, both Hungarian-Jewish immigrants. His middle name was chosen by his parents in honor of Spanish-American War hero George Dewey. As a child, Cukor participated in amateur theatrical productions and took dance lessons, and at age seven he performed in a recital alongside David O. Selznick, who would later become a significant figure in his professional life. During his teenage years, he frequently attended afternoon matinees, often skipping classes at DeWitt Clinton High School to do so, and was a regular visitor to the New York Hippodrome. In his senior year, he worked as a supernumerary with the Metropolitan Opera, earning fifty cents per appearance. After graduating in 1917, he briefly enrolled at the City College of New York and entered the Students Army Training Corps in October 1918, though his military service lasted only two months following Germany's surrender.

Cukor launched his theatrical career as an assistant stage manager and bit player with a touring production of The Better 'Ole. He made his Broadway performing debut in 1919, appearing in A Regular Feller. In 1920, he became stage manager for the Knickerbocker Players, a troupe operating between Syracuse and Rochester, New York, and the following year took on the role of general manager for the Lyceum Players, an upstate summer stock company. In 1925, he co-founded the C.F. and Z. Production Company with Walter Folmer and John Zwicki, which led to his first directing opportunities. He subsequently formed the Cukor-Kondolf Stock Company in Rochester, a troupe that included Louis Calhern, Ilka Chase, Frank Morgan, Reginald Owen, Phyllis Povah, Elizabeth Patterson, Douglass Montgomery, and, for one season, Bette Davis.

Cukor made his Broadway directorial debut with Antonia, written by Hungarian playwright Melchior Lengyel, and his 1926 staging of an adaptation of The Great Gatsby drew favorable attention from New York critics. Drama critic Arthur Pollock, writing in the Brooklyn Eagle, described it as an unusual piece of work by a director not nearly so well known as he should be. Cukor directed six additional Broadway productions before departing for Hollywood in 1929.

Paramount Pictures signed Cukor in December 1928, initially paying him six hundred dollars per week during a six-month apprenticeship. His early Hollywood assignments included coaching actors on dialect and serving as a dialogue director for All Quiet on the Western Front at Universal Pictures in 1929. He co-directed three films at Paramount in 1930 before making his solo directorial debut with Tarnished Lady in 1931, starring Tallulah Bankhead. A dispute with Ernst Lubitsch over directorial credit on One Hour with You led Cukor to leave Paramount and join David O. Selznick at RKO Studios.

At RKO, Cukor directed several major productions under Selznick, including What Price Hollywood? and A Bill of Divorcement, both in 1932, Our Betters in 1933, and Little Women in 1933. The latter film marked the screen debut of Katharine Hepburn, with whom Cukor developed a close personal and professional friendship. When Selznick moved to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1933, Cukor followed, directing Dinner at Eight that same year and David Copperfield in 1935 for Selznick, and Romeo and Juliet and Camille in 1936 for producer Irving Thalberg.

Selznick hired Cukor to direct Gone with the Wind as early as 1936, and Cukor spent two years involved in pre-production, including overseeing screen tests for the role of Scarlett O'Hara. He was ultimately replaced as director on the film. During the same period, he filmed the cave scene for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in 1938 and spent a week on the set of The Wizard of Oz in 1939 following the dismissal of its original director. Cukor went on to direct The Philadelphia Story in 1940, Gaslight in 1944, Adam's Rib in 1949, Born Yesterday in 1950, A Star Is Born in 1954, and Bhowani Junction in 1956. He received five Academy Award nominations for Best Director and won for My Fair Lady in 1964. That film also featured Rex Harrison, one of three actors to receive the Academy Award for Best Actor under Cukor's direction, alongside James Stewart for The Philadelphia Story and Ronald Colman for A Double Life in 1947. Cukor continued directing into the early 1980s and died on January 24, 1983.