GEORGE STEVENS BIOGRAPHY & FILMOGRAPHY:
George Stevens, an American cinematographer, director, writer, producer, and even actor, is known to have been a brilliant craftsman that helped shaped Hollywood into the great movie capital it is today. His tender touch with actors, as well as his talented gift for film composition, put him at the top during his time of employment. His three Best Director Oscar nominations and two wins, really show the true merit of his work.
George Cooper Stevens was born December 18, 1904, in Oakland, California to stage actors Landers Stevens and Georgie Cooper. Growing up, he was entangled in the dramatic arts, touring around with his parents and his two brothers. As well, at age five he debuted on the stage of his parents’ company, Ye Liberty Playhouse. Later on, he appeared in two movies, “The Tigress” (1915) and “Whispers” (1920). Stevens also became interested in photography. Upon his move to Hollywood at age seventeen, he found a job at the Hal Roach Studios as an assistant cameraman. Often times, he was asked to help film Laurel and Hardy shorts such as his first, “Roughest Africa” (1923), as well as others like “Slipping Wives” (1927) and “Below Zero” (1930). He was also involved in feature films, including the westerners “No Man’s Law” (1925) and “The Devil’s Horse” (1926). The cinematographer’s final short was “Flirting in the Park” (1933), but he went on to shoot three more works after: the documentaries “George Stevens World War II Footage” (1946), “George Stevens: D-Day to Berlin” (1994), and finally, “D-Day: The Color Footage” (1999).
Eventually, Stevens also began writing, beginning with the comedy short “Doctor’s Orders” (1930). He wrote a total of fourteen shorts, the last one being “Grin and Bear It” in 1933. He only helped write two more times after, for the comedy “Nitwits” in 1935 and the biographical historical drama “The Greatest Story Ever Told” in 1965. Additionally, Stevens started to direct pictures, his debut being the comedy short “Ladies Last” (1930). In 1931, he was dismissed from Hal Roach and moved to Universal, then RKO Studios, to direct more comedy shorts, even though he later admitted to have loathed two-reel comedies. Stevens directed a number of shorts like “Call a Cop!” (1931), “Boys Will Be Boys” (1932), and “Strictly Fresh Yeggs” (1934), as well as a handful of films such as “A Divorce Courtship” (1933), “The Cohens and Kellys in Trouble” (1933), and “Ocean Swells” (1934), before being promoted by RKO in 1934 to directing almost strictly full length features.
Following several medium-budget movies, Stevens got his big break with the Katharine Hepburn “A” picture, “Alice Adams” (1935). The director created his first classic the following year, the sixth Astaire-Rogers musical installation, “Swing Time” (1936). His past camera experience lent well to the overall atmosphere of the picture, allowing emotion to be injected into film’s every movement. He again directed Hepburn in his subsequent feature, “Quality Street” (1937). Producing and directing 1938’s romantic comedy “Vivacious Lady”, Stevens’ career only got better from that point on. His succeeding films included the classic Rudyard Kipling poem based war adventure “Gunga Din” (1939), romantic drama “Penny Serenade” (1941), and comedies, “Woman of the Year” (1942), “The Talk of the Town” (1942), and “The More the Merrier” (1943). All of these, with the exception of “Woman of the Year” (1942), were also produced by Stevens.
Enlisting in the Army Signal Corps from 1944 to 1946, the director was in charge of the combat motion picture unit. He filmed the Normandy landings, as well as the liberations of Paris and the Nazi death camp Dachau, to such great painstaking precision and with such extensive personal emotion that he was awarded the Legion of Merit for his services. Much of the evidence he captured in his pictures was used during the Nuremburg Trials, and some of his footage is saved in the United States National Film Registry. After the war, Stevens produced and directed his very last RKO and semi-comedic effort, “I Remember Mama” (1948), and then relocated to Paramount for one of his most famous, “A Place in the Sun” (1951). It was a contemporary adaptation of Theodore Dreiser’s “An American Tragedy” and won the director his first Oscar win.
During the fifties, Stevens’ movie releases became far less and in between. The decade only saw four additional films: the drama “Something to Live For” (1952), his second Best Director Academy Award winning feature, “Shane” (1953), the three hour epic based off of Edna Ferber’s Texas themed novel, “Giant” (1956), and America’s first picture that dealt with the Holocaust, “The Diary of Anne Frank” (1959). The sixties brought only one unsuccessful movie, “The Greatest Story Ever Told” (1965), which followed the life of Jesus Christ. His final film, Elizabeth Taylor’s “The Only Game in Town” (1970), also proved to be a critical and box-office failure. Stevens died on March 8, 1975 in Lancaster, California. For his achievements, he was bestowed a Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award from the Oscars, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Directors Guild of America, and a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Filmography
1999 D-Day: The Color Footage
1994 George Stevens: D-Day to Berlin
1970 The Only Game in Town
1965 The Greatest Story Ever Told
1959 The Diary of Anne Frank
1956 Giant
1953 Shane
1952 Something to Live For
1951 A Place in the Sun
1948 I Remember Mama
1948 On Our Merry Way
1946 George Stevens World War II Footage
1945 The Nazi Plan
1945 Nazi Concentration Camps
1945 That Justice Be Done
1943 The More the Merrier
1942 The Talk of the Town
1942 Woman of the Year
1941 Penny Serenade
1940 Vigil in the Night
1939 Gunga Din
1938 Vivacious Lady
1937 A Damsel in Distress
1937 Quality Street
1936 Swing Time
1935 Annie Oakley
1935 Alice Adams
1935 The Nitwits
1935 Laddie
1935 Hunger Pains
1934 Kentucky Kernels
1934 Bachelor Bait
1934 Hollywood Party
1934 Cracked Shots
1934 The Undie-World
1934 Bridal Bail
1934 Ocean Swells
1934 Strictly Fresh Yeggs
1933 Pick Me Up
1933 Alias the Professor
1933 The Trail of Vince Barnett
1933 Hunting Trouble
1933 Grin and Bear It
1933 What Fur
1933 Flirting in the Park
1933 Quiet Please!
1933 Room Mates
1933 The Cohens and Kellys in Trouble
1933 Should Crooners Marry
1933 Rock-a-Bye Cowboy
1933 Family Troubles
1933 A Divorce Courtship
1932 Hesitating Love
1932 The Finishing Touch
1932 Yoo-Hoo
1932 Boys Will Be Boys
1932 The Finishing Touch
1932 Who, Me?
1931 The Kick-Off!
1931 Mama Loves Papa
1931 Call a Cop!
1931 Air-Tight
1931 High Gear
1931 Blood and Thunder
1931 The Panic Is On
1931 Spuk um Mitternacht
1931 Glückliche Kindheit
1930 Ladies Last
1930 Bigger and Better
1930 Doctor's Orders
1930 The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case
1930 Hog Wild
1930 Below Zero
1930 La vida nocturna
1930 Brats
1930 Blotto
1930 The Real McCoy
1930 The Head Guy
1930 Night Owls
1930 Ladrones
1930 Noche de duendes
1930 Radiomanía
1930 Tiembla y Titubea
1929 Angora Love
1929 The Hoose-Gow
1929 Bacon Grabbers
1929 They Go Boom!
1929 Men O'War
1929 Double Whoopee
1929 Hurdy Gurdy
1929 Unaccustomed As We Are
1929 Big Business
1929 That's My Wife
1929 Wrong Again
1929 Liberty
1928 We Faw Down
1928 Feed 'em and Weep
1928 Two Tars
1928 All Parts
1928 Do Gentlemen Snore?
1928 Early to Bed
1928 Should Married Men Go Home?
1928 Should Women Drive?
1928 Their Purple Moment
1928 Tell It to the Judge
1928 Blow by Blow
1928 Came the Dawn
1928 The Finishing Touch
1928 Dumb Daddies
1928 Leave 'Em Laughing
1928 Should Tall Men Marry?
1928 Pass the Gravy
1927 The Battle of the Century
1927 Putting Pants on Philip
1927 Love 'Em and Feed 'Em
1927 The Second 100 Years
1927 The Girl from Gay Paree
1927 Sugar Daddies
1927 Lightning
1927 No Man's Law
1927 The Honorable Mr. Buggs
1927 Slipping Wives
1927 The Valley of Hell
1926 The Desert's Toll
1926 The Devil Horse
1925 No Man's Law
1925 Black Cyclone
1925 Looking for Sally
1924 The White Sheep
1924 Battling Orioles
1923 Roughest Africa
1920 Whispers
1915 The Tigress
