1.
David O. Selznick
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David O. Selznick was an American film producer, screenwriter and film studio executive. He is best known for producing Gone with the Wind and Rebecca, David Selznick was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Florence Anna and silent movie producer and distributor Lewis J. Selznick. His parents were Ukrainian Jewish immigrants and he had four siblings and his dad was born in Kyiv in 1870. Selznick added the O to distinguish himself from an uncle with the same name and he studied at Columbia University in New York City and worked as an apprentice for his father until the elders bankruptcy in 1923. In 1926, Selznick moved to Hollywood, and with the help of his fathers connections and he left MGM for Paramount Pictures in 1928, where he worked until 1931, when he joined RKO as Head of Production. David Selznicks years at RKO were fruitful, and he worked on films, including A Bill of Divorcement. Rockabye, Bird of Paradise, Our Betters, and King Kong, while at RKO, he also gave George Cukor his directing break. In 1933 he returned to MGM where his father-in-law, Louis B, mayer established a second prestige production unit for David, parallel to that of powerful Irving Thalberg, who was in poor health. Selznicks unit output included the all star cast movie Dinner at Eight, David Copperfield, Anna Karenina, despite his output of successful movies at MGM, Paramount Pictures, and RKO Pictures, Selznick longed to be an independent producer with his own studio. In 1935 he realized that goal by leasing RKO Culver City Studios & back lot, formed Selznick International Pictures, Gone with the Wind won eight Oscars and two special awards. Selznick also won the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award that same year, in 1940 he produced his second Best Picture Oscar winner in a row, Rebecca, the first Hollywood production for British director Alfred Hitchcock. Selznick had brought Hitchcock over from England, launching the directors American career, Rebecca was Hitchcocks only film to win Best Picture. After Rebecca, Selznick closed Selznick International Pictures and took time off. His business activities included the loan of his artists to other studios, including Alfred Hitchcock, Ingrid Bergman, Vivien Leigh. In 1944, he formed The Selznick Studio and returned to producing pictures with the huge success Since You Went Away and he followed that with the Hitchcock films Spellbound and The Paradine Case, as well as Portrait of Jennie, a vehicle for Jennifer Jones. He also developed projects and sold the packages to other producers. Among the movies that he developed but then sold was Hitchcocks Notorious, in 1949 he co-produced the Carol Reed picture The Third Man with Alexander Korda. Gone with the Wind overshadowed the rest of Selznicks career, later, he was convinced that he had wasted his life trying to out do it
2.
Claudette Colbert
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Claudette Colbert was an American film actress and a leading lady in Hollywood for over two decades, and has been called The mixture of inimitably beauty, sophistication, wit, and vivacity. Colbert began her career in Broadway productions during the late 1920s, initially associated with Paramount Pictures, Colbert later gradually shifted to working as a freelance actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in It Happened One Night, other notable films include Cleopatra and The Palm Beach Story. During her career, Colbert starred in more than sixty movies and she was the industrys highest-paid star in 1938 and 1942. Among her frequent co-stars were Fred MacMurray in seven films, by the early 1950s, she had largely retired from the screen in favor of television and stage work, earning a Tony Award nomination for The Marriage-Go-Round in 1959. Her career tapered off during the early 1960s, but in the late 1970s she experienced a resurgence in theater. For her television work in The Two Mrs. Grenvilles she won a Golden Globe Award, in 1999, the American Film Institute voted Colbert the 12th Greatest Female star of classic Hollywood cinema. Émilie Lily Claudette Chauchoin was born in Saint-Mandé, France, to Georges Claude Chauchoin, despite being christened Émilie, she was called Lily, because she had an aunt living with her by the name of Émilie. The aunt was her maternal grandmothers adopted child, Emilie Loew, who was not a relative, worked as a dressmaker. Colberts nickname Lily came from Jersey-born actress Lillie Langtry, Colberts brother, Charles Auguste Chauchoin, was also born in Jersey. While Georges Chauchoin had lost the sight in his eye and hadnt settled into a profession, he worked as investment banker. Marie Loew had already been to the U. S. Marie was willing to help Georges financially but also encouraged him to try his luck in the U. S. In order to more employment opportunities, her family including Marie and Emilie Loew emigrated into Manhattan in 1906. They lived in a fifth-floor walk-up at 53rd Street, Colbert stated that climbing those stairs to the fifth floor every day until 1922 made her legs beautiful. Her parents formally changed her name to Lily Claudette Chauchoin. Georges Chauchoin worked as an official at First National City Bank. Colbert quickly learned English from her grandmother Marie Loew before entering public school and she had hoped to become a painter since she could first grasp a pencil. In 1912 her family was naturalized in the U. S and her mother wanted to become an opera singer
3.
Jennifer Jones
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Jennifer Jones, also known as Jennifer Jones Simon, was an American actress during the Hollywood golden years. Jones, who won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in The Song of Bernadette, was also Academy Award-nominated for her performances in four other films and she was married three times, most notably to film producer David O. Selznick. Jones starred in more than 20 films over a 30-year career, in 1980, she founded the Jennifer Jones Simon Foundation For Mental Health and Education after her daughters suicide. In later life, Jones withdrew from life to live in quiet retirement with her son and his family in Malibu. Jones was born Phylis Lee Isley in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the daughter of Flora Mae, an only child, she was raised Roman Catholic. Her parents toured the Midwest in a tent show that they owned and operated. It was there that she met and fell in love with fellow acting student Robert Walker, the couple married on January 2,1939. Isley and Walker returned to Tulsa for a 13-week radio program, arranged by her father, Isley landed two small roles, first in a 1939 John Wayne western titled New Frontier, followed by a serial entitled Dick Tracys G-Men. She failed a screen test for Paramount Pictures and decided to return to New York City, while Walker found steady work in radio programs, Isley worked part-time modeling hats for the Powers Agency while looking for possible acting jobs. Selznick, however, had overheard her audition and was impressed enough to have his secretary call her back, following an interview, she was signed to a seven-year contract. She was carefully groomed for stardom and given a new name, director Henry King was impressed by her screen test as Bernadette Soubirous for The Song of Bernadette and she won the coveted role over hundreds of applicants. Jones apologized to Bergman, who replied, No, Jennifer, Jones presented the Best Actress Oscar the following year to Bergman for Gaslight. Over the next two decades, Jones appeared in a range of roles selected by Selznick. Her dark beauty and sensitive nature appealed to audiences and she projected a variable range, the portrait of Jones for the film Portrait of Jennie was painted by Robert Brackman. Her last big-screen appearance came in the disaster film The Towering Inferno. Her performance earned her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress, early scenes in the film showed paintings lent to the production by the art gallery of Jones husband, Norton Simon. Jones had two sons from her first marriage, Robert Walker, Jr. and Michael Walker, Robert was the only child of Jones three children who would not predecease her. Jones had an affair with film producer David O. Selznick and she separated from Walker in November 1943, co-starred with him in Since You Went Away, and divorced him in June 1945
4.
Joseph Cotten
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Joseph Cheshire Cotten, Jr. was an American film, stage, radio and television actor. Cotten achieved prominence on Broadway, starring in the stage productions of The Philadelphia Story. He first gained fame in the Orson Welles film Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons. He went on to one of the leading Hollywood actors of the 1940s, appearing in films such as Shadow of a Doubt, Love Letters, Duel in the Sun, Portrait of Jennie, The Third Man. One of his films was Michael Ciminos Heavens Gate. Joseph Cotten was born in 1905 in Petersburg, Virginia, the first of three born to Joseph Cheshire Cotten, Sr. an assistant postmaster, and Sally Willson Cotten. He grew up in the Tidewater region and showed an aptitude for drama, in 1923, when Cotten was 18, his family arranged for him to receive private lessons at the Hickman School of Expression in Washington, D. C. and underwrote his expenses. He earned spending money playing professional football on Sundays, for $25 a quarter, after graduation, he earned enough money as a lifeguard at Wilcox Lake to pay back his familys loan, with interest. He worked as an agent, and his work as a theatre critic inspired him to become involved in theatre productions, first in Virginia. Cotten made his Broadway debut in 1930, in 1934 Cotten met and became friends with Orson Welles, a fellow cast member on CBS Radios The American School of the Air. Welles regarded Cotten as a brilliant comic actor, and gave him the role in his Federal Theatre Project farce. Cotten was sure that Horse Eats Hat won him the notice of his future Broadway costar, Cotten made his film debut in the Welles-directed short, Too Much Johnson, a comedy that was intended to complement the aborted 1938 Mercury stage production of William Gillettes 1890 play. The film was never screened in public and was lost until 2013, Cotten returned to Broadway in 1939, creating the role of C. K. Dexter Haven opposite Katharine Hepburns Tracy Lord in the original production of Philip Barrys The Philadelphia Story. The play ran for a year at the Shubert Theatre, Hayward suggested that they call Cottens good pal, Orson Welles. Hes been making big waves out here, Hayward said, maybe nobody in Hollywood ever heard of the Shubert Theatre in New York, but everybody certainly knows about the Mercury Theatre in New York. After the success of Welless War of the Worlds 1938 Halloween radio broadcast, the two-picture deal promised full creative control for the young director below an agreed budget limit, and Welless intention was to feature the Mercury Players in his productions. Shooting had still not begun on a Welles film after a year, in mid-1940 filming began on Citizen Kane, portraying the life of a press magnate who starts out as an idealist but eventually turns into a corrupt, lonely old man. The film featured Cotten prominently in the role of Kanes best friend Jedediah Leland, nominated for nine Academy Awards in 1942, the film won only for Best Screenplay, for Mankiewicz and Welles
5.
Shirley Temple
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Shirley Temple Black was an American actress, singer, dancer, businesswoman and diplomat who was most notable as Hollywoods number one box-office star from 1935 to 1938. As an adult, she was named United States ambassador to Ghana and to Czechoslovakia, Shirley Temple began her film career in 1932 at age 3. In 1934, she found fame in Bright Eyes, a feature film designed specifically for her talents. Licensed merchandise that capitalized on her image included dolls, dishes. Her box-office popularity waned as she reached adolescence and she appeared in a few films of varying quality in her mid-to-late teens, and retired from films in 1950 at the age of 22. Temple returned to business in 1958 with a two-season television anthology series of fairy tale adaptations. She made guest appearances on shows in the early 1960s. She sat on the boards of corporations and organizations including The Walt Disney Company, Del Monte Foods, in 1988, she published her autobiography, Child Star. Temple was the recipient of awards and honors, including the Kennedy Center Honors. She is 18th on the American Film Institutes list of the greatest female American screen legends of Classic Hollywood cinema, Shirley Temple was born on April 23,1928, in Santa Monica, California. She was the child of Gertrude Amelia Temple, a homemaker, and George Francis Temple. The family was of English, German, and Dutch ancestry and she had two brothers, George Francis, Jr. and John Stanley. The family moved to Brentwood, Los Angeles and her mother supported her young daughters singing, dancing, and acting talents, and in September 1931, enrolled her in Meglins Dance School in Los Angeles. About this time, her mother began styling her daughters hair in ringlets, while at Meglins, she was spotted by Charles Lamont, a casting director for Educational Pictures. Although Shirley hid behind the piano while in the studio, Lamont took a shine to her, invited her to audition, Educational Pictures were about to launch their Baby Burlesks, multiple short films satirizing recent film and political events, using preschool children in every role. Baby Burlesks was a series of one-reelers, another series of two-reelers called Frolics of Youth followed, with Shirley playing Mary Lou Rogers, to underwrite production costs at Educational, she and her child co-stars modeled for breakfast cereals and other products. She was lent to Tower Productions for a role in her first feature film in 1932 and, in 1933, to Universal, Paramount. After Educational Pictures declared bankruptcy in 1933, her father purchased her contract for $25, while walking out of the viewing of her last Frolics of Youth picture, Fox Film songwriter Jay Gorney saw the little girl dancing in the movie theater lobby
6.
Max Steiner
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Maximilian Raoul Max Steiner was an Austrian-born American music composer for theatre and films. He was a prodigy who conducted his first operetta when he was twelve and became a full-time professional, either composing, arranging, or conducting. He worked in England, then Broadway, and in 1929 he moved to Hollywood, Steiner was referred to as the father of film music. Steiner composed over 300 film scores with RKO Pictures and Warner Bros. and was nominated for 24 Academy Awards and he was also the first recipient of the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score, which he won for his score to Life with Father. A lot of his scores are available as separate soundtrack recordings. Steiner was born on May 10,1888, in Austria-Hungary and he was the only child in a wealthy business and theatrical family of Jewish heritage. His father was Gabor Steiner, Viennese impresario, carnival exposition manager, Steiners mother was a dancer in stage productions put on by his grandfather. His godfather was the composer Richard Strauss, Max Steiner often credited his family for inspiring his early musical abilities. His parents sent Steiner to the Vienna University of Technology, and he studied various instruments including piano, organ, violin, double bass, and trumpet. He also had courses in harmony, counterpoint, and composition, for his early achievements he was awarded a gold medal by the academy. Steiner first entered the world of music when he was fifteen. He wrote and conducted the operetta, The Beautiful Greek Girl, the opera ran for a year and led to opportunities to conduct other shows in various cities around the world, including Moscow and Hamburg. He was invited to London to conduct Lehars The Merry Widow and he stayed in London for 8 years conducting musicals at Dalys Theares, the Adelphi, the Hippodrome, the London Pavilion and the Blackpool Winter Gardens. In England, Steiner wrote and conducted theater productions and symphonies, but in 1914, World War I started and he was interned as an enemy alien. Fortunately, he was befriended by the Duke of Westminster, who was a fan of his work and he arrived in New York City in December,1914, with only $32 to his name. Steiner soon acquired employment and worked in New York for fifteen years as a director, arranger, orchestrator. These productions include operettas and musicals written by Victor Herbert, Jerome Kern, Vincent Youmans, Steiners credits include, George Whites Scandals, Peaches, Lady, Be Good. In 1927, Steiner orchestrated and conducted Harry Tierneys Rio Rita, tierney himself later requested that RKO Pictures in Hollywood hire Steiner to work in their music production departments
7.
Lee Garmes
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Lee Garmes, A. S. C. was an American cinematographer. He also co-directed two films with legendary screenwriter Ben Hecht, Angels Over Broadway and Actors and Sin, born in Peoria, Illinois, Garmes first came to Hollywood in 1916. His first job was as an assistant in the paint department at Thomas H. Ince Studios and his earliest films were comedy shorts, and his career did not fully take off until the introduction of sound. Garmes was married to film actress Ruth Hall from 1933 until his death in 1978 and he is interred in the Grand View Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. Garmes was one of the earliest proponents of video technology, which he advocated as early as 1972 and that year, he had been hired by Technicolor to photograph the short film Why, which was intended to test whether video was a viable technology for shooting feature films. According to American Cinematographer magazine, Although officially unaccredited, Lee Garmes photographed a considerable portion of Gone with the Wind, many consider the famous railroad yard sequence among his finest cinematic efforts. Garmes was one of many Hollywood veterans from the silent era interviewed by Kevin Brownlow for the television series Hollywood, wins Academy Awards, Oscar, Best Cinematography, for Shanghai Express,1933. Twice received the Eastman Kodak Award, nominations Academy Awards, Oscar, Best Cinematography, for Morocco,1931. Academy Awards, Oscar, Best Cinematography, for Since You Went Away,1945, Academy Awards, Oscar, Best Cinematography, for The Big Fisherman,1960
8.
Selznick International Pictures
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Selznick International Pictures was a Hollywood motion picture studio created by David O. Selznick in 1935, and dissolved in 1943. The studio itself had built in 1918–19 by film pioneer Thomas Ince. When Ince died in 1924 the studio was taken over by Cecil B, eventually Pathe took over and then in the 1930s it became part of RKO. In 1957 it would part of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnazs company. Selznick leased offices at the studio during the first year or so, even though the studio reverted to RKO in the 1940s, Selznick kept offices there for the rest of his life. He raised an additional $300,000 from small investors in New York, Whitney himself became chairman of the board, and Selznick president, of the new company. Selznick International assumed Pioneers contract to make at least six pictures in the new full-color Technicolor process, unlike his peers in the major studios, wrote film historian Leonard J. Leff, Selznick produced films as medieval architects built cathedrals, one by one. Selznick intended to produce a few each year, a plan which he hoped would allow him to be as picky and careful as he liked. He said to his companys board in 1935, There are only two kinds of merchandise that can be made profitably in this business, either the very cheap pictures or the very expensive pictures. Selznick believed, there is no alternative open to us but to attempt to compete with the very best. By 1940, Selznick International Pictures was the film studio in Hollywood. Jock Whitney and his sister Joan Whitney Payson acquired Gone with the Wind, at the time of the final dissolution in 1943, three features were in production or pre-production, although they were released in 1944 and 1945. To complete his obligation to deliver two more pictures to United Artists, Selznick formed David O. Selznick Productions in 1940 at the studio location. The new company took over the old companys contracts with individual directors and actors. After the dissolution of Selznick International, Selznick established Vanguard Films, Inc. in 1943, Vanguard was created to continue his productions, while Selznick Releasing was made to distribute output by Vanguard. Previously, Vanguard released through United Artists, of which Vanguard owned one-third of its stock, as with Selznick International, Vanguard was located at the RKO studio. Films were distributed by United Artists unless noted, Selznick formed Vanguard Films to complete projects in progress at the time Selznick International Pictures was dissolved. Films were distributed by United Artists unless noted, the rights to the Selznick library have been scattered, as noted in the following timeline
