Born July 7, 1899 on New York’s Lower East Side, George Cukor’s father was a lawyer who expected him to follow in his footsteps. Instead, young Cukor fell in love with the theatre, and shortly after brief military service toward the end of World War I, had his first job in the theatre as a bit player and assistant stage manager. By 1920 he had become stage manager of a company of travelling players and by 1925 formed his own company which included Louis Calhern, Frank Morgan, Elizabeth Patterson, Reginald Owen, and Douglass Montgomery, many of whom would appear in his later films.

His 1926 direction of the Broadway’s The Great Gatsby made critics sit up and take notice and by 1928 he was already being recruited by Hollywood. A dialogue coach on 1930’s All Quiet on the Western Front, he received co-director credit for the same year’s The Royal Family of Broadway. Although he directed most of 1932’s One Hour with You, Ernst Lubitsch refused to allow him credit and he left Paramount in a huff for RKO where he worked for producer David O. Selznick, whom he had known since childhood.

At RKO, Cukor had great success with What Price, Hollywood?,  A Bill of Divorcement, and Little Women, for which he received the first of his five Oscar nominations for Best Direction.

Cukor left RKO for MGM with Selznick in 1933. His early films for MGM included Dinner at Eight, David Copperfield, Romeo and Juliet and Camille. On loan-out to Columbia, he made the 1938 remake of Holiday with Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant.

Before working on the  on the direction of of Gone with the Wind, he was brought in as interim director of The Wizard of Oz after the firing of initial director Richard Thorpe. Although he didn’t shoot any film, he is credited with changing the look of the film from the original garish makeup, tossing out Judy Garland’s blonde wig, and designing a better-looking yellow brick road among other things.

Gone with the Wind was a hassle for Cukor.  Although legend has it that Clark Gable had him fired for spending too much time with Vivien Leigh and Olivia de Havilland and not enough with him, both Cukor and producer Selznick denied that was the case. Cukor claimed he was upset with what he considered Selznick’s desecration of Sidney Howard’s script and Selznick claimed he was not happy with Cukor’s slow pace. In any event when Cukor suggested to Selznick that he might be happy with another director, instead of placating him, Selznick simply said “OK”.

Cukor rebounded with The Women, The Philadelphia Story (for which he received his second Oscar nomination), A Woman’s Face, Two-Faced Woman, Gaslight at MGM. After that, he had success with such films as A Double Life (for which he received his third Oscar nomination), Adam’s Rib, Born Yesterday (for which he received his fourth nomination) and the 1954 version of A Star Is Born.

He continued to work on major projects but did not have another critical success of the caliber of A Star is Born until My Fair Lady a decade later, for which he finally won his an Oscar on his fifth nomination.

Cukor’s best post-Lady films were 1972’s Travels with My Aunt with Maggie Smith taking over for Katharine Hepburn and Hepburn herself in their last collaboration, the 1979 TV remake of The Corn Is Green. His last film was 1981’s Rich and Famous with Jacqueline Bisset and Candice Bergen in a remake of the 1943 chestnut, Old Acquaintance with Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins.

George Cukor died January 24, 1983 after working on the restoration of A Star Is Born.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

DINNER AT EIGHT (1933)

Grand Hotel may have been the first all-star cast narrative film, but Cukor’s film of the Edna Ferber-George F. Kaufman play has a more fully integrated story.  Billie Burke is the exasperated party-giver, Lionel Barrymore her ship-building tycoon husband and Marie Dressler, John Barrymore, Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery, Lee Tracy, Karen Morley, Madge Evans, Phillips Holmes, Edmund Lowe, Grant Mitchell, Louise Closser Hale, May Robson and Elizabeth Patterson the various guests, relatives, employees, and hangers-on.  Cukor’s reputation as a “woman’s director” was well established here with his handling of Burke, Dressler, and Harlow.

DAVID COPPERFIELD (1935)

The definitive version of Dickens’ novel featured a remarkable cast of actors who seemed born to play their roles – Freddie Bartholomew as David as a boy, Frank Lawton as David as a young man, W.C. Fields as Macawber, Lionel Barrymore as Peggotty, Edna May Oliver as Aunt Betsy Trotwood, Madge Evans as Agnes, Maureen O’Sullivan as Dora, Elizabeth Allan as David’s mother, Basil Rathbone as Mr. Murdstone, Roland Young as Uriah Heep, Lewis Stone as Mr. Wickfield, Jessie Ralph as Nurse Peggotty, Herbert Mundin as Barkis, Jean Cadell as Mrs. Macawber, Una O’Connor as Mrs. Gummidge, and Elsa Lanchester as Clickett among them.

THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940)

Katharine Hepburn at her luminous best as the spoiled heiress, Cary Grant at his most charming as her ex-husband, and James Stewart as the reporter who despises everything Hepburn stands for, but ends up falling in love with her, are just the tip of the iceberg of a sparkling cast under Cukor’s astute direction. He also gets marvelous performances from Ruth Hussey as Stewart’s lovelorn photographer, Virginia Weidler as Hepburn’s wise-cracking little sister, Mary Nash as her bemused mother, John Halliday as her philandering father ,and marvelous Roland Young as her twinkly eyed uncle.

A STAR IS BORN (1954)

Cukor directed Judy Garland at the peak of her powers both as a singer and an actress. He also gets an equally marvelous performances from James Mason, and fine supporting performances from Charles Bickford, Jack Carson and Tommy Noonan in the best of four versions to date of the classic Hollywood tale. Under pressure from theatre owners, Jack Warner had the film cut after its initial road show engagements while Cukor was in India scouting locations for Bhowani Junction. The soundtrack was restored in 1982, and the film re-released in his original version with stills covering the missing footage.

MY FAIR LADY (1964)

Faithful screen adaptations of Broadway plays often betray their origins, but Cukor supported by the best artisans Hollywood had to offer, as well as a superb cast, gives us a world that is at once artificial and real as it transports us back to 1912 London.  Audrey Hepburn’s received flack for having to have her singing dubbed, but she’s charming as ever, even in the early scenes when this most elegant of actresses is supposed to be a Cockney flower girl.  Rex Harrison, Stanley Holloway, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Gladys Cooper and Mona Washbourne are superb as one might expect.  Cukor finally received his long overdue Oscar.

GEORGE CUKOR AND OSCAR

Little Women (1933) – nominated – Best Director

The Philadelphia Story (1940) – nominated – Best Director

A Double Life (1947) – nominated – Best Director

Born Yesterday (1950) – nominated – Best Director

My Fair Lady (1964) – Oscar – Best Director