Biography
A successful stage director in New York by the late 1920s, George Cukor began working in Hollywood as a dialogue director and filling other uncredited crew roles on such films as
All Quiet on the Western Front. In 1930, he co-directed his first features:
Grumpy with
Cyril Gardner,
The Virtuous Sin with Louis Gasnier, and
The Royal Family of Broadway with Gardner; Cukor had his solo debut the following year, directing
Tallulah Bankhead in
Tarnished Lady. For the next fifty years, he showed a flair for bringing out the best in actors, particularly women, although that specialty could occassionally work against him, as when he was removed from the production of
Gone With the Wind at the insistence of
Clark Gable. But it defined his best work, starting in 1932 with
Katharine Hepburn's first film,
A Bill of Divorcement. Cukor also directed her idiosyncratic '30s performances in
Little Women,
Sylvia Scarlett, and
Holiday. In that same decade, he also made the all-star comedies
Dinner at Eight and
The Women; the prestigious adaptations
David Copperfield and
Romeo and Juliet; and
Greta Garbo's iconic
Camille. He made the award-winning dramas
Gaslight and
A Double Life during the '40s, as well as the classic comedies
The Philadelphia Story and
Adam's Rib. Comedy remained his forte in the '50s with
Born Yesterday and
Pat and Mike. One of Cukor's finest films was the 1954 musical
A Star Is Born with
Judy Garland and
James Mason (despite its having been cut to ribbons by the studio). Another musical was also his biggest hit of the '60s:
My Fair Lady. He reunited with
Katharine Hepburn in the '70s for the television films
Love Among the Ruins and
The Corn Is Green. Cukor died in 1983. ~ All Movie Guide