George Cukor

• Born: July 7, 1899
• Birthplace: New York, New York
• Died: January 24, 1983
• Place of death: Los Angeles, California

Director and filmmaker

Cukor, a respected director of Hollywood’s Golden Age, brought a sophisticated veneer and witty dialogue to his films, many of which were based on classic literary sources.

Areas of achievement: Entertainment; theater

Early Life

Named after Admiral George Dewey, the hero of the Battle of Manila Bay in the Spanish-American War (1898), George Cukor (KEW-kor) was born in New York City in 1899. His Jewish parents, who had emigrated from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, were Victor Cukor, a member of the legal profession, and Helen; he had one sister. Stage-struck from an early age, Cukor became assistant stage manager for a touring theater company, and in 1919, a couple of years after completing high school, he was working on Broadway as a stage manager. Not long thereafter, his directing career began with a New York summer stock company, a position he held during much of the 1920’s; he was company manager as well. By the latter part of the decade he was directing Broadway plays.

Life’s Work

With the advent of talking pictures the film studios sought to hire people with theater experience. In 1929, Cukor went to Hollywood as a dialogue director with Paramount Studios. His first film directorial job, after a few codirecting stints, came in 1931, and his career was soon well launched with a string of successful films. One director he modeled himself after was the stylish Ernst Lubitsch. Cukor next went to RKO, and with 1932’s A Bill of Divorcement Cukor established a long relationship with Katharine Hepburn, many of whose films he would direct. She described him as fat but energetic and smart with a sharp sense of humor. His biggest hit at RKO was Little Women, and it was there he met producer David O. Selznick. They commenced a professional and a personal relationship that was to last for many years. The son-in-law of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) studio head Louis B. Mayer, Selznick went to work there, mouthing the famous line that “the son-in-law also rises.” Cukor soon followed him.

It was at MGM that Cukor began the most successful phase of his career, directing such classic films as Dinner at Eight (1933), David Copperfield (1935), and Camille (1936) with Greta Garbo. It was there that his reputation as a “women’s director” took root, and indeed he directed the all-female cast of The Women in 1939. When he was picked by Selznick to helm the prestigious Gone with the Wind (1939), he was heavily involved in its preproduction but spent only a short time in filming. It was reputed that star Clark Gable believed Cukor was favoring the female stars over him and the director was replaced by Victor Fleming. Cukor did continue privately to coach the film’s female leads, Vivien Leigh and Olivia de Havilland. Cukor and Hepburn again worked together in The Philadelphia Story (1940), which is credited with reviving the actor’s flagging career.

After directing military training films during World War II, Cukor returned to Hollywood, where his first major film was Gaslight (1944). Following that triumph he fell into a slump, which lasted a few years, until he directed another series of successful films. Among them was Adam’s Rib (1949) with Judy Holliday, an actor with whom he worked several times. Hepburn and Spencer Tracy costarred, as they did in Cukor’s popular Pat and Mike (1952). His 1950’s career hit its high point with Judy Garland’s powerful performance in A Star Is Born in 1954. Ten years were to pass until his next major success, My Fair Lady, for which he won his only Academy Award. He had been nominated for Best Director five times. Several stars did win Oscars under his direction, among them Ingrid Bergman, Holliday, James Stewart, and Ruth Hussey.

My Fair Lady proved to be Cukor’s last successful motion picture. Although he directed a few more, among them his sole western, Heller in Pink Tights (1960), and Travels with My Aunt (1972), his career wound down with the little-seen Rich and Famous in 1981. However, at age eighty-two, he may have been the oldest person ever to direct a major motion picture. In 1976 he was the director of the first American-Russian coproduction, The Blue Bird. Toward the end of her career Hepburn had rejoined him in two made-for-television films.

When he was past his directing prime Cukor began receiving awards and honors for his career, including an honorary doctorate, and retrospectives of his films were popular. He was a major player in the social life of Hollywood. Although he was discreet outside the film industry, Cukor was well known for the Sunday parties he hosted for the gay community of Hollywood. Such an event was depicted in Gods and Monsters (1998), the biographical picture about fellow director James Whale. In 1983, Cukor died of a heart attack.

Significance

Cukor did not make an issue of his Hungarian-Jewish roots, but his success on Broadway and in Hollywood demonstrated that a child of immigrants could reach the pinnacle of fame. His best films are considered all-time classics and are frequently screened at festivals and on television. The Cukor “touch” is evident in his work, a quality immediately identifiable as the product of an impeccable director. He had the ability to draw outstanding performances from actors as varied as W. C. Fields and Cary Grant, Marie Dressler and Greta Garbo.

Bibliography

Bernardoni, James. George Cukor: A Critical Study and Filmography. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1985. Very useful for an analysis of Cukor’s oeuvre; not intended to be a full biography.

Carey, Gary. Cukor and Company: The Films of George Cukor and His Collaborators. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1972. A relatively brief overview of Cukor’s body of work.

Clarens, Carlos. George Cukor. London: Secker and Warburg, 1976. A fairly brief work that was part of the publisher’s Cinema One series. It is the first book written in English about Cukor’s career and is partly based on interviews with him.

Lambert, Gavin. On Cukor. Rev. ed. New York: Rizzoli, 2000. A collection of interviews with and about Cukor.

Levy, Emanuel. George Cukor, Master of Elegance: Hollywood’s Legendary Director and His Stars. New York: Morrow, 1994. An excellent, comprehensive biography about Cukor. The author had access to Cukor’s personal papers.

Long, Robert E. George Cukor: Interviews. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2001. A collection of interviews conducted with Cukor later in his career, part of the Conversations with Filmmakers series.

McGilligan, Patrick. George Cukor, a Double Life: A Biography of the Gentleman Director. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991. Like the Levy biography, McGilligan’s work benefits from his access to Cukor’s papers and thus presents a full picture of the director’s life.

Phillips, Gene D. Cukor. New York: Twayne, 1982. Part of Twayne’s Filmmakers series, this resource concentrates mostly on Cukor’s body of work.