George Stevens

Born on December 18, 1904, in Oakland (California), George Cooper Stevens is the son of actors Landers Stevens ( Golden Underworld ) and Georgie Cooper ( The Man from Thunder River ), dedicated above all to theater after creating their own company. . Since he was little they took him on tour, and soon he began to work with the technicians, installing the stages and in other occupations. Since classic plays were often staged, the young Stevens learned a lot about storytelling, and how to win over audiences.

In the early 1920s, the family moved to Glendale, California to find work in the then-emerging film industry. They did not lack opportunities. His parents got many supporting jobs, while one of his brothers, Ashton Stevens, became a drama critic for the Chicago Herald, reportedly serving as the inspiration for the character Joseph Cotten in Citizen Kane .

His other brother, Jack Stevens became a cameraman, and ended up getting him his first jobs in the cinema, as an operator in Roughest Africa , a short starring Stan Laurel , although later he was also the cameraman for some of this actor’s famous comedies with Oliver Hardy . , such as The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case . The young George Stevens spent a decade in this occupation. He debuted as a director with the short Ladies Last , installment of the serial The Boy Friends .

He became fully established with the romantic Dreams of Youth , with Katharine Hepburn as a humble young woman with delusions of grandeur. Since then, she has been entrusted with major projects, such as Annie Oakley , with Barbara Stanwyck as a rifle shooter, and above all On Dance Wings , one of the greatest hits by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers . One of his most appreciated works from the first period is Gunda Din , a classic of colonial cinema with Cary Grant , Victor McLaglen and Douglas Fairbanks Jr., considered one of the great models of later adventure cinema.

After titles like Woman of the Year , Nostalgic Serenade and The Issue of the Day , Stevens’s career is interrupted by World War II. He enlists in the army, like other great filmmakers of the time, in the filming unit, under the orders of General Eisenhower. With his team he filmed key moments of the conflict, such as the Normandy landings or the liberation of Paris. He was especially affected by the images he took of the Dachau concentration camp, which came to be used as evidence of the Holocaust at the Nuremberg Trials.

The experiences lived during the war marked George Stevens so much that the second stage of his filmography became more dramatic and reflective. He reconstructs the hardships of a Norwegian immigrant family in San Francisco in I’ll Never Forget Her , and shoots the brilliant A Place in the Sun , an adaptation of Theodore Dreiser ‘s novel “An American Tragedy,” with Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor . The story of a humble young man who, despite having a girlfriend, falls in love with an attractive millionairess, won six Oscars, including one for Stevens.

Married to actress Yvonne Howell ( La reina de la moda ), he was the father of George Stevens Jr., who would become a television director and the first director of the American Film Institute (AFI). After divorcing Howell, Stevens joined Joan McTavish, who was with him until her death.

Deep Roots , with Alan Ladd as a gunslinger helping a humble farming family, is without a doubt one of the most imitated Westerns of all time. He won a second Oscar as a director with Gigante (1956) , a blockbuster that reconstructs the journey of a family that changes livestock for oil, with a cast headed by three legends: Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson and James Dean . He had the opportunity to denounce the Nazi horror he had witnessed by bringing The Diary of Anne Frank to the screen . And he took charge, with the help of David Lean and Jean Negulesco , of an ambitious version of the evangelical texts,The greatest story ever told , the life of Jesus narrated with sensitivity, although excessive footage.

His latest work, The Only Game in Town , about a showgirl who shares a flat with a pianist, again featured Elizabeth Taylor, paired with Warren Beatty who gave Stevens the nickname “The Super Boss.” Unfortunately, the film was a total flop and Stevens decided to retire. He passed away on March 8, 1975, of a heart attack, at his Lancaster ranch.