Best known in his earlier days as the man who brought many
a classic costume novel to the screen, George Cukor's 50-plus year directing
career later expanded to include thrillers, screwball romantic comedies,
and even musicals. Sometimes labeled as a "woman's director,"
Cukor lead eight of his leading ladies to Best Actress- nominated performances
and himself received five Best Director nominations over the course of
his career.
Cukor directed Greta Garbo
in what is probably her most famous role, Marguerite Gautier in CAMILLE
(1937), the film adaptation of Alexander Dumas' classic novel. Also starring
Robert Taylor and Lionel
Barrymore, Garbo earned this film's only Oscar nomination, but it remains
a treasured classic.
HOLIDAY (1938) starring Katharine
Hepburn and Cary Grant is
a classic Depression-era screwball comedy about a non-conformist (Grant)
who finds more than a friend in New York society daughter Linda Seton (Hepburn).
A poster from the fourth of Cukor's nine films with Katharine
Hepburn, her comeback film after having been labeled "boxoffice
poison," THE PHILADELPHIA STORY
(1940). Hepburn specifically
requested Cukor for this picture which also starred Cary
Grant and Jimmy Stewart.
She earned a Best Actress nomination and Cukor earned his second career
nomination as Best Director. The film itself was also nominated as Best
Picture.
Nominated for seven Oscars in 1944 including Best Picture,
GASLIGHT is an intriguing Victorian chiller about a man who slowly convinces
his wife that she's losing her mind. Ingrid
Bergman won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance and Angela
Lansbury received a Best Supporting Actress nomination in this, her
screen debut. GASLIGHT also features Charles
Boyer, Jospeh Cotten and
Dame May Whitty.