1885-1940
French born director George Fitzmaurice (occasionally spelled FitzMaurice in a few sources) was born on this day in Paris. Often described as a "silent film director," Fitzmaurice's career actually continued well into the sound era. "Fitz" as he was affectionately known got his start as a set designer; and he started directing films in 1914. Working for the American arm of the French Pathé Frères, he directed When Rome Ruled, a feature length historical drama set in North Africa; the film was released in August of 1914. He made just two more short films for Frères in 1914 (he also had a hand in writing scenarios for a further two films for them that year--one of which he may have directed), before jumping ship to an the American production company George Kleine Productions. His first film for them was the comedy Stop Thief!, based on the popular Carlyle Moore play, and released in February of 1915. In the middle of that year, he was instrumental in the founding the production enterprise Astra Film Corp., directing their very first release: Via Wireless (1915) starring Gail Kane. Fitzmaurice was married for a time to screenwriter Ouida Bergére (later more famous as Mrs. Basil Rathbone), and his next film was one of her adaptations for the screen: At Bay (November 1915). Bergére began to write scripts completely from scratch, usually romantic melodramas, having a director with whom she was romantically involved (they did not wed until 1918) meant that her work was going to get produced. This had the added effect of "typecasting," if you will, Fitzmaurice as a talented director of romances. This would also eventually make him a highly celebrated director in Hollywood. Astra became defunct in 1920, but Fitzmaurice had already moved west and to Paramount in that later half of 1919. Actually his first films for the studio were filmed in the New York area (well, one was filmed in Miami), with The Witness for the Defense (September 1919) being the very first. In the early 1920's, he also directed a couple of films for the company in Europe, the most historically interesting is the now lost Three Live Ghosts (1922), filmed at Islington Studios in London and had an art director by the name of Alfred Hitchcock. In 1923, he directed Pola Negri in Bella Donna, a romantic drama with partial sound by De Forest Phonofilm; one of the earliest large feature productions to have sound attached. He next directed her in the fully silent remake of The Cheat (1923) with Jack Holt (first made by Cecil B. DeMille in 1915). It was also his last Paramount film. He moved over to the Samuel Goldwyn company and directed The Eternal City (1923), a war drama set during World War I (this is one of those films happily discovered to have survived, despite thought permanently lost for decades). Through a partnership with Goldwyn, he was able to found his own George Fitzmaurice Productions; directing and bringing out the melodrama A Thief in Paradise, starring Ronald Colman and Doris Kenyon, in June of 1925. Colman would become a frequent actor in Fitzmaurice productions over the next few years--some of his famous appearances with Vilma Bánky came in Fitz directions. In 1928 he began directing films that had sound, and though these were partial silents, they were his first films with sound in the era when sound was becoming the norm. One of these--Lilac Time--starred a young Gary Cooper opposite Colleen Moore. While his first full talkie was the mystery thriller The Locked Door, starring Barbara Stanwyck. His last film of the decade--made for Warner Bros.--was also a talkie: Tiger Rose was a western romantic action film complete with musical originals; it starred Lupe Valez and Monte Blue and was filmed on location in Lake Arrowhead, California. But there is one film that Fitzmaurice is extremely famous for directing--in part it's that the film's superstar died before it's release. Fitzmaurice directed The Son of the Sheik in 1926; it would turn out to be Rudolph Valentino's last film. By the turn of the decade, he was still very famous for this film and that kept in demand. His first film of the new decade was the romantic thriller The Bad One starring Dolores del Rio; while his most famous film from the decade is Raffles again starring Ronald Colman and released in July of 1930. In all, he directed nearly twenty films between 1930 and 1938, though on several he went uncredited and one, Nana, he was fired from by Goldwyn and replaced with a woman: the now legendary Dorothy Arzner. Fitzmaurice managed to direct one film in 1940, the diamond intrigue crime drama Adventure in Diamonds, which was released in March. It would turn out to be his last film; he died at the age of 55 on the 13th of June that same year. He is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale--his grave marker put his birth year at 1887, but that is generally accepted to be incorrect. Fitzmaurice did direct one film that was nominated for an Oscar, and that picture came in the 1920's. His romantic partial silent The Barker (December 1928) was included in nominations for the 1930 Academy Awards, nominated for Best Lead Actress for Betty Compson. Fitzmaurice's second marriage was to actress Diana Kane (the sister of actresses Lois Wilson and Connie Lewis), they had one daughter and remained married until his untimely death.
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| [source: AJM (Find A Grave)] |
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