Academy Award--winning director Michael Curtiz (1886--1962) -- whose
best-known films include Casablanca (1942), Yankee Doodle Dandy
(1942), Mildred Pierce (1945) and White Christmas (1954) -- was in
many ways the anti-auteur. During his unprecedented twenty-seven year
tenure at Warner Bros., he directed swashbuckling adventures, westerns,
musicals, war epics, romances, historical dramas, horror films,
tearjerkers, melodramas, comedies, and film noir masterpieces. The
director's staggering output of 180 films surpasses that of the
legendary John Ford and exceeds the combined total of films directed by
George Cukor, Victor Fleming, and Howard Hawks.
In the first biography of this colorful, instinctual artist, Alan K.
Rode illuminates the life and work of one of the film industry's most
complex figures. He explores the director's little-known early life and
career in his native Hungary, revealing how Curtiz shaped the earliest
days of silent cinema in Europe before immigrating to the United States
in 1926. In Hollywood, Curtiz earned a reputation for explosive
tantrums, his difficulty with English, and disregard for the well-being
of others. However, few directors elicited more memorable portrayals
from their casts, and ten different actors delivered Oscar-nominated
performances under his direction.
In addition to his study of the director's remarkable legacy, Rode
investigates Curtiz's dramatic personal life, discussing his enduring
creative partnership with his wife, screenwriter Bess Meredyth, as well
as his numerous affairs and children born of his extramarital
relationships. This meticulously researched biography provides a nuanced
understanding of one of the most talented filmmakers of Hollywood's
golden age.
