Happy Birthday, Sam Wood! Born today in 1883 as Samuel Grosvenor Wood, this American real estate broker, actor, writer, producer and film director is best known for directing such Hollywood hits.
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Wood, years later, married Clara Louise Roush in late August 1908. Wood remained so until his passing.
Wood had two daughters. His firstborn daughter was American actress Jeane Wood.
The second daughter was born one decade later. Born Gloria Wood, this was American film and television actress K.T. Stevens.
In 1915, Wood later began his career as an actor and worked for Cecil B. DeMille ('The Ten Commandments') as an assistant. Wood had already dabbled in real estate and acted on-stage under the name of Chad Applegate.
A solo director by 1919, Wood worked throughout the 1920s directing some of Paramount Pictures’ biggest stars, among them Gloria Swanson and Wallace Reid.
Wood displayed a certain flair for complementing the talents of whatever stars he was handed, turning out a number of Gloria Swanson vehicles at Paramount Pictures in the early 1920s.
Wood later joined MGM in 1927, where he spent most of his career. While there, he hit his modest stride during the 1930s.
Wood was best known for directing Hollywood top hits during its Golden Age. He was also involved in a few acting and writing projects as well.
In the mid-1930s, Wood directed the film for which he is best known. This was the 1935 American black and white comedy/musical film 'A Night at the Opera'.
Starring the Marx Brothers in their eighth feature film, 'A Night at the Opera' was the first of five films that the Marx Brothers made for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer after their departure from Paramount Pictures, and was a smash hit.
It was also their first after Zeppo had left the act after Leo McCarey's ('Make Way for Tomorrow', 'The Awful Truth', 'An Affair to Remember') 1933 American pre-Code black and white comedy/musical film 'Duck Soup'.
Two years after the release of 'A Night at the Opera', while filming the Marx Brothers' 1937 American black and white comedy/slapstick film 'A Day at the Races', Wood became exasperated.
This was due to the brothers' lack of seriousness on the set. He shouted, "You can't make an actor out of clay!" Groucho immediately replied, "Nor a director out of Wood!"
'A Day at the Races' was the seventh film starring the Marx Brothers. Like their previous MGM feature ‘A Night at the Opera’, ‘A Day at the Races’ was a major hit.
Two years later, Wood directed a film of which he is also known. This was the 1939 American black and white romantic/drama film 'Goodbye, Mr. Chips'.
Based off of English writer James Hilton 1934 psychological fiction novella, the film won an Oscar the following year for Best Actor (Robert Donat). This occurred at the 12th Academy Awards in late February 1940.
'Goodbye, Mr. Chips' was nominated for Best Director, Best Actress (Greer Garson) and Outstanding Production. However, the film did not win.
Later that same year, the original director for 'Gone with the Wind', George Cukor, was fired shortly after filming began and was replaced by Victor Fleming ('Captains Courageous', 'The Wizard of Oz'). Cukor in turn was briefly replaced by Wood while Fleming took some time off due to exhaustion.
Later that same year, Wood directed Ginger Rogers through to her Oscar-winning performance. This was in the 1940 American black and white/drama film 'Kitty Foyle' subtitled 'The Natural History of a Woman'.
The following year, Rogers won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role. However, the film also received two Oscar nominations. This was for Best Director and Outstanding Production.
It was the first of Wood’s three career nominations in the category. This occurred at the at the 13th Academy Awards in late February 1941.
One year later, Wood directed the 1942 American black and white sport/drama film 'The Pride of the Yankees'. It starred Gary Cooper, Teresa Wright and Walter Brennan.
It is a tribute to the legendary New York Yankees first baseman Lou Gehrig, who died only one year before its release, at age 37, from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which later became known to the lay public as "Lou Gehrig's disease".
The film was adapted by American screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, American theatre writer, lyricist and screenwriter Jo Swerling.
This also included an uncredited American producer and director of mostly B movies and a screenwriter Casey Robinson from a story by American novelist, short story and sports writer Paul Gallico.
Though subtitled ‘The Life of Lou Gehrig’, 'The Pride of the Yankee’s is less a sports biography than an homage to a heroic and widely loved sports figure whose tragic and premature death touched the entire nation.
It emphasizes Gehrig's relationship with his parents (particularly his strong-willed mother), his friendships with players and journalists, and his storybook romance with the woman who became his "companion for life," Eleanor.
The film's climax is a re-enactment of Gehrig's poignant 1939 farewell speech at Yankee Stadium.
Details of his baseball career—which were still fresh in most fans' minds in 1942—are limited to montages of ballparks, pennants, and Cooper swinging bats and running bases.
However. Gehrig's best-known major league record—2,130 consecutive games played—is prominently cited.
Yankee teammates Babe Ruth, Bob Meusel, Mark Koenig, and Bill Dickey play themselves, as does American professional baseball catcher and manager Bill Stern.
The following year, ‘The Pride of the Yankees’ received eleven Oscar nominations. Most notably, this included Best Picture, Best Actor (Gary Cooper), and Best Actress (Teresa Wright).
However, the film only won one Oscar for Best Editing. This occurred at the 15th Academy Awards in early March 1943.
Later that same year, Woo directed the 1943 American Technicolor war/romance film ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’.
American screenwriter and director Dudley Nicols had based his script on Ernest Hemingway’s 1940 war story fiction novel of the same name. Hemingway had personally handpicked Cooper and Bergman for their roles.
One year later, ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ was also nominated for nine Oscars, most notably Best Picture, Best Actor (Gary Cooper), Best Actress (Ingrid Bergman) and Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Akim Tamiroff).
However, the film only won one Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Katina Paxinou). This occurred at the 16th Academy Awards in early March 1944.
'For Whom the Bell Tolls’ was the second-highest grossing film of 1943, earning $7.1 million in distributor rentals in the United States and Canada.
Aside from filmmaking during the 1940s, Wood became increasingly and aggressively conservative.
Also, in 1943, he reduced much of the anti-fascist content of 'For Whom the Bell Tolls', saying "It would be the same love story if they were on the other side."
In 1944, Wood founded and served as president of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. The organization quietly lobbied the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) to examine Communist elements in the film industry, which they did in 1947.
Wood had been keeping a black notebook in which he wrote the names of those he considered subversive. Jeane had later said that his crusade "transformed Dad into a snarling, unreasoning brute."
Shortly following a 1949 meeting of his Motion Picture Alliance in which Wood had raged against a liberal screenwriter who was suing the group for slandering him, the director suffered a fatal heart attack.
Beforehand, Wood had added a condition to his will: No one, including his children, could collect their inheritance until they filed a legal affidavit affirming that they had never been Communists.
In the late 1950s, Jeane appeared in DeMille's epic 1956 American Technicolor religious drama film 'The Ten Commandments'. This was as Slave/Hebrew at Crag and Corridor/Hebrew at Golden Calf.
In 1957, A re-issue of 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' earned an additional $800,000.
American composer, arranger, violinist and conductor Victor Young’s soundtrack for the film was the first complete score from an American film to be issued on record.
The list of Wood's successes would seem to assure him a niche in the ranks of the all-time best Hollywood directors, yet his reputation has tarnished since his death.
Most detractors insist that Wood was a hack, citing his habit of shooting each scene of a film an average of twenty times, his only verbal direction in each instance being "Go out there and sell 'em a load of clams."
In truth, this technique was invaluable in wearing down such mannered performers as Walter Brennan, Frank Morgan, Dan Duryea and Wallace Beery, until they were tired enough to behave like human beings instead of play-actors.
The twenty-take habit also enabled the more limited actors to re-think their interpretations until they had found nuances that they would never have considered on the first take.
40th U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who was certainly no Laurence Olivier, was never better years before his political days than in Wood's 1942 American black and white drama/mystery film 'Kings Row'.
Taking into consideration all of the complaints about Wood, the biggest bone of contention seems to be his reactionary politics. Wood was active in a number of right-wing organizations, and in 1947, he virulently condemned Hollywood's "left" before the HUAC.
Those whose politics are diametrically opposite to Wood's dwell incessantly upon this aspect of his life, embellishing the facts by painting him as a bigot and (in the words of Groucho Marx) a "fascist."
But just as it is fitting and proper to separate the performances of a Jane Fonda, Shirley MacLaine, or Paul Newman from their political agendas, so too would it be fair to extend the same courtesy to Wood.
Wood continued to have a large number of box office hits in his career, right up to and including his last film: the gritty 1950 American black and white Western film 'Ambush'.
Unfortunately, Wood passed before the film was released from a heart attack on September 22, 1949 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. Wood was 66. His grave is located in Glendale's Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery.
In 1993, 'A Night at the Opera' was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
In 2005, the iconic closing line from 'The Pride of the Yankees'—"Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth"—was voted 38th on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Quotes list.
In the 2007 update of AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies, 'A Night at the Opera' was also included at #85; and previously in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs 2000 showing, at #12.
To this point, Wood had hardly distinguished himself as more than a competent director. However, he had one subsequently entered a new phase, one that found him possessed of a keener eye and a surer hand.
With a reputation for reliability, a no-nonsense approach and an ability to finish a project on time and under budget, Wood is not the first name that comes to mind when discussing top directors of Hollywood's Golden Age.
He did in fact however direct many fine films in different genres during the 1930s and 1940s. No matter what sort of man Wood was personally, his string of Hollywood hits should be his true legacy.
Wood had been active from 1917–1949.
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