Michael Curtiz

Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume One, 1890-1945". Pages 172-181. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1987.

Curtiz began acting in and then directing films in his native Hungary in 1912.

After WWI, he continued his filmmaking career in Austria and Germany and into the early 1920s when he directed films in other countries in Europe.

Moving to the US in 1926, he started making films in Hollywood for Warner Bros. and became thoroughly entrenched in the studio system.

He had one son, John Meredyth Lucas, whom he adopted in 1929 when the boy was ten years old.

His films during the 1930s and '40s encompassed nearly every genre imaginable and some, including Casablanca (1942) and Mildred Pierce (1945), are considered to be film classics.

Jodie Foster used to own a home that Curtiz built in 1934. The house was originally a guest house on the large estate that he owned. It is copied from small quaint Cotswold cottages found in the midlands in England. In 1995 she put the home up for sale for $1.1 million.

Directed seven films nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards: Captain Blood (1935), Anthony Adverse (1936) (uncredited), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Four Daughters (1938), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Casablanca (1942) and Mildred Pierce (1945), with Casablanca the only Best Picture winner.

While filming The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), Curtiz used a stunt device on horses called the Running W that, despite being infamous for the number of horses it had killed, was used regularly in the 1930's to trip horses galloping at high speeds, Curtiz presided over the killing of approximately 25 horses while shooting just a single shot during the massacre scenes. His seeming indifference to the killings created a riff between him and Errol Flynn, a horseman, who physically attacked Curtiz and went public with the news of the killings. This helped lead to a reform in animal cruelty on Hollywood sets and although Curtiz and Flynn would make more movies together, they never spoke to each other again except when necessary on set.

Along with Ernst Lubitsch, Jack Conway, Victor Fleming, John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Sam Wood, Francis Ford Coppola, Herbert Ross and Steven Soderbergh, he is one of ten directors to have more than one film nominated for Best Picture in the same year. The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) (which he co-directed William Keighley) and Four Daughters (1938) were both so nominated at the 11th Academy Awards in 1939.

His adopted son, John Meredyth Lucas, said he spoke five languages, all of them badly. His thick Hungarian accent often made it difficult for cast and crew to understand him when he spoke English. During the filming of Casablanca (1942), for instance, he asked a set dresser for a "poodle", and when the dresser brought him a small poodle dog, Curtiz exploded at the man--he had meant that he wanted a "poodle" of water. On the set of The Cabin in the Cotton (1932), Curtiz made a speech to the actors on how he wanted them to act like "woodpeckers" when the script described them as "peckerwoods". NOTE: A number of Curtiz' other misstatements were mistakenly attributed to producer Samuel Goldwyn, who was also famous for verbal slips.

In 1946 Curtiz was invited by Frank Capra, George Stevens and William Wyler to join them in Liberty Pictures, which would have given him autonomy. Jack L. Warner granted him semi-independence with his own unit within Warners. After making lukewarm features--Flamingo Road (1949), two mediocre Doris Day musicals and The Unsuspected (1947)--he gave it up and rejoined Warners full time.

Was assigned to direct Adventures of Don Juan (1948) in 1947, but he and star Errol Flynn had a falling-out and Vincent Sherman wound up directing the picture.

His brilliance waned in the 1950s when he made a number of mediocre films for studios other than Warner.

At one point he was attached to direct Serenade (1956), which wound up being directed by Anthony Mann.

After directing Elvis Presley in King Creole (1958) Curtiz was set to direct Presley's first post-Army film, G.I. Blues (1960) but for unknown reasons the film was eventually directed by Norman Taurog. Hal B. Wallis produced both.

After Nunnally Johnson bowed out, 20th Century-Fox started negotiations with Curtiz to direct the Elvis Presley film Flaming Star (1960), but the job was later given to Don Siegel. Curtiz had previously directed Presley in King Creole (1958) and was originally set to direct him again in G.I. Blues (1960).