Henry King

Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume One, 1890-1945." Pages 535-542. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1987.

While accompanying her on a visit to the Lubin film studio in Philadelphia in 1913, he was somehow talked into trying out as an actor. Before long King found himself cast as assorted western villains in scores of one-reelers. Moving to California the following year, he graduated to romantic leads in full-length feature films with the Balboa Amusement Company, often co-starring opposite popular child actress Marie Osborne.

King's directing career began in 1915 and gathered momentum after he joined The American Film Manufacturing Company, and, subsequently, Thomas H. Ince.

By 1921 King fronted his own production company, Inspiration Pictures, releasing through First National.

The rustic southern drama Tol'able David (1921) was his next critically acclaimed picture, but not until joining Goldwyn at United Artists (1925-30) did he manage to turn out a consistent string of hits, including The White Sister (1923) and Romola (1924)--both shot on location in Italy--and the archetypal tearjerker Stella Dallas (1925). For King, the transition to sound pictures was a mere formality.

He introduced Ronald Colman to American audiences in The White Sister (1923), drawing a mustache on the actor's clean-shaven face with a retouching pencil--the real thing later becoming a Colman trademark.

His first success was the army comedy 23 1/2 Hours' Leave (1919).

King discovered Gary Cooper and cast him in a leading dramatic role in his outdoor western The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926), over the initial objections of producer Samuel Goldwyn who thought Coop was just another "damn cowboy". Goldwyn quickly changed his mind after seeing the rushes.

For more than three decades, Henry King was the most versatile and reliable (not to mention hard-working) contract director on the 20th Century-Fox lot. His tenure lasted from 1930 to 1961, spanning most of Hollywood's "golden" era.

In 1930 King qualified for his pilot's license and began busily scouting locations from the air, earning him the sobriquet "The Flying Director".

Directed seven Oscar Best Picture nominees: State Fair (1933), In Old Chicago (1938), Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938), The Song of Bernadette (1943), Wilson (1944), Twelve O'Clock High (1949) and Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955).

Zanuck to star him in Lloyds of London (1936). Power subsequently became one of Fox's most popular stars. All in all, not bad for a guy who had left school at 15 to work for the Norfolk & Western Railroad. After enduring the machine shops for a few years, King found more suitable employment as an apprentice actor with the touring Empire Stock Company, where he often performed song-and-dance routines in blackface. During his travels he befriended comedy actress Pearl White.

8 million); popular musicals (Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938), Carousel (1956)); psychological war drama (Twelve O'Clock High (1949)); and uncompromisingly tough, offbeat westerns (The Gunfighter (1950) and the underrated The Bravados (1958)). The latter three all starred King's preferred leading actor, Gregory Peck.

He was the first owner of a Waco SRE Aristrocrat cabin biplane that was completed on July 2, 1940. The base price was $17,800, making it among the most expensive private aircraft of its time; only 29 SRE's and similar ARE's and HRE's were built before World War II ended production in 1942. An avid pilot, King scouted for shooting locations from the air and was a founder of the Civil Air Patrol during World War II and he undoubtedly used the SRE for those tasks. King's SRE was later owned by Fairchild Aerial Surveys, Inc., and a May 1954 photograph of it while owned by Fairchild appears on page 102 of the Summer 2005 issue of the Journal of the American Aviation Historical Society.

When not airborne or on the golf course (his other passion), he demonstrated his amazing versatility with box-office hits across a wide variety of genres: striking and colorful swashbucklers (The Black Swan (1942)); romantic or religious melodramas--their sentimentality well-tempered so they never seemed maudlin--such as (The Song of Bernadette (1943) and Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955)); epics (In Old Chicago (1938), with its splendid recreation of the 1871 great fire, the entire enterprise filmed at a staggering cost of $1.

Topping that list was Zanuck's pet project, the biopic Wilson (1944). Overly serious to the point of being dour, its pacifist message was lost to an audience in the middle of a world war.

King was renowned as a specialist in literary adaptations (A Bell for Adano (1945), The Sun Also Rises (1957)) and for his nostalgic depictions of rural or small-town America (Margie (1946)). Much of his work was characterized by an uncomplicated approach and a vivid visual style rather than cinematic tricks or technical individuality. For the most part it was his meticulous attention to detail, and his reliance on superior plots and good acting, that got the job done. King was, above all, an astute judge of talent.

Other King discoveries included the lovely Jean Peters (in Captain from Castile (1947)) and Tyrone Power, whom he actively promoted to the point of badgering studio boss Darryl F.

Peck was also on hand for The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952), reputedly Ernest Hemingway's favorite among all his filmed adaptations. Of course, King also had his occasional failures.

However, he did win a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Directors Guild of America in 1956.

King's other notable dud, near the end of his career, was Beloved Infidel (1959). Badly miscast, the film chronicling the affair between F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hollywood gossip columnist Sheilah Graham was played out, inaccurately, as a genteel and overly glossy romance. Though nominated for five Academy Awards, King failed to snag the coveted trophy.

He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6327 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on February 8, 1960.

Profiled in "American Classic Screen Interviews" (Scarecrow Press). [2010]