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Dore Schary

 
Works: Works by Dore Schary
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(1905-1980)

1958Sunrise at Campobello. Schary's biographical drama treats Franklin Roosevelt's polio from his first being stricken in 1921 to his reemergence in the public eye at the 1924 Democratic Convention. The play wins five Tony Awards. Schary was an actor and director whose screenplay for the film Boys Town (1938) won an Academy Award.

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Writer: Dore Schary
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Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Actors
  • Born: Aug 31, 1905 in Newark, New Jersey
  • Died: Jul 07, 1980 in Los Angeles, California
  • Occupation: Writer, Director
  • Active: '30s-'60s
  • Major Genres: Drama, Comedy
  • Career Highlights: Sunrise at Campobello, Crossfire, The Spiral Staircase
  • First Major Screen Credit: Fog (1934)

Biography

Inheriting a strong work ethic from his parents, American filmmaker Dore Schary was an excellent student in his early teens; also inheriting a tenacious streak, Schary managed to get himself expelled from school after an argument with a math teacher. He worked for a while with his family's Kosher catering business, then pursued a career as an actor. He also briefly became a stockbroker, a career cut short by the Crash. Several plays Schary had written for New Jersey community theater groups came to the attention of Columbia Pictures, where Schary received his first screenwriting job. After a few up-and-down years in Hollywood, Schary sold a story called Boys Town to MGM; it won the 1938 Academy Award, and at long last Schary knew for sure where his next meal was coming from. In 1942, Schary was put in charge of MGM's B-picture unit, which under his guidance began making more money than the studio's A-product. A disagreement with the MGM brass led Schary to quit, but he was soon claimed by independent producer David O. Selznick. Schary's successful management of Selznick's subsidiary Vanguard Pictures led to a vice-president's post at RKO Radio Pictures in 1947. When Howard Hughes took over RKO, Schary found the atmosphere untenable, especially after a falling out over a proposed Battle of the Bulge picture, Battleground. Making his peace with MGM, Schary returned to that studio in 1948, where, over MGM head Louis Mayer's objections, he produced Battleground (1949), which became a hit. After Mayer was ejected from MGM during a power struggle with the studio's New York office, Schary was chosen to be MGM's head man in 1951 -- a position he held until he fell victim to another power struggle in 1956. Fed up with studio politics, Schary began writing plays again, branching out into producing and directing. Schary's 1958 Broadway production of his own play Sunrise at Campobello earned five Tony Awards; subsequent Schary stage successes included A Majority of One (1960) and The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1961), both of which he produced and directed but did not write. From 1958 through 1963, Schary had a go at independent film production, but voluntarily ended his Hollywood career after the failure of 1963's Act One, which he also directed. A lifelong civil libertarian who did all he could to protect victims of the Hollywood Blacklist (he was himself labelled a "Red" for these efforts, but survived the slur), Dore Schary was also very active with the B'nai Brith's Antidefamation League and New York's Commissioner of Cultural Affairs. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Wikipedia: Dore Schary
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Isidore 'Dore' Schary (August 31, 1905, Newark, New Jersey - July 7, 1980, New York City) was an American motion picture director, writer, and producer, and playwright.

Graduate of Central High School, Newark, New Jersey, Class of 1923.

Schary had his first success as a writer when a play he wrote, Too Many Heroes, ran on Broadway for 16 performances in the fall of 1937.

Schary worked in Hollywood, California and in 1938 won the Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Story as co-writer of the screenplay for Boys Town. He was with RKO Pictures when in 1948 he became chief of production at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios.

Schary and studio chief and founder Louis B. Mayer were constantly at odds over philosophy; Mayer favoring splashy, wholesome entertainment and Schary leaning toward what Mayer derided as "message pictures." The glory days of MGM as well as other studios were coming to an end because of United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. (1948), a Supreme Court decision that severed the connection between film studios and the theaters that showed their films.

In addition, the new phenomenon of television was beginning to take its toll on the big screen. The MGM corporate office in New York decided that Schary might be able to turn the tide. In 1951, Mayer was ousted and Schary installed as president, serving until 1956. MGM swimming star Esther Williams would later state in her 1999 autobiography The Million Dollar Mermaid that Schary was rude, cruel, and as imperious as Mayer had been. She found it appropriate that Schary was fired on Thanksgiving Day, since he was a "turkey." However, on the show This is Your Life, host Ralph Edwards stated that there has never been a show where more stars came out to honor a guest.

Following his departure from MGM, he wrote the Broadway play Sunrise at Campobello. The play won five Tony Awards. He wrote and produced the motion picture of the same name in 1960. He also had a brief role in the film, playing a convention delegate from Connecticut.

Although one of the studio executives who formulated the 1947 Waldorf Statement, he became an outspoken opponent of the witch-hunt for communists conducted by the House Un-American Activities Committee that resulted in the Hollywood Blacklist. A liberal activist, he served as National Chairman of the B'nai B'rith's Anti-Defamation League and as New York City Commissioner for Cultural Affairs. To honor his memory, the Anti-Defamation League established the Dore Schary Awards in 1982.

Dore Schary died in 1980 and was interred in the Hebrew Cemetery, West Long Branch, New Jersey.

In popular culture

  • He is referenced at the very end of Stan Freberg's album satirizing American history, where his name is rhymed with "revolutionary."
  • In the TV sitcom I Love Lucy, Ricky Ricardo is seen calling Dore Schary's office from his Hollywood hotel room. In fact, Schary was supposed to have appeared as "himself" in a 1955 episode. At the last minute, though, he bowed out, and Philip Ober, Vivian Vance's husband at the time, portrayed "Dore Schary" instead.

References

  • Schary, Dore (1979). Heyday: An autobiography. Boston: Little, Brown. ISBN 0316772704. 

External links


This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

 

Copyrights:

Works. The Chronology of American Literature, edited by Daniel S. Burt. Copyright © 2004 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Writer. Copyright © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Dore Schary".  Read more