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Vincente Minnelli

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Vincente Minnelli
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(born Feb. 28, 1910, Chicago, Ill., U.S. — died July 25, 1986, Los Angeles, Calif.) U.S. film director. He was a stage manager and costume designer from age 16, achieved success as a Broadway director c. 1935, and moved to Hollywood in 1940. He combined a daring use of colour with imaginative camera work in films such as Cabin in the Sky (1943), Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), The Pirate (1948), An American in Paris (1951), and Gigi (1958, Academy Award), infusing a new sophistication and vitality into filmed musicals. He also made several notable dramas, including Father of the Bride (1950), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), and Lust for Life (1957). He was married to Judy Garland (1945 – 51). Their daughter, the singer and actress Liza Minnelli (b. 1946), won a Tony Award for her performance in Flora, the Red Menace (1965) and an Oscar for Cabaret (1972).

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American Theater Guide: Vincente Minnelli
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Minnelli, Vincente (1903–86), designer and director. For a brief time in the 1930s, the Chicago native was one of Broadway's most imaginative artists. His first designs were seen in the 1931 edition of the Earl Carroll Vanities and The Du Barry (1932). Subsequently he both designed and staged At Home Abroad (1935), The Show Is On (1936), Hooray for What! (1937), and Very Warm for May (1939). Minnelli also designed, but did not direct, the Ziegfeld Follies of 1936. His designs were known for their tasteful, if slightly exaggerated use of color. He later became a major director of musical films. Autobiography: I Remember It Well, 1974.

Director: Vincente Minnelli
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  • Born: Feb 28, 1903 in Chicago, Illinois
  • Died: Jul 25, 1986 in Beverly Hills, California
  • Occupation: Director
  • Active: '40s-'60s
  • Major Genres: Musical, Drama
  • Career Highlights: The Band Wagon, An American in Paris, Gigi
  • First Major Screen Credit: Artists and Models (1937)

Biography

Once assigned by critic Andrew Sarris to the far side of auteur paradise for believing "more in beauty than in art," MGM's Vincente Minnelli was celebrated nonetheless for bringing new levels of sophistication to the movie musical in the 1940s and 1950s. While such musicals as Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) and An American in Paris (1951) made his name, Minnelli also directed highly regarded dramas, including the Hollywood story The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), and frothy comedies. Though his career faltered with the studio system's demise, his distinctive, fever-pitch sensibility endeared him to European and American cinèastes, ensuring his lasting reputation.

Born to a Midwestern travelling theater family, Minnelli spent his childhood shuttling between relatives in Delaware and Chicago. After high school, he headed to Chicago to pursue a creative career, landing a job as a window dresser at the Marshall Fields department store. Honing his visual skills in this and subsequent work as a photographer's assistant and costume designer for live shows at premiere Chicago and New York movie houses, Minnelli earned accolades for his 1930s work as a costume/set designer and then as a stage director in New York theater.

After an aborted attempt at movies in 1937, Minnelli finally heeded Hollywood's siren call, via MGM producer Arthur Freed, in 1940. Unimpressed with the state of movie musicals (except for Fred Astaire's work), Minnelli headed West to learn moviemaking as a low-ranking part of MGM's burgeoning Freed Unit. After staging numbers for the Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney vehicles Strike Up the Band (1940) and Babes on Broadway (1941), Minnelli earned his shot at directing with the all-black musical Cabin in the Sky (1943). Stylishly mounted on a low budget, Cabin in the Sky became a modest, critically praised hit. His third directorial try subsequently sealed his reputation as a singularly gifted musical director.

With Freed behind him, Minnelli overcame resistance from the studio and recalcitrant star Garland to craft the musical hit Meet Me in St. Louis. A beautifully Technicolored, lovingly meticulous portrait of intimate Americana, Meet Me in St. Louis gracefully integrated music with the quotidian activities of the Smith family and its romance-minded daughters, reaching a kinetic peak with Garland's rendition of "The Trolley Song." A critical and popular smash, Meet Me in St. Louis established Minnelli as the Freed Unit's maestro and won him his first of four wives in Garland; their collaboration on the lyrical non-musical romance The Clock (1945) confirmed Minnelli's versatility.

While his mobile camera injected life into the revue Ziegfeld Follies (1946), Minnelli's prodigious imagination was given even freer reign in two troubled musicals, Yolanda and the Thief (1945) and The Pirate (1948). Centering on romances between shady men and innocent girls in ornate fantasy settings, Yolanda and The Pirate each suffered from mismatched leads (Astaire and Lucille Bremer in the former, Gene Kelly and an unstable Garland in the latter) and what some considered an excess of art direction at the expense of story. Both failed at the box office. Still, such charged numbers as "Coffee Time" in Yolanda and "Mack the Black" and "Be a Clown" in The Pirate made the films required viewing for musical fans.

Despite the birth of daughter Liza, Minnelli and Garland's marriage fell apart after The Pirate and he took a break from musicals. Rather than harm his career, however, the hiatus made him even more valuable to MGM. Not only was his skill at translating his elaborate imagery to the needs of drama underlined by his version of Madame Bovary (1949), but the deft pacing of his musicals served him well when he turned to comedy with Father of the Bride (1950). Starring Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor as father and bride, Father of the Bride made light of wedding traumas while hinting at Tracy's paternal anguish (akin to Margaret O'Brien's disturbing grief in the otherwise blithe St. Louis). Father became an enormous hit, begetting the sequel Father's Little Dividend (1951).

Minnelli returned to musicals when Freed chose him to helm the ambitious An American in Paris (1951). Starring Gene Kelly and young ballerina Leslie Caron, scored with classic Gershwin songs, An American in Paris merged high art and pop entertainment in the story of an aspiring painter's romantic entanglements with his patroness and a young girl. Inspired by The Red Shoes (1948), the climactic 16-minute "American in Paris Ballet" rapturously soared through tableaux inspired by French paintings, as Minnelli's camera danced with Kelly and Caron. The Oscar for Best Picture capped An American in Paris' resounding artistic and popular success.

Minnelli's remarkable run continued with The Bad and the Beautiful. A sharp black and white Hollywood exposé about a producer and the people he betrayed, The Bad and the Beautiful's chiaroscuro photography, emotive camera work, and intense performances by Kirk Douglas, Lana Turner, and Oscar-winner Gloria Grahame revealed the dark side of an industry driven by artifice. Minnelli made show business his subject once again in his next musical, The Band Wagon (1953). An astute, funny parody of the desire to turn entertainment into art, as well as a gorgeous merging of the two in the Astaire/Cyd Charisse set pieces "Dancing in the Dark" and "The Girl Hunt," The Band Wagon joyously celebrated the musical form and is considered Minnelli's greatest work in the genre.

Working constantly throughout the 1950s, Minnelli churned out such sleek comedies as The Long, Long Trailer (1954), Designing Woman (1957), The Reluctant Debutante (1958), and the lavishly conceived -- if uninspired -- musicals Brigadoon (1954) and Kismet (1955). Irving Stone's biography of Vincent Van Gogh, though, recharged Minnelli's creative powers. Enlivened by Kirk Douglas as Van Gogh and Anthony Quinn as Gauguin, Lust for Life (1956) vividly recreated the colorful world of Van Gogh's paintings and the traumatic incidents of his life, earning several Oscar nods.

Minnelli finally won his own Oscar with the musical of Colette's story Gigi (1958). Filmed on location in Paris and featuring an excellent score by Lerner & Loewe (including Maurice Chevalier's "Thank Heaven for Little Girls"), Gigi made exquisite blockbuster entertainment out of a potentially sordid story about a courtesan. Also scoring a critical hit with his adaptation of James Jones' chronicle of small town despair Some Came Running (1958), featuring Rat Packers Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and rising star Shirley MacLaine. Minnelli's two films earned a total of 13 Oscar nominations; Gigi went nine for nine, including Best Picture.

Though the vivacious Judy Holliday musical Bells Are Ringing (1960) and Home From the Hill's (1960) operatic widescreen angst seemed to bode well for Minnelli's continuing creativity, changes in Hollywood and the audience precipitated a career decline. The ill-conceived, big-budget remake of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962) was a disastrous flop; Two Weeks in Another Town (1962) was perhaps worse. An artistically adventurous companion piece to The Bad and the Beautiful, Two Weeks signaled classical Hollywood's decline, both in its story and reception. Recut by MGM against Minnelli's wishes, it was slammed by critics and shunned by audiences. His final films for MGM, The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1963) and The Sandpiper (1965), were commercially safe fodder. Despite the presence of new musical stars Barbra Streisand in On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970) and daughter Liza Minnelli in A Matter of Time (1976), Minnelli's old-school version of musical fantasy failed to cross over to the youthful 1970s audience, ending his directorial career.

Hating idleness, Minnelli published his memoir I Remember It Well in 1974; once he stopped directing, he retired from all work. His daughters, film scholars, European honors, and the work of such film school grads as Martin Scorsese, though, confirmed his legacy before and after Minnelli passed away in 1986. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
Wikipedia: Vincente Minnelli
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Vincente Minnelli
Born Lester Anthony Minnelli
February 28, 1903
Chicago, Illinois
Died July 25, 1986 (aged 83)
Beverly Hills, California
Spouse(s) Judy Garland (1945–1951)
Georgette Magnani (1954–1957)
Danica D ("Denise") Radosavljevic (1960–1971)
Lee Anderson (1980–1986)

Vincente Minnelli (February 28, 1903 – July 25, 1986) was a Hollywood director and stage director. His skilled integration of story, music, lighting, and design elements in a film made him the most critically respected crafter of American film musicals. With first wife Judy Garland, he was the father of Liza Minnelli.

Contents

Biography

Early life

Born Lester Anthony Minnelli in Chicago, Illinois, United States,[1] Minnelli was the youngest surviving child of Mina Mary LaLouette Le Beau and Vincent Charles Minnelli. His father was musical conductor of Minnelli Brothers' Tent Theater. Minnelli's Chicago-born mother was of French Canadian descent and his paternal grandfather was from Sicily. The family toured small towns in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois before settling permanently in Delaware, Ohio.

Career

Following his high school graduation, Minnelli moved to Chicago where he lived briefly with his grandmother and an aunt. His first job was at Marshall Field's department store as a window display designer. He later worked as a photographer for Paul Stone, who specialized in photographing actors from Chicago's theater district. His interest in the theater grew and he was greatly interested in art and immersed himself in books on the subject.

Minnelli's first job in the theater was at the Chicago Theatre where he worked as a costume and set designer. Owned by Balaban and Katz, the theater chain soon merged with a bigger national chain of Paramount-Publix and Minnelli sometimes found himself assigned to work on shows in New York City. He soon left Chicago and rented a tiny Greenwich Village apartment. He was eventually employed at Radio City Music Hall as a set designer and worked his way up to stage director.

The first play Minnelli directed was a musical revue titled At Home Abroad which opened in October 1935 and starred Beatrice Lillie. The revue was well received and enjoyed a long run. Minnelli later worked on The Ziegfeld Follies and The Show Is On. Minnelli's reputation grew and he was offered a job at MGM in 1940 by producer Arthur Freed.[2]

With his background in theatre, Minnelli was known as an auteur who always brought his stage experience to his films. The first movie that he directed, Cabin in the Sky (1943), was visibly influenced by the theater. Shortly after that, he directed Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), during which he fell in love with the film's star, Judy Garland. The two had first met on the set of Strike Up The Band (1941), a Busby Berkeley film that Minnelli was asked to design a musical sequence for Garland and Mickey Rooney.[3] The two began a courtship that eventually led to their marriage in June 1945. Their one child together, Liza Minnelli, grew up to become an Academy Award-winning singer and actress.

Though widely known for directing musicals, including An American in Paris (1951), Brigadoon (1954), Kismet (1955), and Gigi (1958) he also helmed comedies and melodramas, including Madame Bovary (1949), Father of the Bride (1950), Designing Woman (1957) and The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1963). His last film was A Matter of Time (1976). During the course of his career he directed seven different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Spencer Tracy, Gloria Grahame, Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn, Arthur Kennedy, Shirley MacLaine and Martha Hyer. Grahame and Quinn won Oscars for their performances in one of Minnelli's movies. He received an Oscar nomination as Best Director for An American in Paris (1951) and later won the Best Director Oscar for Gigi (1958). He was awarded France's highest civilian honor, the Commander Nationale of the Legion of Honor, only weeks before his death in 1986.

Minnelli's critical reputation has known a certain amount of fluctuation, being admired (or dismissed) in America as a "pure stylist" who, in Andrew Sarris' words, "believes more in beauty than in art."[4] His work reached a height of critical attention during the late 1950s and early 1960s in France with extensive studies in the Cahiers du Cinéma magazine, especially in the articles by Jean Douchet and Jean Domarchi, who saw in him a cinematic visionary obsessed with beauty and harmony, and an artist who could give substance to the world of dreams. Minnelli served as a juror at the 1967 Cannes Film Festival. The MGM compilation film That's Entertainment! showed clips from many of his films.

Personal life

Minnelli's marriages ran as follows:

  • Judy Garland (June 15, 1945 – 1951) (divorced); one child, Liza Minnelli (b. 1946)
  • Georgette Magnani (February 1954 – 1957); one child, Christiane Nina Minnelli (b. 1955); two grandchildren, Vincent Miro Minnelli (b. 1977), Karla Ximena Miro Minnelli (b. 1979)
  • Denise (Danica D) Radosavljev (December 1960 – August 1971) (divorced); she later married Prentis Cobb Hale
  • Lee Anderson (April 1980 – July 25, 1986) (his death)

Death

In July 1986, Minnelli died at age 83 after struggling with emphysema and bouts with pneumonia that caused him to be repeatedly hospitalized in his final year.[5] He reportedly also suffered from Alzheimer's disease.[6][7] Interment was in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.

Selected theatre credits

Filmography

Notes

  1. ^ Church records, 1864-1929, Catholic Church. Notre Dame (Chicago, Illinois), Salt Lake City, Utah: Filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1990 FHL US/CAN Film 1704688
  2. ^ Minnelli's early years are described in Levy, Emanuel (2009). Vincente Minnelli: Hollywood's Dark Dreamer. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-031232925-9. 
  3. ^ Levy, Emanuel (2009). Vincente Minnelli: Hollywood's Dark Dreamer. New York: St. Martin's Press. p. 81. ISBN 978-031232925-9. 
  4. ^ Sarris, Andrew (1998). You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 55. ISBN 0-19-503883-5. 
  5. ^ "Director Vincente Minnelli, 83, dies", Chicago Tribune; 26 July 1986; p. 2.
  6. ^ Daughter Christiane ("Tina Nina") Minnelli quoted - Leigh, Wendy (1993). Liza: Born a Star. New York: Signet. p. 270. ISBN 978-0451404060. 
  7. ^ Luft, Lorna (1998). Me and My Shadows: A Family Memoir. New York: Pocket Books. p. 280. ISBN 978-0671018993. 

References

  • Casper, Joseph Andrew (1977). Vincente Minnelli and the Film Musical. South Brunswick, NJ: A.S. Barnes. ISBN 9780498017841. 
  • Harvey, Stephen; Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.) (1989). Directed by Vincente Minnelli. New York: Museum of Modern Art; Harper & Row. ISBN 9780870704741. 
  • Levy, Emanuel (2009). Vincente Minnelli: Hollywood's Dark Dreamer. New York: St. Martin's Press. 
  • Minnelli, Vincente; Hector Arce (1974). I Remember It Well. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. ISBN 9780385095228. 
  • Schickel, Richard (1975). The Men Who Made the Movies. New York: Atheneum. 
  • Wakeman, John (ed.) (1987). World of Film Directors, Volume One, 1890-1945. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company. 

External links

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Academy Award for Best Director

John Ford (1941) · William Wyler (1942) · Michael Curtiz (1943) · Leo McCarey (1944) · Billy Wilder (1945) · William Wyler (1946) · Elia Kazan (1947) · John Huston (1948) · Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1949) · Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1950) · George Stevens (1951) · John Ford (1952) · Fred Zinnemann (1953) · Elia Kazan (1954) · Delbert Mann (1955) · George Stevens (1956) · David Lean (1957) · Vincente Minnelli (1958) · William Wyler (1959) · Billy Wilder (1960)

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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
American Theater Guide. The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. Copyright © 2004 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Director. 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 "Vincente Minnelli".  Read more