108 Facts About Michael Curtiz

Michael Curtiz was a Hungarian-American film director, recognized as one of the most prolific directors in history.

Michael Curtiz directed classic films from the silent era and numerous others during Hollywood's Golden Age, when the studio system was prevalent.

Michael Curtiz had already directed 64 films in Europe, and soon helped Warner Bros.

Michael Curtiz directed 102 films during his Hollywood career, mostly at Warners, where he directed ten actors to Oscar nominations.

Michael Curtiz put Doris Day and John Garfield on screen for the first time, and he made stars of Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, and Bette Davis.

Michael Curtiz himself was nominated five times, and won twice, once for Best Short Subject for Sons of Liberty and once as Best Director for Casablanca.

Michael Curtiz was among those who introduced to Hollywood a visual style using artistic lighting, extensive and fluid camera movement, high crane shots, and unusual camera angles.

Michael Curtiz always paid attention to the human-interest aspect of every story, stating that the "human and fundamental problems of real people" were the basis of all good drama.

The death of 25 horses in The Charge of the Light Brigade under Michael Curtiz's direction resulted in a near-violent confrontation between Michael Curtiz and star Errol Flynn, which led in turn to the US Congress and the ASPCA enacting legislation and policy to prevent cruelty to animals on the sets of movies.

Michael Curtiz helped popularize the classic swashbuckler, with films such as Captain Blood and The Adventures of Robin Hood.

Michael Curtiz directed many other dramas which are considered classics: Angels with Dirty Faces, The Sea Wolf, Casablanca, and Mildred Pierce.

Michael Curtiz directed leading musicals, including Yankee Doodle Dandy, This Is the Army, and White Christmas, and he made comedies, with Life with Father and We're No Angels.

Michael Curtiz was born Mano Kaminer to a Jewish family in Budapest in 1886, where his father was a carpenter and his mother an opera singer.

Michael Curtiz recalled during an interview that his family's home was a cramped apartment, where he had to share a small room with his two brothers and a sister.

Michael Curtiz became attracted to the theater when he was a child in Hungary.

Michael Curtiz built a little theatre in the cellar of his family home when he was 8 years old, where he and five of his friends re-enacted plays.

Michael Curtiz worked as Mihaly Kertesz at the National Hungarian Theater in 1912.

Michael Curtiz followed that with another film, The Last Bohemian.

Michael Curtiz began living in various cities in Europe to work on silent films in 1913.

Michael Curtiz was assigned to make fund-raising documentaries for the Red Cross in Hungary.

Michael Curtiz briefly worked at UFA GmbH, a German film company, where he learned to direct large groups of costumed extras, along with using complicated plots, rapid pacing, and romantic themes.

Michael Curtiz made Red Heels and The Golden Butterfly, and once directed 14-year-old Greta Garbo in Sweden.

Michael Curtiz launched the career of Lucy Doraine, who went on to become an international star, along with that of Lili Damita, who later married Errol Flynn.

However, The Moon of Israel caught the attention of Jack and Harry Warner, and Harry went to Europe in 1926 just to meet Michael Curtiz and watch him work as director.

The Warners were impressed that Michael Curtiz had developed a unique visual style which was strongly influenced by German Expressionism, with high crane shots and unusual camera angles.

The film showed that Michael Curtiz was fond of including romantic melodrama "against events of vast historical importance, for driving his characters to crises and forcing them to make moral decisions," according to Rosenzweig.

Michael Curtiz offered Curtiz a contract to be a director at his new film studio in Hollywood, Warner Bros.

Michael Curtiz arrived in the United States in the summer of 1926, and began directing at Warner Bros.

Michael Curtiz firmly believed that investigating the background of every story should be done first and done thoroughly before starting a film.

Michael Curtiz never gave second-hand treatment to an assignment once it was accepted.

Michael Curtiz went ahead and graced plot and character with fluid camera movement, exquisite lighting, and a lightning-fast pace.

Michael Curtiz found it necessary to continue such intensive studying of American culture and habits in preparation for most other film genres.

Michael Curtiz can concentrate on those with no worry about his production otherwise.

Michael Curtiz chose Curtiz because he already knew the locale and its people.

The critical success of these films by Michael Curtiz contributed to Warner Bros' becoming the fastest-growing studio in Hollywood.

In 1930, Michael Curtiz directed Mammy, Al Jolson's fourth film after being in Hollywood's first true talking picture, The Jazz Singer.

Michael Curtiz continued the successful genre of adventure films starring Flynn that included The Charge of the Light Brigade, a depiction of the British Light Brigade during the Crimean War.

Michael Curtiz discovered Garfield, a stage actor, by accident, when he came across a discarded screen test he gave, and thought he was very good.

Michael Curtiz then went to Kansas City to intercept the train, where he pulled Garfield off and brought him back to Hollywood.

Garfield and Rains "were brilliant together in this unjustly neglected Curtiz classic," says biographer Patrick J McGrath.

Michael Curtiz was again nominated, solidifying further his status as the studio's most important director.

Michael Curtiz was nominated for the 1938 Oscar for Best Director for both Angels with Dirty Faces and Four Daughters losing to Frank Capra for You Can't Take It with You.

Michael Curtiz had split his votes between two films and had actually the greater number of aggregate Academy votes.

Michael Curtiz won an Academy Award in the category of Best Short Subject, for this film.

Three Westerns directed by Michael Curtiz starring Flynn were Dodge City, Santa Fe Trail co-starring future US president Ronald Reagan, and Virginia City.

Michael Curtiz shot every foot of Dive Bomber with Navy assistance and under strict Navy scrutiny.

Michael Curtiz mounted cameras underneath the wings of planes to dramatize take-offs from the Enterprise, an aircraft carrier launched a few years earlier.

Michael Curtiz portrayed the rampaging, dictatorial captain of a ship in an adaptation of one of Jack London's best known novels.

Michael Curtiz directed another Air Force film, Captains of the Clouds, about the Royal Canadian Air Force.

Shortly after Captains of the Clouds was completed, but released after his next picture, Casablanca, Curtiz directed the musical biopic, Yankee Doodle Dandy, a film about singer, dancer, and composer George M Cohan.

Michael Curtiz directed Casablanca, a World War II-era romantic drama described by Roger Ebert in 1996 as one of the most popular films ever made.

Michael Curtiz took the criticism personally and vowed never again to direct an overtly political film, a promise which he kept.

Michael Curtiz had been one of Hollywood's most prominent and highest-paid stars but her films began losing money, and by the end of the 1930s, she was labeled "box office poison".

Michael Curtiz was aware that Crawford guarded her screen image very carefully, and that she truly cared about quality.

Michael Curtiz directed William Powell and Irene Dunne in Life with Father, a family comedy.

Michael Curtiz said that he was less concerned with looks than personality when using an actor.

The subsequent films did poorly whether as part of the changes in the film industry in this period or because Michael Curtiz "had no skills in shaping the entirety of a picture".

Michael Curtiz's films continued to cover a wide range of genres, including biopics, comedies, and musicals.

Michael Curtiz followed with I'll See You in My Dreams, with Doris Day and Danny Thomas.

Michael Curtiz was shocked at being offered a lead in her first film, and admitted to Curtiz that she was a singer without acting experience.

Michael Curtiz directed many films for Paramount, including White Christmas, We're No Angels, and King Creole.

White Christmas, Michael Curtiz's second adaptation of an Irving Berlin musical, was a major box-office success, the highest-grossing film of 1954.

Michael Curtiz directed The Scarlet Hour, which starred newcomers Carol Ohmart and Tom Tryon.

The final film that Michael Curtiz directed was The Comancheros, released six months before his death from cancer on April 10,1962.

Michael Curtiz was ill during the shoot, but star John Wayne took over directing on the days Michael Curtiz was too ill to work.

Michael Curtiz always invested the time necessary to prepare all aspects of a film before shooting.

Michael Curtiz should know more clearly than anyone else what is coming, what to expect.

Michael Curtiz turned out Front Page Woman in only three weeks, despite its rapid-fire newspaper dialogue with Bette Davis, then turned around and made Captain Blood almost entirely on the sound stage without having to leave the studio.

Sidney Rosenzweig argues that Michael Curtiz had his own personal style, which was in place by the time of his move to America: "high crane shots to establish a story's environment; unusual camera angles and complex compositions in which characters are often framed by physical objects; much camera movement; subjective shots, in which the camera becomes the character's eye; and high contrast lighting with pools of shadows".

In preparing scenes, Michael Curtiz liked to compare himself to an artist, painting with characters, light, motion, and background on a canvas.

However, during his career, this "individualism," says Robertson, "was hidden from public view" and undervalued because, unlike many other directors, Michael Curtiz's films covered such a wide spectrum of different genres.

Michael Curtiz was therefore seen by many as a versatile master technician who worked under Warner Bros.

Michael Curtiz's brother observed that Curtiz was "shy, almost humble," in his private life, as opposed to his "take-charge" attitude at work.

Michael Curtiz's attitude did not change when he joined a large studio, despite being given large spectacles to direct.

Michael Curtiz was always extremely active: he worked very long days, took part in several sports in his spare time, and was often found to sleep under a cold shower.

Michael Curtiz skipped lunches since they interfered with his work and he felt they often made him tired.

Michael Curtiz was therefore dismissive of actors who ate lunch, believing that "lunch bums" had no energy for work in the afternoons.

Michael Curtiz hated to go home at the end of the day, said Wallis.

Michael Curtiz earned the nickname "Iron Mike" from his friends, since he tried to keep physically fit by playing polo when he had time, and owned a stable of horses for his recreation at home.

Michael Curtiz attributed his fitness and level of energy solely to sober living.

Michael Curtiz was not popular with most of his colleagues, many of whom thought him arrogant.

Michael Curtiz got along very well with Claude Rains, whom he directed in ten films.

Michael Curtiz spoke terrible English; his English was always a joke on the set.

Michael Curtiz struggled with English as he was too busy filming to learn the language.

Michael Curtiz sometimes used pantomimes to show what he wanted an actor to do, which led to many amusing anecdotes about his choice of words when directing.

David Niven never forgot Michael Curtiz's saying to "bring on the empty horses" when he wanted to "bring out the horses without riders," so much so that he used it for the title of his memoir.

Similar stories abound: For the final scene in Casablanca Michael Curtiz asked the set designer for a "poodle" on the ground so the wet steps of the actors could be seen on camera.

The next day the set designer brought a little dog not realizing Michael Curtiz meant "puddle" not "poodle".

Edward G Robinson, whom Curtiz directed in The Sea Wolf, had a different opinion about language handicaps by foreigners to Hollywood:.

When he left for the United States, Michael Curtiz left behind an illegitimate son and an illegitimate daughter.

Michael Curtiz had a lengthy affair with Lili Damita starting in 1925 and is sometimes reported to have married her, but film scholar Alan K Rode states in his 2017 biography of Curtiz that this is a modern legend, and there is no contemporary evidence to support it.

Michael Curtiz had left Europe before the rise of Nazism: other members of his family were less fortunate.

Michael Curtiz once asked Jack Warner, who was going to Budapest in 1938, to contact his family and help them get exit visas.

Michael Curtiz paid part of his own salary into the European Film Fund, a benevolent association which helped European refugees in the film business establish themselves in the US.

Michael Curtiz had numerous affairs; Meredyth once left him for a short time but they remained married until 1961, when they separated.

Michael Curtiz was Curtiz's helper whenever his need to deal with scripts or other elements went beyond his grasp of English and he often phoned her for advice when presented with a problem while filming.

Michael Curtiz was the stepfather of movie and television director John Meredyth Lucas, who talks about him in his autobiography Eighty Odd Years in Hollywood.

Michael Curtiz died from cancer on April 10,1962, aged 75.

Michael Curtiz is interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

Michael Curtiz is the classic example of a studio director in that he could turn his hand to almost anything.

Michael Curtiz could go from any genre to another, and somehow this Hungarian knew exactly how those genres worked.

Michael Curtiz directed some of the best known films of the 20th century, achieving numerous award-winning performances from actors.

Michael Curtiz directed 10 actors to Oscar nominations: Paul Muni, John Garfield, James Cagney, Walter Huston, Humphrey Bogart, Claude Rains, Joan Crawford, Ann Blyth, Eve Arden, and William Powell.

Michael Curtiz earned a reputation as a harsh taskmaster to his actors, as he micromanaged every detail on the set.

Hal B Wallis, who produced a number of his major films, including Casablanca, said Curtiz had always been his favorite director:.

Michael Curtiz was a superb director with an amazing command of lighting, mood and action.

Michael Curtiz could handle any kind of picture: melodrama, comedy, Western, historical epic or love story.

Six of Michael Curtiz's films were nominated for Best Picture: Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Four Daughters, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Casablanca, and Mildred Pierce.