54 Facts About Paul Fejos

Pal Fejos, known professionally as Paul Fejos, was a Hungarian-American director of feature films and documentaries who worked in a number of countries including the United States.

Paul Fejos studied medicine in his youth and became a prominent anthropologist later in life.

Paul Fejos began to direct films in 1919 or 1920 for Mobil Studios in Hungary until he escaped in 1923 to flee the White Terror and the Horthy regime.

Paul Fejos made his way to New York City and then eventually to Hollywood where he began production on his first American feature film, The Last Moment, in October 1927.

The truth is the family of Paul Fejos' mother originated in Italy, but did have an aristocratic background, while Paul Fejos' father was a pharmacist in Dunafoldvar.

Shortly before Paul Fejos was born, his father sold his business and moved the family to Budapest to buy a shop there.

Paul Fejos was then raised by his mother in his grandparents' home.

Paul Fejos was sent to a school run by Piarist Fathers in Veszprem and later to a school in Kecskemet.

World War I started soon afterward and Paul Fejos worked as a medical orderly for the Imperial Austrian Army on the Italian front lines.

Some additional myths about Paul Fejos' life surfaced a year later that he was an officer in the Hussars, was wounded three times and that he was the first person to pilot a combat airplane.

Paul Fejos began working as a set painter for an opera company and then eventually for the Orient-Film production company.

Paul Fejos began directing films in either 1919 or 1920 for Mobil Studios in Hungary.

Paul Fejos always saw film as closer to painting than to theater and was more concerned about issues of light and shadow than story.

Paul Fejos stated at the time that no great film would be made until it could be shot in color.

Paul Fejos first traveled to Vienna, where Max Reinhardt briefly employed him.

Paul Fejos then headed to Berlin and worked as an extra in Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen.

Paul Fejos then moved to Paris and staged an unsuccessful production of L'Homme, the avant-garde play of Walter Hasenclever.

Paul Fejos arrived in New York City penniless and speaking little English, but managed to get several low-paying jobs at funeral parlors and piano factories.

Paul Fejos's English improved and, by the spring of 1924, Fejos got a job as a laboratory technician at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research.

Paul Fejos earned $80 a week and was employed there for two years.

Paul Fejos landed a few odd jobs working on scripts.

On one of his hitchhiking trips, Paul Fejos was picked up by Edward Spitz, a rich, young New Yorker who had recently moved to Hollywood with ambitions to produce films.

Paul Fejos told Spitz about his movie career in Hungary and convinced Spitz to finance a feature film.

In October 1927, Paul Fejos began production on his first American feature.

Paul Fejos convinced actor friends to appear in the film for free, promising compensation if the movie were successful.

Paul Fejos rented studio space by the minute instead of by the day and hired Leon Shamroy, an inexperienced cameraman.

Paul Fejos utilized sets from other movies and changed the script when necessary for the settings.

Paul Fejos obtained free film stock from the DuPont company, which was trying to compete with the more established Kodak and Agfa companies.

Paul Fejos settled with Universal Studios because its contract offered him complete artistic control.

In 1928, Fejos quickly began production on his next and best-known film, Lonesome, from a script by Edward T Lowe Jr.

Later that year, Paul Fejos began production on his largest and most ambitious film, Broadway, based on the hit stage production produced by Jed Harris, George Abbott and Phillip Dunning.

Paul Fejos was given a $1 million budget, most of which was spent on the huge cubist nightclub set and a 28-ton camera crane that was the largest and most versatile one built by that time.

The movie was only a modest success and Paul Fejos considered it a failure.

In 1930, Paul Fejos became an American citizen and began filming the musical Captain of the Guard.

John S Robertson finish the movie, and Fejos received no screen credit.

Paul Fejos then worked on King of Jazz, on which John Murray Anderson received the official directing credit.

That only led to Paul Fejos directing the German and French language versions of The Big House.

In 1931, Paul Fejos left Hollywood, accepting an invitation from Pierre Braunberger to direct early sound films in France.

Paul Fejos complained to a reporter that Hollywood was too commercial and like a drug for the public.

Paul Fejos then made the ambitious Fantomas, a remake of the famous serial made by Louis Feuillade in the 1910s.

In 1932, Paul Fejos returned to Hungary to direct Spring Shower, which some film critics have called his best movie.

Paul Fejos dies in poverty only to find herself having to scrub floors in Heaven.

In 1933, Paul Fejos moved to Austria and made Ray of Sunshine, again starring Annabella.

Paul Fejos loved the country so much that he stayed for nine months.

Paul Fejos filmed over 30,000 feet of footage of animals, plants, tribal societies and local customs, all of which was unusable for a theatrical feature.

Paul Fejos collected many artifacts and eventually donated them to the Royal Danish Geographical Society.

In 1936, Fejos married Inga Arvad, a Danish journalist noted both for being a guest of Adolf Hitler at the 1936 Summer Olympics and for a romantic relationship with John F Kennedy.

Svensk Filmindustri then commissioned Paul Fejos to make a series of ethnographic films from 1937 to 1938 in such countries as Indonesia, the Philippines, New Guinea, Ceylon and Thailand.

Paul Fejos immediately contacted Wenner-Gren, who agreed to give additional financing for the expedition.

Paul Fejos spent a year in Peru studying the culture and filming the Yagua tribe.

In 1941, Paul Fejos stopped traveling and making films to become both the director of research and acting head of the Viking Fund, a non-profit foundation based in New York City that Wenner-Gren created that year.

Paul Fejos became highly respected in his field and was considered ahead of his time for calling for communication amongst various branches of anthropology.

Paul Fejos taught during this time at Stanford, Yale and Columbia universities.

Paul Fejos succeeded him as the Wenner-Gren Foundation research director after he died on 23 April 1963.