George Stevens Biography

Quick Facts

NAME: George Stevens
OCCUPATION: Director
BIRTH DATE: December 18, 1904
DEATH DATE: March 08, 1975
PLACE OF BIRTH: Oakland, California

PLACE OF DEATH: Lancaster, California

more about George

Best Known For

Academy Award-winning director George Stevens is remembered for classic films including Shane (1953) and The Diary of Anne Frank (1959).

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George Stevens

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Synopsis

Born in California in 1904, Academy Award-winning director George Stevens became known for his camera techniques and romantic perspectives. He is remembered for a number of classic films, including Shane (1953), The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) and The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965).

Profile

(born Dec. 18, 1904, Oakland, Calif., U.S.—died March 8, 1975, Lancaster, Calif.) American motion-picture director known for his films exhibiting brilliant camera techniques and a romanticized view of life.

Both of his parents were actors, and Stevens was the stage manager of his father's company until 1921, when he went to Hollywood to become a cameraman. He filmed many of the early Laurel and Hardy two-reel comedies and earned a reputation for meticulous craftsmanship. Six years after he directed his first picture, Stevens achieved fame with Alice Adams (1935) and Annie Oakley (1935). A series of comedies followed, including Swing Time (1936), a musical with Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire; Vivacious Lady (1938); Woman of the Year (1942); The Talk of the Town (1942); and The More the Merrier (1943).

Stevens' later films were praised for effective camera work and overall visual composition, for the careful integration of music and visuals, and for the skillful handling of sentimental themes. Although I Remember Mama (1948), his first postwar picture, idealized the past, it is praised for its realistic background and emotional restraint. He won the Academy Award for best directing for A Place in the Sun (1951), a screen adaptation of Theodore Dreiser's novel An American Tragedy, and again in 1956 for Giant. He is also remembered for Shane (1953), a western now considered a classic; The Diary of Anne Frank (1959); and The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965). His last film was The Only Game in Town (1969).