Siegel S., Siegel B. The Encyclopedia Of Hollywood
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of them in the 1950s. Unfortunately, even an actor of
Poitier’s growing reputation was cast only in films about big-
otry. It rarely occurred to casting directors that he might star
in a film that had nothing to do with race. Nonetheless, he
played an important role in changing America’s stereotyped
views of blacks with movies such as Cry, The Beloved Country
(1952), The Blackboard Jungle (1955), and The Defiant Ones
(1958). For his performance in the last, he received a Best
Actor Oscar nomination.
He won the Oscar five years later for his performance in
Lilies of the Field (1963), but the 1960s didn’t differ much
from the 1950s with regard to the kinds of roles he played.
Movies such as A Raisin in the Sun (1961), Pressure Point
(1962), and A Patch of Blue (1965) dealt with the issue of
racism in America. There were, happily, a few exceptions,
such as his roles in A Slender Thread (1966) and the sleeper hit
of 1967, To Sir with Love.
When
STANLEY KRAMER
decided to make the controver-
sial film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? (1967), a movie about
an interracial couple, Poitier was, again, the obvious casting
choice for the male lead. The film was a media event and a
box-office success, and along with To Sir with Love and a third
hit in that same year, In the Heat of the Night (1967), the actor
had finally become a Hollywood superstar.
His movie roles began to widen slightly but, with the
exception of They Call Me Mister Tibbs!, his later films didn’t
fare well at the ticket booth. His image as the black man most
acceptable to whites rankled the more militant members of
the black community, and his popularity began to fade
despite some excellent films, particularly Brother John (1971),
a film Poitier also produced.
Never known for comedy, Poitier expanded his talents in
two directions, becoming both a director and a comic actor
in a series of three popular films with Bill Cosby, Uptown
Saturday Night (1974), Let’s Do It Again (1975), and A Piece of
the Action (1977). He also directed other films without
appearing in them, most notably Stir Crazy (1980) and
Hanky Panky (1982).
As an actor, Poitier took a decade’s sabbatical before reap-
pearing on the big screen in a flurry of activity in 1988 with
Little Nikita and Shoot to Kill. The films received a great deal
of media attention because of Poitier’s return to acting, but
both were critical and box-office flops.
Poitier continued to be active throughout the 1990s,
appearing in some television shows and in films. In Separate
but Equal (1991), made for TV, he played NAACP lawyer
Thurgood Marshall in the story of Brown v. the Board of Edu-
cation; later (1997), he played Nelson Mandela in a cable
docudrama, Mandela and De Klerk, for which he received an
Emmy nomination; and in 2001 he played the title role in
Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey. His feature films during
this period include Sneakers (1992), about computer hackers,
and The Jackal (1997), in which, as an FBI agent, he hires
RICHARD GERE
to track down villain
BRUCE WILLIS
. In recog-
nition of his work, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award
from the American Film Institute. In the political arena, he
has served as the Bahamas’s ambassador to Japan. More
recently Poitier has made political- and African–American-
themed films mainly for cable and television markets, notably
Scandalize My Name: Stories from the Blacklist (1998), League of
Legends (1998), Free of Eden (1999), The Simple Life of Noah
Dearborn (1999), and Last Brickmaker in America (2001).
See also
RACISM IN HOLLYWOOD
.
Polanski, Roman (1933– ) He is a director of tech-
nical virtuosity whose themes have centered on obsession,
moral corruption, and violence. If ever there was a director
whose preoccupations complemented the alienation of the
1960s and 1970s, it was Polanski. Both in America and
abroad, he made several dark and moody hit films, garnering
two Oscar nominations, the first for what many consider his
best film, Chinatown (1974), and the other for Tess (1980).
Born to Polish-Jewish parents in Paris, Polanski grew up
in Krakow from the age of three. His was not a pleasant
youth. Both his mother and father were sent to a concentra-
tion camp when he was eight years old. He never saw his
mother again. He lived the life of a street urchin and survived
in the midst of terrible suffering and cruelty. He found what
little solace he could in the movies, which he attended with
near religious fervor.
His father survived the camps and found his 12-year-old
son in Krakow selling newspapers on the street. The elder
Polanski sent Roman to a trade school, but the budding
entertainer was soon acting on a radio show. During his late
teenage years, he worked in the theater as an actor and in
1954 joined the Polish Film School at Lodz after being
turned down at the state acting school. The theater’s loss was
the cinema’s gain.
He began making award-winning short films, including
Two Men and a Wardrobe (1959), often writing his own screen-
plays and acting in his movies as well. After film school he
made several other shorts, but finally made his first feature
film, the internationally acclaimed Knife in the Water (1962).
Not long after, he went to England to make Repulsion (1965)
and Cul-de-Sac (1966). He received Hollywood support for
the British production of the black comedy The Fearless Vam-
pire Killers (1967). All three of these films became substantial
art-house circuit hits in America, prompting
PARAMOUNT
PICTURES
to give him the financing to make the sinister hor-
ror movie Rosemary’s Baby (1968). The film was a hit, admired
by the critics for its creepy ambiance and visual flair.
Polanski seemed destined for a long and happy Holly-
wood life when in 1969 his eight-months-pregnant bride of
one year, Sharon Tate, was savagely murdered by the
deranged followers of Charles Manson. Shocked and reeling,
Polanski fled to England and made a cathartically violent ver-
sion of Macbeth (1971).
He returned to America to make Chinatown; his two sub-
sequent movies, Ché (1973) and The Tenant (1976), were
made abroad. It was after making The Tenant, while staying in
JACK NICHOLSON
’s California home on a visit, that he was
arrested for allegedly drugging and raping a thirteen-year-
old girl. He pleaded innocent at first, then later agreed to
reduced charges. Freed on bail, however, he hurriedly left the
country and refused to return to stand trial. He continued
POLANSKI, ROMAN
318
making movies in Europe, including the widely admired Tess,
with which he turned his teenaged protégée, Nastassia Kin-
ski, into an international star. After a long absence from the
screen, Polanski went on to make the poorly received Pirates
(1986), but rebounded with the hit thriller Frantic (1988).
Frantic was followed by Bitter Moon (1992), an erotic
thriller that introduced Hugh Grant to the screen, and The
Ninth Gate (2000), a supernatural, psychological thriller star-
ring
JOHNNY DEPP
. Polanski’s later period has arguably pro-
duced two masterpieces, one an adaptation of Ariel
Dorfman’s political play Death and the Maiden (1994), starring
SIGOURNEY WEAVER
and Ben Kingsley, and, even more
impressive, The Pianist (2002), in which Adrien Brody played
a Polish Jew caught in the Holocaust. The film won Polanski
the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival and went on to
win an Academy Award, though the director was not given
dispensation to attend the ceremony to accept the Oscar. In
telling this story, Polanski was in part drawing upon his own
childhood experiences in Poland, where he eluded capture by
the Nazis. It was, therefore, a personal project that brought
him international acclaim.
Pollack, Sydney (1934– ) One of the most critically
acclaimed and commercially successful directors of the 1970s
and 1980s, he owes part of his success to his close and
rewarding professional association with
ROBERT REDFORD
,
who has starred in six of his films to date. Pollack’s movies
have received a staggering 43 Oscar nominations, including
four for Best Picture. Pollack, himself, has been nominated as
Best Director three times, winning an
ACADEMY AWARD
in
that category for Out of Africa (1985). The central theme of
Pollack’s works clearly suggests why his films have been so
popular; his stories usually focus on heroes and heroines
trapped in an often hostile society.
Born in South Bend, Indiana, Pollack traveled to New
York to pursue an acting career. He was a student at the
famous Neighborhood Playhouse, from which he emerged a
competent actor, working in television and on the stage in the
mid-1950s. He went on to teach drama at New York Univer-
sity and to direct for television before getting the opportunity
to direct his first feature film, The Slender Thread (1965).
He began his association with the young Robert Redford
when he directed This Property Is Condemned (1966), a film
that did not set the world on fire. Pollack made a couple of
action films with
BURT LANCASTER
without much distinction
before the director emerged as a serious and provocative
filmmaker with They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969), a
depression-era drama centering on the trials and tribulations
of participants in a dance marathon. He followed that three
years later with the hit saga about a mountain man, Jeremiah
Johnson (1972). The film renewed his collaboration with
Robert Redford.
Pollack’s best and most successful films during the rest of
the 1970s all starred Redford. The Way We Were (1973)
teamed Redford with
BARBRA STREISAND
in one of the most
celebrated casting coups of the decade. The movie was an
intelligent examination of the red scare in Hollywood during
the late 1940s and early 1950s, which succeeded at the same
time as a love story. Later came Three Days of the Condor
(1975) and The Electric Horseman (1979), both with Redford.
Pollack’s non-Redford movies during the 1970s, The Yakuza
(1975) and Bobby Deerfield (1977), were flops. They also hap-
pened to be the only two films during that time period that
Pollack also produced.
The director has consistently worked with Hollywood’s
biggest stars. In 1981, he directed
PAUL NEWMAN
in the jour-
nalism thriller Absence of Malice. In 1982, he directed
DUSTIN
HOFFMAN
in the superhit Tootsie, also appearing in the film
himself, playing the Hoffman character’s agent. In 1985, he
asked Redford to play the thankless role of
MERYL STREEP
’s
love interest in Out of Africa and the actor, out of loyalty to
Pollack, obliged. Redford worked again with Pollack in 1990
POLLACK, SYDNEY
319
Producer-director Sydney Pollack has worked with the
biggest names in contemporary Hollywood, among them
Tom Cruise, Harrison Ford, Dustin Hoffman, Paul
Newman, Robert Redford, and Meryl Streep, bringing out
many of these actors’ best performances in a long list of
critical and commercial hits.
(PHOTO COURTESY
COLUMBIA PICTURES)
when he played a potentially sinister gambler caught up in the
revolutionary fervor of Castro’s Cuba in Havana (1990).
TOM
CRUISE
played another character caught in a moral dilemma
in The Firm, directed by Pollack in 1993 and one of the top
grossers of the year. Cruise and Pollack would later appear
together as actors in another sinister setting in
STANLEY
KUBRICK
’s last film, Eyes Wide Shut (1999). Pollack first made
his mark as an actor in a significant role in
WOODY ALLEN
’s
Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989).
Not all Pollack films are necessarily sinister, however, as
was proved in his remake of Sabrina (1995), starring
HARRI
-
SON FORD
and Julia Ormond. Harrison Ford was soon work-
ing with Pollack again in Random Hearts (1999), a political
thriller costarring Kristin Scott Thomas as a congresswoman
from New Hampshire. Pollack also acted in Random Hearts,
which was a typical Pollack project thematically in that it
offered an investigation into the issue of political corruption
and its disturbing personal implications. Pollack has worked
as an actor, a director, and a producer on most of his latter
films. A consummate and reliable craftsman, he has demon-
strated an ability to move among genres.
Porter, Cole (1892–1964) A major composer-lyricist
of 20th-century popular music. Famous for his haunting
melodies and sophisticated lyrics, Porter wrote 23 Broadway
musicals, 12 of which were brought to the screen. A number
of those films, however, used only a few (or even none) of
Porter’s songs. Among those that used much or all of his
music were Panama Hattie (1942), Kiss Me Kate (1953), Silk
Stockings (1957), and Can-Can (1960). While Porter did not
write music specifically for movies, he did contribute songs to
11 films in addition to his filmed stage musicals.
The composer was born to a wealthy family and had a
comprehensive education, attending Yale University and
Harvard Law School, but music was always a part of his life
(he wrote his first song when he was 11). After a short stint in
the French Foreign Legion in 1916, Porter settled down to
write for the Broadway stage. His success came quickly, but it
wasn’t until 1929, after the talkie revolution occurred, that
there was a rush to adapt his musicals to the big screen and
to use his songs in various films.
His music was first heard in the movies in The Battle of
Paris (1929) when Gertrude Lawrence sang “They All Fall in
Love,” but he is better remembered for “Night and Day” in
The Gay Divorcée (1934) and for his many hits in films such as
Born to Dance (1936), Rosalie (1937), DuBarry Was a Lady
(1943), The Pirate (1948), Anything Goes (1936 and 1956),
High Society (1956), and Les Girls (1957).
Ever the image of 1920s sophistication and style but
crippled by a tragic horseback riding accident in 1937,
Porter made an excellent subject for a biopic. He was played
by
CARY GRANT
in Night and Day (1947), a film that featured
Porter’s music but had an unfortunate script. Long after his
death, Porter’s music was still fodder for the movies, and his
tunes were used in the
PETER BOGDANOVICH
flop At Long
Last Love (1975), with
BURT REYNOLDS
and Cybill Shepherd
massacring the music.
Porter, Edwin S. See
THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY
.
Powell, Dick (1904–1963) A singer, actor, director,
producer, and business executive who had surprising durabil-
ity as a film star. Powell warbled through nearly a decade’s
worth of musicals, the best of them very early in his career;
yet his popularity with movie fans was substantial, thanks to
a pleasant and pleasing onscreen personality. In the mid-
1940s, desperate to change his image, Powell emerged a
hard-boiled tough guy with a power and range that many
critics found surprising. When the movies finally gave him
the cold shoulder in the early 1950s, he became a power-
house in the burgeoning TV medium as one of the
cofounders of Four Star Television, eventually branching out
to produce and direct films in the mid-1950s.
Born Richard E. Powell, he had an early interest in
music, singing in his church choir and becoming a versatile
musician. He worked for a telephone company after graduat-
ing from college but quit to join a band. He was on the road
for several years, playing instruments and vocalizing until he
was discovered by
WARNER BROS
. It was 1932; the studio was
the early leader in movie musicals and it was in search of
fresh new talent. Powell was first cast in a small role in Blessed
Event (1932). Several other films followed before he shot to
stardom in Warner’s classic backstage musical, 42nd Street
(1933). He appeared with Ruby Keeler in the film, the first of
seven such pairings.
Powell went on to play juvenile leads and (later) starring
roles in the best of all the Warner musicals of the early and
mid-1930s, including Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), Footlight
Parade (1933), Wonder Bar (1934), Dames (1934), and Gold
Diggers of 1935 (1935). Unfortunately, he continued to star in
Warner musicals long after they became pedestrian vehicles
with little flair and only minor box-office appeal. He acted
and sang in an endless array of films such as Colleen (1936),
The Singing Marine (1937), The Cowboy from Brooklyn (1938),
and Naughty But Nice (1939).
At the end of the decade, Powell refused to renew his
Warner Bros. contract. Looking for meatier roles in better
films, he had only middling success at first. He scored a hit in
Preston Sturges’s delightful comedy, Christmas in July (1940),
played straight drama in I Want a Divorce (1940) with his then
(second) wife (1936–45),
JOAN BLONDELL
, but soon ended
up in light musicals such as Star Spangled Rhythm (1943), Rid-
ing High (1943), and Meet the People (1944).
His career finally began to change when he starred in
René Clair’s It Happened Tomorrow (1944), a fantasy film
about a man who receives the daily newspaper a day early,
learning the news 24 hours before the rest of the world. It
was a clever film, and Powell was effective enough to win the
tough-guy role of Philip Marlowe in the screen adaptation of
Raymond Chandler’s novel Farewell, My Lovely, retitled Mur-
der, My Sweet (1945) so that audiences wouldn’t think it was
yet another Dick Powell musical. He played Marlowe as
gritty and grubby, and it worked. During the rest of the
1940s, the actor mostly starred in films noir, movies such as
Johnny O’Clock (1947), Pitfall (1948), and Right Cross (1950).
PORTER, COLE
320
By the early 1950s, however, moviegoers had had enough
of Powell as either a singer or a tough guy. Wisely, he turned
to television, forming Four Star Television, a production
company that presented Four Star Playhouse, The Dick Powell
Show, and a number of other TV series to an ever-growing
audience. He acted, directed, and produced for television,
becoming an early giant in the new medium.
His success was such that he was again solicited for the
movies, appearing in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) and
Susan Slept Here (1954), which was his last big-screen acting
credit. In the meantime, however, he began to direct and pro-
duce feature films, making a number of run-of-the-mill
movies including Split Second (1952), The Conqueror (1956),
You Can’t Run Away from It (1956), The Enemy Below (1957),
and The Hunters (1958).
He succumbed to cancer at the age of 59 in 1963, sur-
vived by his third wife, actress June Allyson.
Powell, William (1892–1984) A debonair actor
graced with wit and charm, he became a star playing sophis-
ticated heroes. Though best remembered as the urbane
detective Nick Charles in a half-dozen Thin Man movies,
Powell’s long and illustrious career comprised 95 films made
during 33 years. His Hollywood career can be neatly divided
into three periods according to the parts he played: villain,
leading man, and character actor; he was superb at all three.
Though not possessed of conventional good looks, Powell
had a distinctive face with a trademark mustache and was
blessed with a marvelous, resonant speaking voice. Powell
received three Oscar nominations for Best Actor but never
won the coveted statuette.
Born to a middle-class family, Powell decided to become
an actor against his father’s wishes. According to Lawrence J.
Quirk in The Complete Films of William Powell, the young
would-be actor borrowed $700 from an aunt to attend the
American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. He strug-
gled to make ends meet throughout most of his twenties, mak-
ing his New York stage debut in 1912 in The Ne’er Do Well and
finally having his first Broadway hit in Spanish Love in 1920.
Powell took a chance on the movies when he was invited
to play a villain in the John Barrymore version of Sherlock
Holmes (1922). It was a memorable role in a hit film, and
Powell was on his way to playing a series of villains through-
out the rest of the silent era, most notably in Romola (1924),
Beau Geste (1926), and The Last Command (1928).
Powell worked steadily throughout the silent era, but he
was never the star of his films. That soon changed with the
advent of sound. His stage training finally paid off in a big
way when Powell’s voice rang clear on the primitive sound-
track of Interference (1928). Paramount decided to try him out
in more heroic roles, starring him as the detective Philo
Vance in The Canary Murder Case (1929). The film was a hit,
and Powell went on to star in three more Philo Vance movies
during the next few years. In addition to playing a hero, the
actor established himself as a versatile light comedian as well
as a romantic leading man. His comic ability was demon-
strated in Charming Sinners (1929), and as a romantic lead he
came to the fore in Behind the Make-up (1930), in which he
costarred with Kay Francis, with whom he was successfully
paired in a number of films before he began his more famous
screen partnership with
MYRNA LOY
.
Powell had been well paid by Paramount and, later,
WARNER BROS
., but during the early years of the depression
his drawing power didn’t appear to justify his large salary.
MGM took a chance on him, making him the second male
lead after
CLARK GABLE
in Manhattan Melodrama (1934).
The film did excellent business at the box office, but, more
important, the chemistry between Powell and leading lady
Myrna Loy was so obvious that director W. S. Van Dyke
decided to put the two actors together again in his next film,
The Thin Man (1934). Playing Nick and Nora Charles, ably
abetted by their dog, Asta, Powell and Loy turned the
Dashiell Hammett mystery into a blockbuster hit. Powell was
nominated for his first Oscar, and audiences so loved his pair-
ing with Loy that the two stars eventually appeared together
in a total of 13 movies, five of them sequels to The Thin Man.
Perhaps Powell’s best year of the 1930s was 1936. In that
year, he scored in the title role of the Best Picture Academy
Award winner, The Great Ziegfeld (1936), the title role of My
Man Godfrey (1936), for which he won his second Oscar nom-
ination, and in the hit comedy Libeled Lady (1936). By this
time he had already divorced his second wife,
CAROLE LOM
-
BARD
, and was deeply involved with
JEAN HARLOW
, who died
before they could wed. It was shortly after Harlow’s death
that Powell, himself, nearly died of cancer. His life was saved
by two major surgeries, and he was off the screen for nearly
two years, missing the opportunity to play opposite
GRETA
GARBO
in Ninotchka (1939).
Powell returned to the screen in Another Thin Man
(1939), rebuilding his career as he gained his strength. Except
for his teamings with Myrna Loy in the early 1940s and an
amusing comedy with
HEDY LAMARR
, The Heavenly Body
(1944), Powell’s films were becoming second rate. Well into
his fifties, he was content to play character roles if only there
were decent ones to be had. Happily, one came along in 1947
in Life with Father. Playing the patriarch of a turn-of-the-cen-
tury New York family, Powell was brilliant; at once taciturn
and vulnerable, his performance was the triumph of his
career. The film, based on a hit Broadway play, was a critical
and box-office winner, bringing Powell renewed prestige,
along with his third and last Best Actor Oscar nomination.
He followed Life with Father with another hit, The Sena-
tor Was Indiscreet (1947). His films thereafter were generally
minor affairs, except for movies such as The Girl Who Had
Everything (1953) and How to Marry a Millionaire (1955), in
which he had featured appearances. In his last movies, Pow-
ell gave a warm, charming performance in the supporting
role of Doc in the hit Mr. Roberts (1955). He retired from the
movie business and with his third wife, former actress Diana
Lewis (whom he married in 1940), settled in Palm Springs,
California, where he lived until his death at the age of 91.
Power, Tyrone (1913–1958) A strikingly handsome
actor of modest skill who appeared in nearly 50 films, mostly
POWER, TYRONE
321
in starring roles. His reserved personal style balanced his
intimidating good looks, and he remained a favorite of female
fans even when his face began to grow jowly. During his early
years of stardom, however, he was a potent matinee idol and
top box-office attraction. Power was among
TWENTIETH
CENTURY
–
FOX
’s handful of major stars, and he was used in
many of their most important films, more than a dozen of
them directed by
HENRY KING
.
Born Tyrone Power Jr. to a theatrical family, he was the
great grandson of the legendary Irish actor Tyrone Power
(1797–1841) and the son of the popular stage and silent-
screen performer also named Tyrone Power (1869–1931).
The young Power wanted nothing more than to follow in
the footsteps of his elders and, with help from his father,
made his theatrical debut in a Chicago production of The
Merchant of Venice (1931). Also thanks to his father, he was
given the opportunity to make a brief film appearance in To m
Brown of Culver (1932). But before the film’s release his
father died of a heart attack, and the young actor had to fend
for himself.
Power struggled in Hollywood and made only one more
film, Flirtation Walk (1934), before leaving to make his way
on the stage. A short while later, though, a Twentieth Cen-
tury–Fox scout spotted him in a play and he was signed to a
contract. His first two films at Fox, Girls’ Dormitory (1936)
and Ladies in Love (1936), were of little consequence, but
they did display his powerful screen presence and handsome
(some might say pretty) face. Fox, in desperate need of stars,
gave him a leading role in the big-budget production of
Lloyds of London (1936), and the result was instant stardom
for Power.
He went on to make many of his most memorable films
during the next five years, a great many of them period
pieces, such as In Old Chicago (1938), Alexander’s Ragtime
Band (1938), Suez (1938), Rose of Washington Square (1939),
and Brigham Young (1940), as well as swashbucklers, includ-
ing The Mark of Zorro (1940), Blood and Sand (1941), and The
Black Swan (1942). While he was successful in the contem-
porary gangster film Johnny Apollo (1940), many critics
thought his soft features made him a poor choice for such a
tough-guy role.
He was nonetheless tough enough to join the U.S.
Marine Corps as a pilot during World War II. In 1946 he
returned to Hollywood in a pretentious version of Somerset
Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge, which was a hit. His next film,
the bleak Nightmare Alley (1947), brought him the best
reviews of his career, but it was a flop at the box office.
For the better part of a decade, Power’s career drifted
downward. He was in a few good films and some commercial
successes, however, among them Captain from Castile (1947),
Rawhide (1951), and The Eddy Duchin Story (1956). In the
absence of good movie scripts, he had taken to working on
the stage during the 1950s with equally modest results.
Finally, his film career seemed to be on an upswing in the
latter half of the 1950s when he starred in The Sun Also Rises
(1957) and Witness for the Prosecution (1957). His teaming
with
KING VIDOR
to make Solomon and Sheba (1959) augured
well, but Powell died of a heart attack after shooting a stren-
uous fencing scene with George Sanders.
Power was married three times, including unions with
actresses Annabella (1939–48) and Linda Christian
(1949–55). His children, Taryn, Romina, and Tyrone Power
Jr., have subsequently appeared in films.
Preminger, Otto (1906–1986) A producer-director
whose films do not dramatize a clear conflict between right
and wrong so much as a conflict between flawed points of
view. Such a sophisticated attitude did not always bring view-
ers to Preminger’s movies, but it wasn’t for want of his trying.
He was a consummate showman who made 36 films and well
understood the need to make a profit if he was going to be
able to keep on making movies.
Born the son of Austria’s chief prosecutor (equivalent to
attorney general of the United States, the young Preminger
followed in his father’s footsteps and took his law degree from
the University of Vienna in 1928. But even as he studied law,
Preminger fell in love with the stage, working as an actor and
PREMINGER, OTTO
322
Was there ever a more handsome man in Hollywood than
Tyrone Power? Some might have been sexier or had more
personality—and there were certainly better actors—but
on sheer good looks, Ty Power was the ultimate image of a
male movie star.
(PHOTO COURTESY OF THE SIEGEL
COLLECTION)
later as a producer and director under the tutelage of the
famous Max Reinhardt. While still in Europe, he made his
motion picture directorial debut with Die Grosse Liebe (1931).
Preminger’s reputation as a director was such that he was
invited to New York to direct Libel in 1935, a play he had put
on in Vienna. With Hitler on the rise, Preminger wisely
stayed in America, heading next for Hollywood and Twenti-
eth Century–Fox, where he made two minor films, Under
Your Spell (1936) and Danger—Love at Work (1937). After a
fierce argument with
DARRYL F
.
ZANUCK
, however, Pre-
minger was fired. He returned to Broadway to direct Margin
for Error and with his bald pate, accent, and strutting manner,
acted as the play’s villainous Nazi. The production was a hit,
but it was Preminger’s acting that brought him back to Hol-
lywood—and Fox—to play a Nazi in Pied Piper (1942). When
Fox then wanted him to recreate his role in the film version
of Margin for Error (1943), he refused unless he was also
allowed to direct. With Zanuck away from the studio helping
the war effort, Preminger was given his chance, and he
turned in a winner.
He continued directing at Fox until Zanuck returned in
1944 and was outraged to find Preminger on the lot. Pre-
minger was supposed to direct Laura (1944), but Zanuck
ordered him to produce the film instead. Later, when the
film’s director,
ROUBEN MAMOULIAN
, didn’t pan out, Zanuck
reluctantly turned the picture over to Preminger, who fin-
ished it. Laura became a major hit, bringing Preminger the
first of his two Best Director Oscar nominations.
Preminger stayed at Fox for roughly another decade,
directing and usually producing his own films, but never
quite living up to the success of Laura. Among his better Fox
films were Fallen Angel (1945), Daisy Kenyon (1947), The Fan
(1949), Whirlpool (1950), and Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950).
In the early 1950s, he joined the growing number of
directors who became independents, making a big splash
when he fought the Hays Office over the use of banned
words such as virgin and released The Moon Is Blue (1953)
without the production code seal. The notoriety surrounding
the film turned it into a hit. He later made The Man with the
Golden Arm (1955), which dealt with another production
code taboo, drug abuse, and again he scored at the box office.
The 1950s and early 1960s marked Preminger’s richest and
most adventurous period. In addition to his scrapes with the
Hays Office, which eventually led to a complete overhaul of
the production code, Preminger also courageously produced
and directed two all-black musicals, Carmen Jones (1954) and
Porgy and Bess (1959). He also began to adapt big, best-selling
novels to the screen in the late 1950s with mixed artistic and
commercial results. For instance, he made Bonjour Tristesse
(1958), Anatomy of a Murder (1959), Exodus (1960), Advise and
Consent (1962), and The Cardinal (1963), the last of which
brought him his second Best Director Oscar nomination.
After In Harm’s Way (1965) and Bunny Lake Is Missing
(1965), Preminger began to lose his commercial touch.
Always known as a frugal producer, he managed to keep mak-
ing films until the end of the 1970s despite his poor track
record at the box office. Films such as Skidoo! (1968), Tell Me
That You Love Me, Junie Moon (1970), and the rest of his
movies through to his last, The Human Factor (1979), failed to
excite either critics or filmgoers.
See also
HAYS CODE
.
preproduction The elements of filmmaking that involve
all tasks short of
PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHY
. When a movie
is in preproduction, the producer has hired his or her key
people, and they are all beginning their assignments: The
producer prepares the budget for the film, the screenwriter
either adapts or writes the script, the assistant director breaks
down the script, and the director oversees the preparations of
the set and costume designers. Locations are scouted by the
director (often with the cinematographer in tow). When pre-
production ends, it is finally time for the cameras to roll.
See also
BREAKDOWN
.
Presley, Elvis (1935–1977) The “King of Rock ’n’
Roll” and the eye of a musical hurricane, Elvis popularized a
sexually charged new beat. His recording success was
astounding, and his personal appearances caused near-riots.
The so-called moral leaders of the nation condemned his
blasphemous music and objected to his legendary hip gyra-
tions, which earned him the nickname “Elvis the Pelvis.” But
it wasn’t just his swinging hips and rockabilly sound that drew
audiences: Presley also had personal charm, counterbalanced
by bedroom eyes and a sexy sneer. His overwhelming appeal
to the teenage market could hardly be ignored by Holly-
wood. Previous singing sensations such as
BING CROSBY
and
FRANK SINATRA
had become major movie stars, and Presley
certainly had the same potential. In a career that included 33
movies, his potential—at least commercially—was well real-
ized with ticket sales of roughly $150 million. His movies, in
fact, represent the most commercially successful series of
musicals ever produced by Hollywood.
Born in Tupelo, Mississippi, Presley had an identical twin
who died at birth. The family later moved to Memphis, Ten-
nessee, and the young Presley seemed destined for a career as
a truck driver until he hit it big at Sun Records. RCA quickly
signed him in 1955, and his career began to soar. He had one
hit song after another, and in 1956 he made his movie debut in
Love Me Tender, a post–Civil War western in which he played a
supporting role and sang four songs, including the title tune.
He starred in a total of 30 musicals, most of them formu-
laic and inexpensively produced. They were generally dis-
missed by the critics, and Elvis was considered a poor actor.
Although the majority of his musicals were indeed insipid, it
must be said in Elvis’s defense that he moved through them
with considerable charm and an amiable lack of concern for
their nonsensical plots. After all, the films were mere excuses
for musical numbers, and there were usually a few good songs
per film. There were, however, a handful of genuinely good
Presley musicals, among them Jailhouse Rock (1957), Viva Las
Vegas (1964), and Frankie and Johnny (1966).
Presley also starred in two nonmusicals: Flaming Star
(1960) and Wild in the Country (1961), the latter based on a
Clifford Odets piece. He was quite good in the first but out
PRESLEY, ELVIS
323
of his depth in the second. Nonetheless, it is worth noting
that under the guidance of a good director such as
DONALD
SIEGEL
, who put him through his paces in Viva Las Vegas and
Flaming Star, Presley could be quite impressive.
Although Presley’s music and film careers dipped during
the Beatles-led British invasion of the mid-1960s, his films were
still commercially viable, although they were soon made with
even less attention to plot and production values, making them
almost painfully unwatchable. In his last film, Change of Habit
(1969), Presley actually plays a doctor who falls in love with a
nun (Mary Tyler Moore); it was an embarrassing exercise.
Presley went into semiseclusion after his film career
ended, and he didn’t reemerge until a Las Vegas comeback
gig caused a sensation. Although he continued to tour and
perform, he delved heavily into prescription drugs, which
ultimately led to his death at the age of 42.
Price, Vincent (1911–1993) An actor who appeared in
more than 100 films since 1938. Although best remembered
for his villainous roles in horror movies of the 1950s and
1960s, he played in everything from romances to comedies and
from period pieces to contemporary dramas. Through the bet-
ter part of his career, the tall, intense-looking thespian was a
character actor, using his wonderfully resonant baritone voice
either to suggest a haughty superiority or to portend evil.
Born to a wealthy St. Louis family, Price received an
excellent education that was weighted heavily with an appre-
ciation of the arts. He toured Europe after graduating from
high school and then went on to study art history and Eng-
lish at Yale. Enamored of the theater, he decided to try his
luck on Broadway—with little success. He returned to his
studies, choosing to get his master’s degree in fine arts at the
University of London. However, the theater continued to
beckon him, and this time he had the good fortune to be cast
in a modest role in a play called Chicago at London’s Gate
Theater in 1935. Cultured and sophisticated beyond his
years, he was soon chosen for a lead role in Victoria Regina, an
English play that was then brought, with Price, to Broadway.
He starred opposite Helen Hayes, launching his career with
considerable impetus. Price appeared in a number of impor-
tant Broadway plays throughout the next several years before
Hollywood decided to take a chance on him.
The actor made his film debut in Service de Luxe (1938)
and, during the first decade of his film career, was often cast
in gentlemanly and/or aristocratic leads because of his well-
bred manner and formal speaking style. He was, for instance,
Sir Walter Raleigh in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex
(1939), the Duke of Clarence in Tower of London (1939), Clif-
ford Pyncheon in The House of the Seven Gables (1940), and
Dutour in The Song of Bernadette (1943).
As a byproduct of playing decadent aristocrats, he was
cast in more sinister roles. Movies such as Leave Her to
Heaven (1945), Shock (1946), Dragonwyck (1946), The Bribe
(1949), and The Baron of Arizona (1950) laid the groundwork
for his quintessential villain in House of Wax (1953).
It’s ironic that though his stock as a major actor in impor-
tant features had been slowly descending during the 1940s
and early 1950s, his reputation as an actor and cinematic
presence would finally be made in exploitation “B” movies
such as The Fly (1958), Return of the Fly (1959), The Tingler
(1959), and most importantly, Roger Corman’s “Poe Cycle,”
The House of Usher (1960), The Pit and the Pendulum (1961),
Tales of Terror (1962), The Raven (1963), The Masque of the Red
Death (1964), and The Tomb of Ligeia (1964).
The Corman-Price collaboration would not be appreci-
ated by many critics until some time later, and the actor’s
career continued to slide despite the commercial success of his
horror films. He continued making movies, most of them
overseas, and none of them drew any attention until he starred
in The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971), the sequel, Dr. Phibes Rises
Again (1972), and Theater of Blood (1973). More bad films fol-
lowed. Finally, in 1987, he received some small measure of
acclaim from critics when he joined Lillian Gish, Bette Davis,
and Ann Sothern in The Whales of August, a contemporary film
about four aging friends. Although he appeared in a few more
films in the late 1980s, his last film was fortunately a good one:
He played the crazy scientist who creates the titular
JOHNNY
DEPP
character but dies before he gives him hands in the film
Edward Scissorhands (1990). Price died in 1993.
See also
CORMAN
,
ROGER
.
principal photography Whether on a set or on loca-
tion, this is the filming of all the speaking parts indicated in
PRICE, VINCENT
324
One of the cinema’s most engaging villains, Vincent Price
earned the title of “master of the macabre” after starring
in Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe series in the early
1960s.
(PHOTO BY DAN UMSTEAD, COURTESY OF
VINCENT PRICE)
the shooting script of a movie. If inserts of any kind are
needed, such as second unit footage of a crowd scene, or a
montage of newspaper headlines, these may be shot either
before, during, or after principal photography.
prison pictures Audiences have had an on-again, off-
again interest in movies dealing with prison life. There are
two fundamental reasons underlying the popularity of such
films. First, prison pictures deal in a very direct way with our
primitive desire for freedom. From a psychological point of
view, incarcerating (usually unjustly) the hero and forcing
him or her to break out of prison reenacts a deeply felt
human need to escape, to break free of social and societal
bonds. In this sense, prison pictures are deeply antiauthori-
tarian. Second, prison pictures have served a political pur-
pose, dealing, as they often have, with issues of social
injustice and corruption.
Although prison pictures have long been made, they have
had their greatest vogue in two eras, the 1930s and the
decade between 1945 and 1955. When it seemed as if society
was crumbling during the Great Depression and otherwise
honest men and women were sometimes forced to steal to
stay alive, films about prison and the injustices that took place
there began to take a firm hold on the public consciousness.
MGM had the first major prison-picture hit with the
stark and powerful The Big House (1930), but neither
IRVING
THALBERG
nor
LOUIS B
.
MAYER
had the stomach to continue
with the genre, leaving a vacuum that was quickly filled by
WARNER BROS
., the one studio that spoke directly to the
lower classes. Warner went on to make the best and the most
important, not to mention the most, prison pictures of any
other studio during the 1930s. Warner started its popular
prison cycle with I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), a
shocking indictment of brutality and injustice that actually
led to prison reforms in several southern states. Through the
rest of the decade, Warner and other studios continued mak-
ing prison pictures, many of which dealt, in part, with social
issues. Examples of such films are The Last Mile (1932), The
Mayor of Hell (1933, later remade as Crime School [1938]),
Twenty Thousand Years in Sing Sing (1933), San Quentin
(1937), King of Alcatraz (1938), and Each Dawn I Die (1939).
In the postwar era, the issue of freedom stood paramount
in the minds of many, and prison—as a symbol—was a bar-
rier to such freedom. Authority began to be viewed in movies
not as benign or, at worst, occasionally corrupt (as it was
often shown in the films of the 1930s), but as inherently evil.
As a result, films such as Brute Force (1947) and Riot in Cell
Block 11 (1954) began to proliferate. These were films that
were built around the issue of escape. The breakout movie
finally overcame the social consciousness film, and that atti-
tude has prevailed ever since in all sorts of prison films,
including such diverse movies as Stalag 17 (1953), The Great
Escape (1963), and Escape from Alcatraz (1979).
There have been a relative handful of prison pictures
concerning women. Some of them have been mere exploita-
tion films, such as Girls in Prison (1956), but there have also
been some serious films, including Caged (1950), that have
detailed the humiliations and traumas that women suffer in
prison. More recently, in Mrs. Soffel (1984), prison served as
the backdrop for a fascinating love story between the wife of
a warden and one of his prisoners.
There have been modest attempts during the last few
decades at recreating the social consciousness prison picture.
PAUL NEWMAN
had a hit with Cool Hand Luke (1967), a hip-
per version of I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, and
ROBERT REDFORD
played a crusading warden in Brubaker
(1980), but neither film spawned a new cycle of prison pic-
tures. Another attempt to revive the genre was Lock Up
(1989), starring
SYLVESTER STALLONE
.
During the 1990s, there was a resurgence of prison films,
some of them award winning and certainly relevant.
TIM
ROBBINS
’s award-winning Dead Man Walking (1995) gave
audiences an opportunity to consider the pros and cons of
capital punishment. Monster’s Ball (2002), a critical and finan-
cial hit, also examines capital punishment but from a differ-
ent perspective. The film concerns the problems of the head
of the execution squad. In The Green Mile (1999), which was
nominated for a Best Picture Oscar,
TOM HANKS
plays a sim-
ilar role, but in the story he is touched by an unusual angel, a
huge black man convicted of murder, who cures him of his
physical problems and stops the aging process. Only The
Shawshank Redemption (1994), another highly acclaimed film,
concerns life inside the penitentiary and provides an
“insider’s” view of prison life. In a much lighter vein, the
COEN BROTHERS
award-winning O Brother Where Art Thou?
(2000) begins with the escape from prison of three intellec-
tually challenged convicts.
producer The person who has the overall financial
responsibility for a movie. Whether the producer chooses the
project or has it assigned by a studio executive, he or she is
the one who then sets all the production wheels in motion
and is responsible for hiring the screenwriter and director.
Even before the director is hired, the producer will be
intimately involved in the preparation of the script because it
is his or her job to ascertain the film’s budget based on the
content of the screenplay. If the necessary budget appears to
be too high, the producer will order a rewrite, probably
excluding more expensive scenes.
Once the screenplay and budget are tentatively approved,
the producer will then work with the director to fill the most
important roles in the film and to hire other personnel such
as the cinematographer, the composer, the editor, and key
members of the technical crew. At this early time, decisions
concerning the shooting schedule and shooting locations will
be made by the producer in consultation with the director,
balancing artistic and financial considerations at every turn.
Once the film goes into production, the director takes
over, and the producer will usually keep a distance, carefully
monitoring the dailies to see if the film is on schedule. He or
she will also act as the arbiter of conflicts between the direc-
tor and any other major players on the team.
When the movie is finished, the producer becomes more
active in the process again, becoming intimately involved in
PRODUCER
325
the oversight of sound mixing, music, editing, and the ulti-
mate exploitation of the film through its distribution, adver-
tising, and sale to other markets, including cable and video.
During the studio era, producers were hired hands who
were assigned their films and answered to either an executive
producer or the studio production head. Independent pro-
ducers either put up their own money or raised the funds to
make movies. Today, independent producing usually involves
finding a property, obtaining a commitment from a hot direc-
tor and a bankable star, and then taking that package to either
a studio or some other source of financial backing to get the
movie made.
Some of the more successful directors (e.g.,
HOWARD
HAWKS
,
JOHN FORD
,
STEVEN SPIELBERG
) have also pro-
duced their own films, thereby gaining greater control of
their projects. A number of major actors have become pro-
ducers as well, choosing their own projects and shepherding
them to the screen through their production companies
(Clint Eastwood,
SALLY FIELD
,
MEL BROOKS
, etc.). However
one comes to producing, though, the job function remains
essentially the same: to make the best, most successful movie
possible while spending the least amount of money.
See also
ACTOR
-
DIRECTOR
;
PRODUCER
-
DIRECTOR
.
producer-director Those who both produce and direct
their own films aren’t quite as rare as they were during the
height of the studio era. In those days, there was a strict
delineation of responsibilities, and it was deemed inefficient
for either a director to burden himself or herself with pro-
duction chores or a producer to become involved overly in
the artistic decisions that were the director’s province. Dur-
ing the 1930s and 1940s, only the most successful Hollywood
directors were able to wangle more control by producing
their own films. For instance,
HOWARD HAWKS
performed
both chores for Twentieth Century (1934), as did
JOHN FORD
when he made Stagecoach (1939). These directors and a rela-
tive handful of others often produced their own movies.
When the studio system began to crumble in the late
1940s and early 1950s, a much larger percentage of directors
began to produce their own films. As independent contrac-
tors, no longer on staff at a studio, they began to choose their
own projects and to line up financing—often from their for-
mer studio bosses.
In the last several decades, however, as the film business
has fragmented and budgets have risen to astronomical pro-
portions, it has become rather difficult for a director to raise
the money to produce his or her own films. The exceptions
to this rule are famous actors who also produce and direct
their own vehicles, such as
WARREN BEATTY
,
CLINT EAST
-
WOOD
,
MEL BROOKS
, and
ROBERT REDFORD
, all of whom
produce through their own production companies.
As a general rule, it has always been far more common
for a director to produce his or her own films than for a
producer to suddenly start to direct. The flow tends to usu-
ally be in the direction of the artist wanting more control
of his or her own work. One of the rare exceptions to that
rule was
STANLEY KRAMER
, who began to produce in the
early 1940s and added the extra hat of the director in 1955,
continuing in both capacities during most of the rest of his
Hollywood career.
property master The individual charged with the
responsibility of providing all the necessary props for a film’s
production. The property master, who is also known simply
as the prop person, must not only provide the props for spe-
cific scenes but must also place them on the set in accordance
with the instructions in the script. In other words, if the
screenplay calls for an actor to pick up a brick from the side-
walk in front of a store and throw it through a window, the
property master is the one who must place the brick on the
sidewalk in front of the store.
Pryor, Richard (1940– ) A comedian and actor who
has also written, directed, and produced a number of his own
films. Pryor’s comic technique—projecting a comic machismo
while at the same time showing abject fear—is reminiscent of
Bob Hope. But unlike Hope, Pryor proudly carries his color
and culture into his best roles, parodying racial stereotypes
and turning those images inside out for laughs.
Born in Peoria, Illinois, and raised by his grandmother,
who ran a brothel, Pryor rose to fame as a nightclub and TV
comic during the 1960s. He parlayed that success into a num-
ber of small movie roles in films such as The Busy Body (1968),
You’ve Got to Walk It Like You Talk It or You’ll Lose That Beat
(1971), and Dynamite Chicken (1972). He had played mostly
comic turns in his early films, but when he played the more
serious supporting role of Piano Man in the biopic of Billie
Holiday, Lady Sings the Blues (1972), Pryor was honored with
a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination.
He appeared in (among other films) the highly regarded
documentary Wattstax (1973), supported
SIDNEY POITIER
and Bill Cosby in the hit Uptown Saturday Night (1974), and
showed his screenwriting ability by coscripting (with
MEL
BROOKS
) Blazing Saddles (1974), before finally hitting it big as
a star in his own right in the second half of the 1970s. His
breakthrough film was The Bingo Long Travelling All-Stars and
Motor Kings (1976), and he quickly followed that with movies
of the caliber of Silver Streak (1976), Blue Collar (1978),
Richard Pryor—Live in Concert (1979), and Stir Crazy (1980).
Most of his films during this period were either commercial
or critical successes (such as Blue Collar), or both.
Pryor was among the biggest box-office draws in Holly-
wood heading into the 1980s until he accidentally set himself
on fire in what was reported to be a drug-related accident.
Badly burned, Pryor set about to reclaim his health and his
career. He’s done well with the former but has had mixed
results with the latter. Movies such as Bustin’ Loose (1981),
which he coproduced and scripted, Some Kind of Hero (1982),
and the concert film Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip
(1982) have been solid successes. However, he faltered with
two major bombs in a row, The Toy (1982) and Superman III
(1983), the latter film earning him a cool $4 million, which
was a testament to his drawing power.
PRODUCER-DIRECTOR
326
Just as Pryor was slipping at the box office,
EDDIE MUR
-
PHY
came on the movie scene with the hit Trading Places
(1983), seeming to edge out the older star as the premier
American black comedian. But Pryor’s box-office appeal was
still strong enough to allow him to bring to the screen an
autobiographical film he starred in, coscripted, directed, and
produced, Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling (1986). The film
received mixed reviews from the critics, but it brought him
renewed attention as a serious filmmaker.
Pryor and cohort Wilder were on the lam again, this time
in See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989), and then the duo, perhaps
ignoring signs that they were becoming very noticeably rep-
etitious, made their last film together, the dismal Another You
(1991), another scam movie. Teamed with Eddie Murphy,
however, Pryor did well with Harlem Nights (1989), in which
the duo played nightclub owners fighting a mobster takeover.
In David Lynch’s Lost Highway (1996), he had a bit part. The
comedian’s career has been curtailed by multiple sclerosis.
PRYOR, RICHARD
327