George Cukor: A Double Life

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Cukor's mother, Helen, costumed for a family party. The photograph was taken after the birth of Cukor's sister but before he was born. Teenagers Stella Bloch and Mortimer Offner, in costume for a harlequinade, one of the first Cukor productions. Just out of high school,the budding Cukor sets out on the road to his career. His friend Mortimer Offner took this photograph. Members of Temple Theater Company'Attivfe for Inauguration of Stock Season Mondai Above: "Cukor's Company ."A newspaper photograph of the stock troupe in 1928, arriving to launch the Rochester summer season.Left to right: Benny Baker, Samuel Blythe, Walter Folmer, Wallace Ford, Bette Davis, Helen Gilmore, Mary and Russell Wright (the stage manager), and Irma Irving. Left: Sheet music for the Cukor musical that never made it to Broadway. The Dagger and theRose mercifully closed in Atlantic City, but Cukor began his careerlong habit of leaving the song-and-dance scenes to theprofessionals. A story conference that probably never took place: Catalina Island publicity pose of scriptwriters Maxwell Anderson (standing) and Del Andrews (seated at left) with newly arrived dialogue director Cukor (seated at right) and commander -in-chief Lewis Milestone (lighting cigarette). Note wastebasket with crumpled script pages. An undershirted Cukor waded into his first codirecting role, on location in California for Grumpy, with co-stars Mary Brian and Paul Cavanagh (right). Cukor directs one of his boyhood idols, actress Ina Claire, in a scene from The Royal Family ofBroadway.With such cumbersome equipment, no wonder camera movement was kept to a minimum. With Helen Hayes, another Broadway refugee, at one of Lionel Barrymore's parties in the early 1930s. Photograph by Mortimer Offner. Small talk and big cigars:producer David O. Selznick (left), writer Ben Hecht (back to camera),directors Ernst Lubitsch (hatted), King Vidor (back to camera),and Cukor. Photograph by Mortimer Offner. Selznick did things with style. Here, the producer and his retinue sail through the Panama Canal in October 1932 on their way from Los Angeles to New York. At the table are scriptwriter Jane Murfin (who wrote several Cukor films), Cukor, actor Donald Crisp (Murfm's husband), Selznick's assistantMarcella Rabwin, Selznick, his wife Irene Mayer Selznick, and Bea Stewart, Donald Ogden Stewart's first wife. Stewart probably took the snapshot. On the set ofA Bill of Divorcement,with John Barrymore,whom Cukor managed to tame (he had a knack with Barrymores),and actress Billie Burke. A Coca-Cola break during the filming of Dinner at Eight. Left to right: (seated) Madge Evans, Louise Closser Hale, Billie Burke, Marie Dressier, Karen Morley, and Grant Mitchell; (standing) Edmund Lowe, Cukor, Lionel Barrymore,Jean Harlow, and Phillips Holmes. Lunch and clowning on the set of Little Women. From left, Cukor's favorite actress, Katharine Hepburn, her stand-in Adalyn Doyle, Cukor, Mortimer Offner, an unidentified woman, and assistant director Eddie Kilroy. Professor William Strunk of Cornell University, literary adviser to MGM's version of Romeo andJuliet, being welcomed to Hollywood (for publicity purposes) by a casuallydressed Cukor, producer Irving Thalberg (second from right), and Talbot Jennings, who collaborated with Shakespeare on the screenplay. Costume parties were in vogue in Hollywood in the 1930s. Judging by the garb, the theme of this party must have been Romeoand Juliet. A fat and friarish Cukor talks with actor Fredric March and his wife, actress Florence Eldridge, whom Cukor knew (and disliked) from Rochester summer stock days. Greta Garbo's finest performance and Cukor's consummate screen romancewas Camil/e.The director, Garbo, and co-star Robert Taylor mustered lighter moments off-camera. A rare swim in his own pool with William Haines, a good friend. The former silent screen star became one of Hollywood's premier interior decorators.Photograph by Mortimer Offner. Cukor crony Anderson Lawler preening for the camera poolside with Katharine Hepburn, probably on a Sunday,when friends gathered and mingled at Cukor's home. Photograph by Mortimer Offner. A tableau of family and friends from the thirties, including (peeking out, third from left) Victor Cukor, Rowland Leigh with his arms around Stella Bloch, Cukor, Edward Eliscu,John Darrow,Louis Mason, and James Vincent. Seated in the modified lotus position is the photographer George HoynigenHuene . Photograph by Mortimer Offner. In Cukor'ssanctum sanctorum, the oval...