George Dewey Cukor (; July 7, 1899 – January 24, 1983 ) was an American film director.

Cukor was born on the Lower East Side of New York City, the younger child and only son of Hungarian Jewish immigrants Victor, an assistant district attorney, and Helen Ilona ( née Gross ) Cukor.

Therefore, the Cukor family, subscribing to the norm of their country of origin, was not a Yiddish speaking household.

The family was not particularly religious, pork was a staple on the dinner table, and when he started attending temple as a boy, Cukor learned Hebrew phonetically, with no real understanding of the meaning of the words or what they represented.

As a teenager, Cukor frequently was taken to the New York Hippodrome by his uncle.

Following his graduation in 1917, Cukor was expected to follow in his father's footsteps and pursue a career in law.

Cukor later recalled, " Her talent was apparent, but she did buck at direction.

" For the next several decades, Davis claimed she was fired, and although Cukor never understood why she placed so much importance on an incident he considered so minor, he never worked with her again.

Cukor was hired to direct Gone with the Wind by Selznick in 1936, even before the book was published.

" I think the biggest black mark against our management to date is the Cukor situation and we can no longer be sentimental about it .... We are a business concern and not patrons of the arts ..." Cukor was relieved of his duties, but he continued to work with Leigh and De Havilland off the set.

The remainder of the decade was a series of hits and misses for Cukor.

In December 1952, Cukor was approached by Sid Luft, who proposed the director helm a musical remake of the 1937 film A Star is Born with his then-wife Judy Garland in the lead role.

Cukor had declined to direct the earlier film because it was too similar to his 1932 What Price Hollywood ?, but the opportunity to direct his first Technicolor film, first musical, and work with screenwriter Moss Hart and especially Garland appealed to him, and he accepted.

Cukor wanted Cary Grant for the male lead and went so far as to read the entire script with him, but Grant, while agreeing it was the role of a lifetime, steadfastly refused to do it, and Cukor never forgave him.

As the months passed, Cukor was forced to deal not only with constant script changes but a very unstable leading lady, who was plagued by chemical and alcohol dependencies, extreme weight fluctuations, and real and imagined illnesses.

In March 1954, a rough cut still missing several musical numbers was assembled, and Cukor had mixed feelings about it.

When the last scene finally was filmed in the early morning hours of July 28, 1954, Cukor already had departed the production and was unwinding in Europe.

Given that Gable and Cukor had worked together before, in Manhattan Melodrama and Gable had no objection to working with him then, and given Selznick's desperation to get Gable for Rhett Butler, if Gable had any objections to Cukor, certainly they would have been expressed before he signed his contract for the film.

Possibly to downplay Capra's gaffe, Rogers then called third nominee George Cukor to join the two Franks on stage.

His career flourished at RKO when David O. Selznick, the studio's Head of Production, assigned Cukor to direct several of RKO's major films including What Price Hollywood?

One Hour with You ( 1932 ) was directed by both George Cukor and Ernst Lubitsch and simultaneously filmed in French with the same stars but a French supporting cast.

Hadleigh's second book, Conversations With My Elders ( republished as Celluloid Gaze ) includes interviews with actors Sal Mineo and Rock Hudson ; directors George Cukor, Luchino Visconti, Fassbinder, and designer, photographer / author Cecil Beaton.

Over the course of seven years, the trio collaborated on seven films, including A Double Life ( 1947 ) starring Ronald Colman, Adam's Rib ( 1949 ), Born Yesterday ( 1950 ), The Marrying Kind ( 1952 ), and It Should Happen to You ( 1954 ), all starring another Cukor favorite, Judy Holliday, who won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Born Yesterday.

* What Price Hollywood ?, a 1932 film with similarities to the 1937 & later films, also directed by George Cukor

In 1932, Burke made her Hollywood comeback, starring as Margaret Fairfield in A Bill of Divorcement, directed by George Cukor.

He also played Lupe Vélez's frenetic manager in Gregory LaCava's The Half-Naked Truth ( 1932 ), and portrayed John Barrymore's agent in Dinner at Eight ( 1933 ), directed by George Cukor.

A Bill of Divorcement is a 1932 American drama film, directed by George Cukor and starring John Barrymore and Katharine Hepburn in her movie debut.

( 1932 ) is an American drama film directed by George Cukor.

Cukor directed her in several films, both successful ( Little Women, 1933 ) and disastrous ( Sylvia Scarlett, 1935 ), and they became close friends off the set.

Gordon and Kanin received Academy Awards nominations for both of those screenplays, as well as for that of a prior film, A Double Life ( 1947 ), which was also directed by Cukor.

* Holiday ( 1938 ), d. George Cukor

* The Philadelphia Story ( 1940 ), d. George Cukor

* David Copperfield ( 1935 film ), a film by George Cukor

* Gaslight ( 1944 film ), directed by George Cukor, starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer and Angela Lansbury, based on the play

* A Star Is Born ( 1954 film ), starring Judy Garland and James Mason, directed by George Cukor

Adolph Zukor ( January 7, 1873 – June 10, 1976 ), born Adolph Cukor, was a Hungarian film mogul and founder of Paramount Pictures.

In some of his other roles during the 1960s and 1970s, Bogarde played opposite renowned stars, yet several of the films were of uneven quality, down to demands or limitations set by the studio or their scripts: The Angel Wore Red ( 1960 ), playing an unfrocked priest who falls in love with cabaret entertainer Ava Gardner during the Spanish Civil War ; Song Without End ( 1960 ), as Hungarian composer and virtuoso pianist Franz Liszt, a flawed film made under the initial direction of Charles Vidor ( who died during shooting ), and completed by Bogarde's friend George Cukor, the actor's only disappointing foray into Hollywood ; the campy The Singer Not the Song ( 1961 ), as a Mexican bandit co-starring John Mills as a priest ; H. M. S.

What a Lovely War ( 1969 ), co-starring Sir John Gielgud and Sir Laurence Olivier and directed by Richard Attenborough ; Justine ( 1969 ), directed by George Cukor ; Le Serpent ( 1973 ), co-starring Henry Fonda and Yul Brynner ; A Bridge Too Far ( 1977 ), in a controversial performance as Lieutenant General Frederick " Boy " Browning, also starring Sean Connery and an all-star cast and again directed by Richard Attenborough.

According to Stephen Bogart, the original members of the Holmby Hills Rat Pack were: Frank Sinatra ( pack master ), Judy Garland ( first vice-president ), Bacall ( den mother ), Sid Luft ( cage master ), Bogart ( rat in charge of public relations ), Swifty Lazar ( recording secretary and treasurer ), Nathaniel Benchley ( historian ), David Niven, Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, George Cukor, Cary Grant, Rex Harrison, and Jimmy Van Heusen.

As a child, Cukor appeared in several amateur plays and took dance lessons, and at the age of seven he performed in a recital with David O. Selznick, who in later years would become a mentor and friend.

Cukor obtained a job as an assistant stage manager and bit player with a touring production of The Better ' Ole, a popular British musical based on Old Bill, a cartoon character created by Bruce Bairnsfather.

and Z. evolved into the Cukor-Kondolf Stock Company, a troupe that included Louis Calhern, Ilka Chase, Phyllis Povah, Frank Morgan, Reginald Owen, Elizabeth Patterson and Douglass Montgomery, all of whom would work with Cukor in later years in Hollywood.

Of those who did, Cukor preferred Paulette Goddard, but her supposedly illicit relationship with Charlie Chaplin ( they were, in fact, secretly married ) concerned Selznick.

However, despite rumors about Gable being uncomfortable with Cukor on the set, nothing in the internal memos of David O. Selznick indicates or suggests that Clark Gable played any role in Cukor's dismissal from the film.

Selznick had already been unhappy with Cukor (" a very expensive luxury ") for not being more receptive to directing other Selznick assignments, even though Cukor had remained on salary since early 1937 ; and in a confidential memo written in September 1938, four months before principal photography began, Selznick flirted with the idea of replacing him with Victor Fleming.

Selznick's friendship with Cukor had crumbled slightly when the director refused other assignments, including A Star is Born ( 1937 ) and Intermezzo ( 1939 ).

Working with Irwin Shaw, John Cheever and William Saroyan, among others, Cukor produced training and instructional films for army personnel.

During this era, Cukor forged an alliance with screenwriters Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon, who had met in Cukor's home in 1939 and married three years later.