George Cukor
by David Bianco, author of "Gay Essentials" (Alyson
Publications), a collection of his history columns.
Director George Cukor, whose homosexuality was an open secret in Hollywood, worked in a variety of genres over his long career, but the comedy of sexual manners became his particular forte. His comfort with both the male and female perspective shines through in his now-classic films.
Born in New York in 1899, Cukor at first wanted to be a playwright, but he discovered he was better suited to stage managing and directing. Working in regional theater in the 1920s, he gained a reputation as a director whom actors could trust. "He had great pride," one colleague recalled, "but no vanity. ... He gave [actors] the star treatment."
Cukor moved on to Broadway, where he was in demand because of his talent for working with actresses; he seemed to empathize with their roles better than straight male directors did. "He did seem more in touch with women's emotions," Helen Hayes recalled. Many of the most revered (and often temperamental) stage actresses of that time -- Ethel Barrymore, Laurette
Taylor, Dorothy Gish -- wanted him as their director.
The tag "woman's director" (a slight, given the sexism of the time) followed Cukor when he went to Hollywood in 1929, and over the years he made his mark with a number of so-called "women's films." Besides his affinity with actresses, he also preferred female screenwriters and relied on some of the best -- Zoe Akins, Anita Loos, Ruth Gordon.
Cukor fell into comedy by accident, but it proved his strong suit. In 1932, he garnered kudos for "A Bill of Divorcement," starring 24-year-old Katharine Hepburn in her first screen role. That movie launched a lifelong friendship with Hepburn, who went on to star in nine of his films, including some of his (and her) best: "Holiday," "The Philadelphia Story," "Adam's Rib" and "Pat and Mike" (these last two with Spencer Tracy).
Another collaboration with Hepburn was "Sylvia Scarlett," a gender-bending comedy co-starring Cary Grant. In what was his most personally revealing film, the title character cross-dresses to escape a run-in with authorities. The plot directly challenged traditional male-female roles and boldly winked at homosexuality. These daring features (which caused the film to be condemned by the Legion of Decency) made "Sylvia Scarlett" RKO's biggest box office failure of 1935.
Cukor was David O. Selznick's original choice to direct "Gone With the Wind." But Clark Gable hated Cukor's fey manner, and one day during filming he stormed off the set, shouting, "I won't be directed by a fairy! I have to work with a real man!" Shortly thereafter Cukor was replaced by Victor Fleming, a pal of Gable's.
Cukor's sexual orientation, in fact, was well known in the industry. For years, he hosted lavish soirees at his Hollywood villa, where the queer elite could see and be seen. His Sunday afternoon parties competed with the all-male fetes of Cole Porter, and the two were sometimes called "the rival queens of Hollywood."
Cukor's career spanned five decades, but he won only one Academy Award, for directing "My Fair Lady" (1964). When he made his last film, "Rich and Famous" (1981), he was 81, the oldest director still working in Hollywood. He died two years later. Many of his films have become queer cult favorites: "Camille" (1937), "The Women" (1939) and the 1954 remake of "A Star is Born" with Judy Garland.
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