Born February 8, 1894 in Galveston, Texas, King Wallis Vidor was the son of a prominent businessman and his wife. He became freelance newsreel cameraman and cinema projectionist before becoming a filmmaker himself. The city of Vidor, Texas, was named after his father Charles Shelton Vidor who founded the Miller-Vidor Lumber Co., which the town grew up around. His grandfather, Karoly (Charles) Vidor, was a Hungarian immigrant who served with the 1st Texas Infantry at the battle of Gettysburg.

Vidor made his first film as a director in 1913 with The Grand Military Parade at 19. He married Florence Arto, one of the great beauties of early Hollywood, known professionally as Florence Vidor in 1914. Moving to Hollywood in 1915, Vidor worked as a screenwriter and director of a numerous shorts. His first full-length film in Hollywood was 1919’s The Turn in the Road.

After the success of 1922’s Peg o’ My Heart, Vidor won a long-term contract with Goldwyn Studios (later absorbed into MGM). Divorced from Florence in 1924, he made The Big Parade, among the most acclaimed war films of the silent era and an enormous commercial success. Florence Vidor went on to marry violinist Jascha Heifetz who adopted her daughter with Vidor.

Vidor married second wife Eleanor Boardman in 1926 with whom he had two more daughters, He starred her in 1928’s The Crowd for which he received his first Oscar nomination. He received his second for the following year’s Hallelujah, his first sound film. He was divorced from Boardman in 1931, marrying Elizabeth Hill in 1932 to whom he would remain married to until her death in 1978.

Vidor’s 1930s successes included Street Scene, The Champ (his third Oscar nomination), Our Daily Bread, Stella Dallas and The Citadel (his fourth Oscar nomination). He also directed the Kansas sequences of The Wizard of Oz after Victor Fleming was reassigned to Gone with the Wind but did not receive screen credit. His 1940s hits included Northwest Passage, Duel in the Sun and The Fountainhead. The 1950s brought Ruby Gentry, Man Without a Star, War and Peace, (his fifth Oscar nomination) and Solomon and Sheba after which he retired.

Despite his retirement, Vidor made documentary shorts in 1964, 1973 and 1980 at which time he entered into the Guinness Book of World Records as the director having the longest career as a film director, spanning 67 years from 1913-1980.

At the 1977 Academy Awards, co-presenter Vidor accepted the Best Director Oscar for Woody Allen for his direction of Annie Hall. The following year Vidor himself was the recipient of an Academy Award, an honorary one, for his incomparable achievements as a cinematic creator and innovator.

King Vidor died November 1, 1982 at the age of 88.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

THE BIG PARADE (1925)

Opening on a reserved seat basis in November 1925 and going into general release in September 1927, by 1930 this granddad of anti-war films was still drawing in customers when a new spate came along. John Gilbert had his greatest role as the privileged son of a Midwest banker who forgoes the officer title he father secured for him to join his buddies as an ordinary foot soldier who sees the worst of it first-hand in France. There he falls in love with a local farm girl, while on leave. Wounded in the war, he returns home to find his fiancée in love with his brother leaving him free to return to France to reunite with his true love.

THE CROWD (1928)

Vidor filmed many scenes of what is generally considered his masterpiece on New York City streets using real crowds instead of extras, real buses and trains and even real traffic cops. His film about an ordinary couple played by his then wife Eleanor Boardman and the tragic James Murray who are lost in the crowd. Billy Wilder copied the famous scene of Murray in an office surrounded by desk after desk for The Apartment. Vidor filmed nine different ending before MGM found one it approved of. Studio head Louis B. Mayer still hated the film, considering it vulgar for showing a bathroom with a toilet in it.

STELLA DALLAS (1937)

Adverse to wearing wigs, Barbara Stanwyck dyed her hair blonde for the first and only time in her career to play the tacky mother over a twenty-year span. Even though this was the remake of a famous talkie made twelve years earlier, this version was so popular that it spawned a radio soap opera that opened later that year and ran for seventeen years. Stanwyck earned her first Oscar nomination for what is still considered one of her greatest roles. Anne Shirley was also nominated for playing her sensitive daughter. A 1990 remake called Stella starring Bette Midler and Trini Alvarado was less successful.

THE CITADEL (1938)

Later twice done as TV mini-series in 1983 and 2003, Vidor’s award-winning film of A.J. Cronin’s acclaimed novel about a dedicated doctor who loses his way and falls into a world of easy money treating wealthy hypochondriacs was an eye-opener. Whereas John Ford’s film of Arrowsmith six years earlier had sugarcoated some of the abuses of the medical profession in Sinclair Lewis’ novel, Vidor’s film faces them head-on. Robert Donat, Oscar nominated as the idealistic doctor, Rosalind Russell as his supportive wife, Ralph Richardson as his best friend and Rex Harrison as a false one are all first-rate.

WAR AND PEACE (1956)

Tolstoy’s massive novel was always a difficult one to film. At the time producer Dino De Laurentis made this one, there were two other rival productions that failed in their attempts to make their own versions, one by Orson Welles, the other by Mike Todd. Although highly successful as spectacle, Audrey Hepburn is merely adequate as Natasha and Henry Fonda way too old at 50 as Pierre. The characters are supposed to be 13 and 50 respectively at the start of the film, which they clearly are not. Most of the actors, including Hepburn and Fonda, are obviously sitting on mechanical horses, not real ones in their close-ups.

KING VIDOR AND OSCAR

• The Crowd (1927/28) – nominated – Best Director
• Hallelujah (1928/29) – nominated – Best Director
• The Champ (1931/32) – nominated – Best Director
• The Citadel (1938) – nominated – Best Director
• War and Peace (1956) – nominated – Best Director
• Honorary Award (1978) – winner – for his incomparable achievements as a cinematic creator and innovator