George Cukor

George Dewey Cukor ( KEW-kor; July 7, 1899 – January 24, 1983) was an American film director and producer. He concentrated primarily on comedies and literary adaptations. 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? (1932), A Bill of Divorcement (1932), Our Betters (1933), and Little Women (1933). When Selznick moved to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1933, Cukor followed and directed Dinner at Eight (1933) and David Copperfield (1935) for Selznick, and Romeo and Juliet (1936) and Camille (1936) for Irving Thalberg. He was replaced as one of the directors of Gone with the Wind (1939), but he went on to direct The Philadelphia Story (1940), Gaslight (1944), Adam's Rib (1949), Born Yesterday (1950), A Star Is Born (1954), and Bhowani Junction (1956), and won the Academy Award, the British Academy Film Award, and the Golden Globe Award for directing My Fair Lady (1964). In 1975, Cukor won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing in a Special Program - Drama or Comedy for Love Among the Ruins. He continued to work into the early 1980s.