MICHAEL CURTIZ (1888-1962)
Appropriately for a man who made many of cinema history’s most legendary thrillers, the early life of Michael Curtiz is shrouded in mystery… but it’s accepted that he was born Manó Kaminer to a poor Jewish family in Budapest before embarking on an entertainment career and “Hungarianizing” his name to Mihály Kertész. After touring Europe as a traveling actor and working at the Hungarian National Theater, he got his moviemaking break by shooting Hungary’s first feature film in 1912, and by 1918 he was one of the country’s top directors. The following year, Hungary’s first communist government nationalized the movie business, so the young cineaste moved to Vienna and became one of Europe’s premier filmmakers – earning the attention of Jack and Harry Warner, who recruited him to work for them in Hollywood. Now called Michael Curtiz, the Magyar director drew on his German Expressionist influences to make American movies with groundbreaking style, and his increasingly popular films launched the careers of Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Doris Day, and many other stars of Hollywood’s golden age. Curtiz’s prolific output of more than 100 films (in genres spanning dramas, comedies, musicals, Westerns, historical epics, and more) includes Oscar-winning classics like The Adventures of Robin Hood, Mildred Pierce, and his masterpiece, Casablanca.