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George Fitzmaurice

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For the Irish dramatist and short story writer, see George Fitzmaurice (writer). For the Scottish nobleman, see George FitzMaurice, 6th Earl of Orkney.

George Fitzmaurice
Born(1885-02-13)13 February 1885
Paris, France
Died13 June 1940(1940-06-13) (aged 55)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Burial placeForest Lawn Memorial Park
OccupationFilm director
Years active1914–1940
Notable work
Spouses
  • Ouida Bergere
    (married 1919–1924)
  • Diana Kane
    (married 1927–1940)
Children3
Signature
Cursive signature in ink

George Fitzmaurice (13 February 1885 – 13 June 1940) was a French-born film director and producer.

Career

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Fitzmaurice (left) directs Elsie Ferguson, Warner Oland, Wyndham Standing in The Witness for the Defense (1919)

Fitzmaurice's career first started as a set designer on stage. Beginning in 1914, and continuing until his death in 1940, he directed a total of over 80 films; several of these were successful, including The Son of the Sheik, Raffles, Mata Hari, and Suzy.

At the beginning of his directorial career, Fitzmaurice was astute at directing stage actresses in their initial films with the first wave of great Broadway stars that migrated to motion pictures during the World War I era, including Mae Murray, Elsie Ferguson, Fannie Ward, Helene Chadwick, Irene Fenwick, Gail Kane, and Edna Goodrich. Fitzmaurice’s long-time cinematographer, Arthur Miller observed: “Fitzmaurice’s specialty was in designing a film beautifully, and in handling women stars with great flair. He could do a beautiful love story very well. He had the ability to get the best out of women, to get along with them.”[1]

The Son of the Sheik is his most famous extant silent film, no doubt aided by the sudden death of its star, Rudolph Valentino. Lilac Time is a classic war/romance film. Fitzmaurice, however, directed scores of silent films of which the majority of them are lost to the ravages of decomposition. Recent discoveries in Gosfilmofond in Russia include 1919's Witness for the Defense with Elsie Ferguson and 1922's Kick In with Bert Lytell. A restoration of his 1928 part-talkie hybrid The Barker is winning praise from many film buffs. Rumors of other Fitzmaurice films in Gosfilmofond include 1920s Idols of Clay (with Mae Murray) and Three Live Ghosts with Norman Kerry, Anna Q. Nilsson, Cyril Chadwick, and Edmund Goulding.

“I stayed with Fitzmaurice right through until 1925. He was a talented man until the “talkies”; he was only a man of the silents. He couldn’t cope with the change.” Cinematographer Arthur Miller.[2]

George Fitzmaurice advocated for ranking “serious film productions” among the Beaux Arts, and appraising them critically as such.[3] Fitzmaurice was meticulous in his preparations prior to shooting and “knew beforehand everything he wanted to see on screen.”[4] Like his filmmaking contemporaries F. W. Murnau and John Ford “he never looked through the camera” to frame his compositions, but nonetheless achieved a widely acknowledged “visual grace” in his pictures.[5]

In his 1916 essay entitled “The Art of Directing,” Fitzmaurice emphasized the importance of engaging in a psychological analysis of the film characters to discover their motivations.[6] He wrote:

A comprehensive knowledge of psychology in all its branches is a necessary complement to good directorship…to incorporate human nature into a picture you must understand the science of mental phenomenon, for it is this science that is guiding the hand of realistic action.[7]

Personal life

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The Profiteers, 1919
The Emperor's Candesticks, 1937

He was married at one time to Ouida Bergere, later the wife of Basil Rathbone. His second wife was Diana Kane, a sister of actress Lois Wilson. With Kane, he had two daughters Sheila Fitzmaurice born in 1929, and Patricia Fitzmaurice Baxter born in 1931.

Filmography

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Director

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Actor

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  • The Avalanche (1919) – (uncredited)
  • Ben-Hur (1925) – Chariot Race Spectator (uncredited) (final film role)

Notes

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  1. ^ Higham, 1970 p. 138
  2. ^ Higham, 1970 p. 138
  3. ^ Koszarski, 1976 p. 33: Film deserving the same level of analysis as “painting, sculpture or any of the other arts.” And p. 34: See his essay from The New York Dramatic Mirror, March 11, 1916.
  4. ^ Koszarski, 1976 p. 33: Final part of sentence elided, reads: “...and expended the majority of his attention on preparatory work far in advance of shooting.”
  5. ^ Koszarski, 1976 p. 33
  6. ^ Koszarski, 1976 p. 33: Koszarski suggests that, in this respect, the director was influenced by the writings of Hugo Münsterberg.
  7. ^ Koszarski, 1976 p. 34: Ellided material reads: “for motion pictures have progressed to such a stage that thought is the base upon which they are all built.”
  8. ^ Article about rediscovered silent-movies including Fitzmaurice Kick In

References

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  • Higham, Charles. 1970. Hollywood Cameraman: Sources of Light. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana and London. ISBN 0-253-13820-5
  • Koszarski, Richard. 1976. Hollywood Directors: 1914-1940. Oxford University Press, London, New York. ISBN 0-19-502086-3
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