Frank Capra (1897-1991)

Last updated on: September 3, 2009 at 5:35 am by Pat McNamara

Frank Capra (1897-1991) 2009-09-03T05:35:00-06:00 Pat McNamara

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Frank Russell Capra (May 18, 1897 – September 3, 1991) was an Italian-American film director and a creative force behind a number of films of the 1930s and 1940s, including It Happened One Night (1934), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), You Can’t Take It With You (1938), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) and It’s a Wonderful Life (1946). Born Francesco Rosario Capra in Bisacquino, Sicily, Italy, Capra and his family—his father Salvatore, his mother Rosaria Nicolosi, and his siblings Giuseppa, Giuseppe, and Antonia—immigrated to the United States in 1903. In California the family met with Benedetto Capra (the oldest sibling) and settled in Los Angeles. Frank Capra attended Manual Arts High School there. In 1918, Frank Capra graduated from Throop Institute (now the California Institute of Technology) with a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering. During World War I, Capra enlisted in the United States Army on October 18, 1918. He taught ballistics and mathematics to artillerymen at Fort Winfield Scott in the Presidio of San Francisco. While there, he caught Spanish flu and was medically discharged with rank of second lieutenant on December 13, 1918. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1920, adopting the name Frank Russell Capra. Capra began as a prop man in silent films. However, he wrote and directed silent film comedies starring Harry Langdon and the Our Gang kids. Capra went to work for Mack Sennett in 1924 and then moved to Columbia Pictures, where he formed a close association with screenwriter Robert Riskin (husband of Fay Wray) and cameraman Joseph Walker. However, Sidney Buchman replaced Riskin as writer in 1940. For the 1934 film It Happened One Night, Robert Montgomery and Myrna Loy were originally offered the roles, but each felt that the script was poor, and Loy described it as one of the worst she had ever read, later noting that the final version bore little resemblance to the script she and Montgomery were offered. After Loy, Miriam Hopkins and Margaret Sullavan also each rejected the part. Constance Bennett wanted to, but only if she could produce it herself. Then Bette Davis wanted the role, but she was under contract with Warner Brothers and Jack Warner refused to loan her to Columbia Studios. Capra was unable to get any of the actresses he wanted for the part of Ellie Andrews, partly because no self-respecting star would make a film with only two costumes.[6] Harry Cohn suggested Claudette Colbert to play the lead role. Both Capra and Clark Gable enjoyed making the movie; Colbert did not. After the 1934 film It Happened One Night, Capra directed a steady stream of films for Columbia Pictures, intended to be inspirational and humanitarian. The best known of Capra’s films are Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, the original Lost Horizon, You Can’t Take It with You, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and It’s a Wonderful Life. His ten-year break from screwball comedy ended with the comedy Arsenic and Old Lace. Among the actors who owed much of their early success to Capra were Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, James Stewart, Barbara Stanwyck, Cary Grant and Donna Reed. Capra called Jean Arthur “[his] favorite actress”. Capra’s films in the 1930s enjoyed success at the Academy Awards. It Happened One Night was the first film to win all five top Oscars (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay). In 1936, Capra won his second Best Director Oscar for Mr. Deeds Goes to Town; in 1938 he won his third Director Oscar in five years for You Can’t Take It with You, which also won Best Picture. In addition to his three directing wins, Capra received directing nominations for three other films (Lady for a Day, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and It’s a Wonderful Life). On May 5, 1936, Capra was also host of the 8th Academy Awards ceremony. Frank Capra was commissioned as a major in the United States Army Signal Corps during World War II. He produced State of the Union and directed or co-directed eight documentary propaganda films between 1942 and 1948, including the seven-episode U.S. government-commissioned Why We Fight series—consisting of Prelude to War (1942), The Nazis Strike (1942), The Battle of Britain (1943), Divide and Conquer (1943), Know Your Enemy: Japan (1945), Tunisian Victory (1945), and Two Down and One to Go (1945)—as well as produced the African-American targeted The Negro Soldier (1944). Why We Fight is widely considered a masterpiece of propaganda and won an Academy Award. Prelude to War won the 1942 Academy Award for Documentary Feature. Capra regarded these films as his most important works. As a colonel, he received the Distinguished Service Medal in 1945. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) was considered a box office disappointment but it was nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Director, Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Sound Recording and Best Editing. The American Film Institute named it one of the best films ever made, putting it at the top of the list of AFI’s 100 Years… 100 Cheers, a list of what AFI considers to be the most inspirational American movies of all time. The film also appeared in another AFI Top 100 list: it placed at 11th on AFI’s 100 Years… 100 Movies list of the top American films. Capra directed two films at Paramount Pictures starring Bing Crosby, Riding High (1950) and Here Comes the Groom (1951). It was eight years before he directed another theatrical film, A Hole in the Head with Frank Sinatra, which was his first film in color. Capra’s final theatrical film was with Glenn Ford and Bette Davis, named Pocketful of Miracles (1961). He planned to do a science fiction film later in the decade but never got around to pre-production. Capra produced several science-related television specials in color for the Bell Labs, such as Our Mr. Sun (1956), Hemo the Magnificent (1957), The Strange Case of the Cosmic Rays (1957), and Meteora: The Unchained Goddess (1958). These educational science documentaries were popular favorites for showing in school science classrooms. In 1982, the American Film Institute honored Frank Capra with television film The American Film Institute Salute to Frank Capra, hosted by Jimmy Stewart. In 1986, Capra received the National Medal of Arts. Frank Capra died in La Quinta, California, of a heart attack in his sleep in 1991 at the age of 94. He was interred in the Coachella Valley Cemetery in Coachella, California.

(From Wikipedia)

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