A Double Life

George Dewey Cukor was an American film director. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations. His career flourished at RKO and later MGM, where he directed What Price Hollywood? , A Bill of Divorcement , Dinner at Eight , Little Women , David Copperfield , Romeo and Juliet and... Camille . He was replaced as the director of Gone with the Wind , but he went on to direct The Philadelphia Story , Adam's Rib , Born Yesterday , A Star Is Born and My Fair Lady . He continued to work into the 1980s. Cukor was born on the Lower East Side of New York City, the younger child and only son of Hungarian Jewish immigrants Victor, an assistant district attorney, and Helen Ilona Cukor. His parents selected his middle name in honor of Spanish–American War hero George Dewey. Unlike the Jews of Poland and Russia whose first language was Yiddish, Hungarian Jews did not adopt Yiddish as their primary language. Therefore, the Cukor family, subscribing to the norm of their country of origin, was not a Yiddish speaking household.
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