O. Henry's Full House

Howard Winchester Hawks was an American film director, producer and screenwriter of the classic Hollywood era. He is popular for his films from a wide range of genres such as Scarface , Bringing Up Baby , Only Angels Have Wings , His Girl Friday , Sergeant York , To Have and Have Not , The Big... Sleep , Red River , The Thing from Another World , Gentlemen Prefer Blondes , and Rio Bravo . In 1975, Hawks was awarded the Honorary Academy Award as "a master American filmmaker whose creative efforts hold a distinguished place in world cinema," and in 1942 he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director for Sergeant York. Howard Hawks was born in Goshen, Indiana on May 30, 1896. Hawks was the first-born child of Frank W. Hawks , a wealthy paper manufacturer, and the former Helen Howard , the daughter of a wealthy industrialist. Hawks's family on his father's side were American pioneers and his ancestor John Hawks had emigrated from England to Massachusetts in 1630.
more

Henry Koster was born Hermann Kosterlitz in Berlin, Germany. He became a film director and later moved to Hollywood. Koster's father, a salesman, left home when Henry was a young man. Koster still managed to finish gymnasium in Berlin while working as short story writer and cartoonist. Koster was... introduced to cinema about 1910 when his uncle opened a very early movie theater in Berlin. Koster's mother played the piano to accompany the films, leaving the young boy to occupy himself by watching the films. After working initially as a short story writer, Koster was subsequently hired by a Berlin movie company as scenarist, became assistant to director Curtis Bernhardt. Bernhardt became sick one day and asked Koster to take over as director. In about 1931 or 1932, Koster directed two or three films in Berlin for UFA. Koster, who was in the midst of directing a film, had already been the subject of anti-Semitism, and knew he had to leave. He lost his temper at an SA officer at his bank during lunch hour, and knocked the officer out.
more

Jean Negulesco was a Romanian-born American film director and screenwriter. Born in Craiova, he attended Carol I High School. In 1915 he moved to Vienna, in 1919 to Bucharest, where he worked as a painter, before becoming a stage decorator in Paris. In 1927 he went to New York City for an... exhibition of his paintings, and settled there. In 1934 he entered the film industry, first as a sketch artist, then as an assistant producer, second unit director and in the late 1930s he became a director and screenwriter. He made a reputation at Warner Brothers by directing short subjects, particularly a series of band shorts featuring unusual camera angles and dramatic use of shadows and silhouettes. Negulesco's first feature film as director was Singapore Woman . In 1948 he was nominated for an Academy Award for Directing for Johnny Belinda. In 1955, he won the BAFTA Award for Best Film for How to Marry a Millionaire. His 1959 movie, The Best of Everything, was on Entertainment Weekly's Top 50 Cult Films of All-Time list. From the late 1960s, he lived in Marbella, Spain where he died there at age 93, of heart failure.
more

Henry Hathaway was an American film director and producer. He is best known as a director of Westerns, especially starring Randolph Scott and John Wayne. Born Henri Leonard de Fiennes in Sacramento, California, he was the son of an American actor and stage manager, Rhody Hathaway , and a... Hungarian-born Belgian aristocrat, Marquise Lillie de Fiennes , who acted under the name Jean Hathaway. This branch of the de Fiennes family came to America in the 19th century on behalf of King Leopold I of Belgium and was part of the negotiations with the Belgian Prime Minister, Charles Rogier , to secure the 1862 treaty between Belgium and what was then known as the Sandwich Islands and is now called Hawaii. In 1925, Hathaway began working in silent films as an assistant to notable directors such as Victor Fleming and Josef von Sternberg and made the transition to sound with them. He was the assistant director to Fred Niblo in the 1925 version of Ben-Hur starring Francis X. Bushman and Ramon Novarro.
more

Henry King was an American film director. Before coming to film, King worked as an actor in various repertoire theatres, and first started to take small film roles in 1912. He directed for the first time in 1915, and grew to become one of the most commercially successful Hollywood directors of the... 1920s and 1930s. He was twice nominated for the Best Director Oscar. In 1944, he was awarded the first Golden Globe Award for Best Director for his film The Song of Bernadette. He worked most often with Tyrone Power and Gregory Peck and for 20th Century Fox. Henry King was one of the 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which awards the Oscars every year. He directed over 100 films in his career. In 1955, King was awarded The George Eastman Award, given by George Eastman House for distinguished contribution to the art of film. During World War II, King served as the deputy commander of the Civil Air Patrol coastal patrol base in Brownsville, TX, holding the grade of captain. In his final years, he was the oldest licensed private pilot in the United States, having obtained his license in 1918.
more