American Classic Screen Interviews by Tibbetts John C.;Welsh James M.;Brownlow Kevin;Brownlow Kevin;

Author:Tibbetts, John C.;Welsh, James M.;Brownlow, Kevin;Brownlow, Kevin; [Tibbetts]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scarecrow Press, Incorporated
Published: 2010-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Hollywood Royalty

Conversations with Henry King—Remembering a Distinguished

Directing Career in Hollywood Spanning Forty-Seven Years

Rev. Gene Phillips, S.J.

Originally appeared in vol. 5, no. 5 (September/October 1981)

Henry King now lives in a splendid home in North Hollywood that was once owned by Amelia Earhart and her husband, George Putnam. It is decorated with souvenirs of a distinguished directorial career that stretched from 1915 to 1962, during which time he made nearly one hundred feature films. Among his memorabilia are several awards—including the prestigious D.W. Griffith Award which the Directors Guild of America conferred upon King in 1956 (it has been given out only thirteen times since its inception); a prize for his direction of Tol’able David (1921) called the Photoplay Gold Medal (an awards competition which ante-dated the Oscars); and an Artistry in Cinema Award presented him by the National Film Society in 1979. He has also received two Academy Award nominations—for The Song of Bernadette (1943) and Wilson (1944). His other memorable films include Alexander’s Ragtime Band (1938), Twelve O’Clock High (1949), and Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955). Gregory Peck, who gave his finest performances in King films, has said that the director has never received the praise he deserves for his consistently solid work. King was the most important director at Fox during his long tenure there of more than thirty years and was Zanuck’s first choice for most of the studio’s top projects. His films have won a wide audience over the years—one that few other directors can match.

He was born on a plantation in Christiansburg, Virginia, on January 24, 1888 (his birth date has been erroneously listed elsewhere as 1892 and 1896); and to this day he speaks with the mellow accents of a Southern gentleman. Now a nonagenarian, King is still a tall, commanding figure; at the same time, he is gracious and good-humored in discussing his work. Listening to him reminisce, one is in touch with a genuine pioneer of the movie industry who has had a lasting influence on the development of the movie medium as an art form. For the record, King’s extensive remarks about his two Hemingway adaptations, The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952) and The Sun Also Rises (1957) may be found in my Hemingway and Film (Ungar, 1980); and are not repeated here in the interest of covering all of the other films we discussed during our three lengthy conversations, 1979–81.

Henry King: I joined the Empire Stock Company when I was only seventeen, and we toured all through the South. I continued acting in repertory on the road for a few years, and also began dabbling in directing during this period by sometimes rehearsing with the other actors in the afternoons to get more life into a show. When the producer of a play in which I was appearing heard of this, he came to New Orleans where we were playing at the time to fire me. After seeing a performance, however, he came backstage and congratulated me for improving the production.

After one tour I went to New York for a visit and had dinner one night with Pearl White and her husband.

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