BEFORE THEY DIRECTED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 301, 19 December 1936, Page 5 (Supplement)

BEFORE THEY DIRECTED.

JOBS HELD BY MOVIE MEN,

Many of the men of to-day's motion picture successcs were not always directors. In numerous cases they have graduated from unusual first jobs. The first job of W. S. Van Dyke was as an actor. He played the role of a little curly-haired girl when he was five years old. George Cukor stepped out of a citizens' training corps into a job as an assistant stage manager. Sidney Franklin began his career as an assistant cameraman. Robert Z. Leonard was a fourth part of a quarter that sang at some pleasure gardens. Clarence Brown was a motor car salesman. Frank Lloyd was alternately touring company actor, farm hand and bus driver before he reached Hollywood. Edmund Goulding was a variety headliner at the age of 12. Fritz Lang ran away from home to become a painter, began writing while convalescing in a hospital during the war, and then advanced to director. George Fitzmaurice became a painter in his youth, like Lang. Sam Wood was a real estate dealer, Vic-tor Fleming was an assistant cameraman, George Seitz a playwright and actor, William K. Howard a film salesman, E. A. Dupont a newspaperman, Richard Rosson violinist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and Edwin L. Marin an assistant cameraman.