King Vidor

King Vidor was thrice married. His first marriage to Florence Arto from 1915 to 1924 ended in divorce. The couple had one daughter.

He married Eleanor Boardman in 1926 and had two daughters with her. This marriage ended in 1931.

He tied the knot for the third time with Elizabeth Hill in 1932.

King Wallis Vidor was born on February 8, 1894, in Galveston, Texas, U.S. into a middle class family. His father, Charles, founded the Miller-Vidor Lumber Co. in Texas.

King Vidor survived the great Galveston Hurricane of 1900 which wiped out a third of the city’s population. This horrific event would remain embedded in his mind for life.

He attended the Peacock Military Academy in San Antonio where he learned the importance of discipline and hard work. A creative individual from the very beginning, he was greatly fascinated by the emerging medium of films.

He started working as a ticket collector at a local Galveston theater to learn more about cinema. Soon, he was promoted to a projectionist. Enthralled by the opportunities the new medium offered, he began shooting news events in the area and selling the clips to newsreel production companies.

King Vidor made the short films ‘Hurricane in Galveston’ and ‘The Grand Military Parade’ in 1913. He moved to Hollywood in 1915. Married by now, the young man took up a job as a clerk and a movie extra with Universal Studios.

Soon, he turned screenwriter and director with a series of six short juvenile-delinquency films for Judge Willis Brown. In 1919, he directed his first feature film, ‘The Turn in the Road.’ The success of ‘Peg o' My Heart’ in 1922 won him a long-term contract with Goldwyn Studios (later to be absorbed into MGM).

In 1925, he directed ‘The Big Parade’, a World War I film starring John Gilbert, Renée Adorée, Hobart Bosworth, and Claire McDowell in the lead roles. It was one of the early films that did not glorify war and is counted amongst the greatest war films of the era. The success of the movie established Vidor as one of the top-most directors in Hollywood.

The advent of the talkies in the late 1920s jeopardized the careers of many in Hollywood. Ever the adventurous soul, King Vidor was unfazed and made his foray into the talkies with ‘Hallelujah!’ in 1929. It was one of the first all-black films by a major studio. The ground-breaking film earned Vidor an Academy Award nomination for Best Director.

In 1931, he directed the movie, ‘The Champ’, which is the story of an alcoholic boxer who is struggling to rebuild his life for the sake of his young son. The Wallace Beery starrer was a huge critical as well as commercial hit that was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.

The King Vidor directed silent film, ‘The Crowd’, was nominated for the Academy Award for Unique and Artistic Production. Though not a great success upon its initial release, the film has been consistently hailed as one of the greatest and most enduring American silent films.

‘The Champ’ is one of his most influential films. Not only was it a huge commercial as well as critical hit, but it also began the trend of the basic story where a struggling alcoholic tries to mend his ways for the sake of his child. The film won the Academy Award for Best Story and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.