Film History, By George

Friday, Feb. 22, 2002 | 3:33 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

George Sidney is a living, breathing monument to the golden age of Hollywood.

The career of the 89-year-old former film director-producer crossed paths with almost every major actor, producer and director in the business, beginning in 1920s and continuing through the 1960s and beyond.

Among the dozens of memorable films he directed are "Anchors Aweigh" (1945), "Annie Get Your Gun" (1950), "Show Boat" (1951), "Bye Bye Birdie" (1961) and "Viva Las Vegas" (1964).

He has a million negatives of photographs he has taken of some of the world's most celebrated personalities -- and there's a story behind every negative.

Sidney has won three Oscars for short-subject films: "Quicker 'n a Wink" (1936), "Of Pups and Puzzles" (1937); and "The Merry Wives of Windsor Overture" (1953). He produced the first televised Academy Awards show in 1953.

Born into a show business family in 1916, Sidney first appeared as an actor on screen at age 5. Three years later he struck out on his own, joining a circus.

At age 14 he moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in films. At 17 he became a screen-test director.

Sidney, who moved to Las Vegas with his wife, Corinne, five years ago, recently talked to the Sun about his life, and about the upcoming Academy Awards program, which will be broadcast March 24 on ABC:

Las Vegas Sun: Do you keep up with films?

George Sidney: I watch them, but I'm not that wild about them.

Sun: Of the latest releases, which do you like the most?

GS: I liked "Moulin Rouge." It is so unusual. I loved John Huston's "Moulin Rouge" (1952). The new one threw me around a lot, but I enjoyed it.

Sun: Which picture nominated for an Oscar this year do you believe has the best chance of winning?

GS: "Moulin Rouge" has a fairly good chance, but I think "A Beautiful Mind" (directed by Ron Howard) probably will take it.

The Oscar, that's like betting on the Kentucky Derby -- you never know how it will come out. A person with three little votes can knock you off. But I think people like Ron Howard. He's been a nice fella who grew up from a little boy in the picture business.

Sun: Your life in films has been incredible. How did you get started?

GS: When I was 5 years old I appeared in a movie with Tom Mix called "The Littlest Cowboy." And in 1927 a young Italian director came to New York to make a silent picture called "For the Love of Mike." The leading lady was Claudette Colbert. It was her first picture. I played the kid. I was 9, I think. The director's name was Frank Capra. When filming was over I said, "How was it?" and he said, "When you grow up, don't be an actor, be a director. Tell everybody what to do."

Sun: When did you actually decide to become a director?

GS: When I was 14. I realized I resented being directed, so I decided I wanted to be a director. At age 14, I went to California and told everyone I was 20. Of course, nobody believed me but I got a great job as a messenger boy at MGM.

GS: How did you first become a director?

GS: There was nothing I didn't do in the studio. I was sound man, editor, (film) cutter. I got to be a test director, doing screen tests, when I was 17. One day the test director wasn't there -- he went out to play golf -- so I went into the studio and said, "I'm the director," so they said, "Well, go ahead and direct."

These three girls were on the set and ready to go. I made the tests, they were silent tests, and then I went to my job in the cutting room. Three or four days later I went by the casting office and there was this big bulletin board with every directors' name on it. I looked and on the bottom, written in chalk, was the name "Sidney" and "test director, Stage 4."

I used a young actor named Spangler Arlington Brugh to assist me when I needed a male in the tests. The studio liked him and signed him to a contract for $35 a week, but they decided he couldn't be an actor with a name like Spangler Arlington Brugh, so they changed it to Robert Taylor.

Sun: Who else did you give their first screen test?

GS: I had a friend. His name was Tiny. He wanted to be an actor. I always needed somebody to play along with the tests in the studio. I used him and the next day they called me upstairs and they say, "Keep your friends out of it. We don't have actors that are midgets. And he's blond, and we don't have blond leading men." Tiny went over to Paramount and a man was going to make a gangster picture, and he says, "I want that guy." So he put a raincoat on him and a hat and they called him Alan Ladd. That was Tiny.

Sun: You directed "The Little Rascals," one of the most popular series of short films in the movies back in the '30s. What was that like?

GS: I did 35 or 40 "Little Rascals" shorts. They were little bastards. We hated the little bastards. I hated them for one reason: They had no talent.

Sun: Who had the greatest influence on you, as a director?

GS: When people ask who influenced me the most, I say John Ford. Basically, the films I made were musicals. I was a musician. I played four instruments. I was a member of the musicians locals when I was 16.

Ford made westerns. People ask how he could have influenced me. Well, his films always had a rhythm to them, and that was the whole thing.

GS: Which of the films you directed is your favorite?

GS: I have no favorite movies. People think you must have a favorite, but each picture is an affair. You want to do it, you work on it, finish it and then comes the end of the picture and you shut the door and have the party and you're all crying, "Oh darling, we'll never forget you," and two years later you run into each other in a drug store and say, "Didn't we make a picture together?" Each picture is a wonderful little moment, but you wrap it up and keep on doing something else.

Sun: Compare movie making today with the years you were in the business.

GS: I think we have some wonderful directors today, like (Steven) Spielberg, Sidney (Pollock), but in (the old) days people who ran the industry were picture makers -- Harry Cohen, Louis B. Meyer, Jack Warner. They had been in show business.

Sun: You directed "Viva Las Vegas," starring Ann-Margret and Elvis Presley. What was that like?

GS: They said, "We'd like you to make a picture with Elvis because Elvis' pictures have gone to hell." I had never seen one. I looked at one and said, "Sure. The problem is he doesn't play opposite the girls. They only have close-ups of him."

So they had a story that he went out in desert and dug for oil. I decided to make a love story, one to show the good side of Vegas that I always loved. I had fun making the picture. They looked great together.

Sun: Did you become friends with Elvis?

GS: I think we became as friendly as you could with an illusion. When you meet him, he's behind a piece of glass and for those two minutes, that's the best you'll ever know him. They called him Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs because he always had his people around him.

Sun: Did Elvis and Ann-Margret have something going romantically off the set?

GS: You never can really tell. There's a law in studios that the minute you start a picture, you start a rumor.

GS: Where you intimidated by him?

GS: People ask me, how did I take him? I say, "What do you mean take him? We had (Greta) Garbo, (Clark) Gable, (Spencer) Tracy, (Fred) Astaire, (Gene) Kelly -- we had all those people. He was just another person."

I directed the two kings of Las Vegas -- Elvis and Frank Sinatra. They were completely opposite. Frank was show business. What we did after the shooting, we sat around and had a lot of laughs, told jokes. When the day was over with Elvis, he went home to his little tribe, which was right for him because they had manufactured something and they kept it going 'til the end.

Sun: You quit directing at an awfully young age. Were you burned out?

GS: When I became 50, I retired. I wasn't burned out. I was in fantastic physical condition. I had done all I wanted to do -- I wanted to entertain people, and I think I did that. When I quit, I had 10 more pictures ready to do. But you know what it's like -- just one more, just one more drink.

I had seen a lot of people who retired too late, so at 50 I took my own airplane and flew around the world for a couple of years and I became a paleontologist. I was curious, so I went to every major digging site all over the world and watched and listened and studied.

After I had enough of that for three years, I came back to the University of Southern California ... to go to law school. They said, "What do you mean? You've never been in school in your life." I said, "Give me a test." So they gave me a test and I passed. So, I got a law degree and then became president of the Directors Guild of America for 16 years.

Sun: What do you want to be remembered for in the film industry?

GS: I made pictures that people enjoyed.

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