George Cukor: A Double Life
ISBN: 9780816684878
Platform/Publisher: JSTOR / University of Minnesota Press
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: chapter; Download: chapter
Subjects: Cukor George 1899–1983; Motion picture producers and directors -- United States -- Biography; Gay men -- Biography;


One of the highest-paid studio contract directors of his time, George Cukor was nominated five times for an Academy Award as Best Director. In publicity and mystique he was dubbed the "women's director" for guiding the most sensitive leading ladies to immortal performances, including Greta Garbo, Ingrid Bergman, Judy Garland, and--in ten films, among them The Philadelphia Story and Adam's Rib --his lifelong friend and collaborator Katharine Hepburn. But behind the "women's director" label lurked the open secret that set Cukor apart from a generally macho fraternity of directors: he was a homosexual, a rarity among the top echelon. Patrick McGilligan's biography reveals how Cukor persevered within a system fraught with bigotry while becoming one of Hollywood's consummate filmmakers.


Patrick McGilligan's biographies include the Edgar-nominated Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light and Fritz Lang: The Nature of the Beast , a New York Times Notable Book. He coauthored (with Paul Buhle) the classic oral history Tender Comrades: A Backstory of the Hollywood Blacklist (Minnesota, 2012).


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