George Stevens, Jr.
Appearances
Let's Talk Legacy
CLIP: Call From JFK / Riding Shotgun with an Oscar
I went with my father to the 1952 Academy Awards in Hollywood. A Place in the Sun had just been released. And we sat next to one another at the Pantages Theater. And Joseph Mankiewicz, a great director, had won the Oscar the year before for the Lady Eve, I believe. And he came out and read the nominations. And it was John Huston for The African Queen, William Wyler for Detective Story,
Let's Talk Legacy
CLIP: Call From JFK / Riding Shotgun with an Oscar
And it was a huge decision to leave what I was doing in Hollywood and go off on this other tangent. But being with with President Kennedy and Murrow in the New Frontier, and we made documentary films. And there I really got a sense of my own work, that it was independent of my father, and it was highly regarded. And, you know, I went on to start the American Film Institute.
Let's Talk Legacy
CLIP: Call From JFK / Riding Shotgun with an Oscar
And so pretty soon I got comfortable with my own place in the creative world.
Let's Talk Legacy
CLIP: Call From JFK / Riding Shotgun with an Oscar
Yes. I made a film called The Five Cities of June with a director called Bruce Hershenson, which told the story of President Kennedy going to Berlin in 1963 and standing before the Berlin Wall and making his famous Ich bin ein Berliner. I am a Berliner speech before Berlin. 400,000 people at the Berlin Wall. It was a very dramatic movie, and we showed it, of course, overseas.
Let's Talk Legacy
CLIP: Call From JFK / Riding Shotgun with an Oscar
And one afternoon, I was in Edward R. Murrow's director's meeting with about 25 people and my assistant, my deputy. came in and handed me a note. And I read it, and I kind of looked at Murrow, and I got up and left the meeting and went down one flight to my office. And my assistant said, Mrs. Lincoln's on the line. She said, I'll ask her to put the president on.
Let's Talk Legacy
CLIP: Call From JFK / Riding Shotgun with an Oscar
And it was President Kennedy calling me. And he came on the phone and he said, George, he said, I saw the five cities of June last night. He said, it's one of the best documentaries I've ever seen. He said, how many countries is it being shown in? How many languages? He asked all of these Kennedy questions. And he was known that President Kennedy often wouldn't call the Secretary of State.
Let's Talk Legacy
CLIP: Call From JFK / Riding Shotgun with an Oscar
He'd call somebody on the Cambodia desk to ask questions because he wanted to get firsthand knowledge. So he had called me to find out about this movie. He was that kind of leader, an inspiring figure.
Let's Talk Legacy
CLIP: Call From JFK / Riding Shotgun with an Oscar
Vincent Minnelli for An American in Paris, Elia Kazan for A Streetcar Named Desire, and George Stevens for A Place in the Sun. Quite a lineup. Heck yeah. And A Place in the Sun won. But riding home that night, the Oscar was on the seat between us in the car. I think I was about 18 years old.
Let's Talk Legacy
CLIP: Call From JFK / Riding Shotgun with an Oscar
And my father looked over at me and he said, you know, this is before DVDs and streaming pictures came and went. And he said, we'll have a better idea what kind of a film this is in about 25 years. He understood that with art, what's important is what lasts. And when you talk about legacy,
Let's Talk Legacy
CLIP: Call From JFK / Riding Shotgun with an Oscar
You know, the idea that you've not made a picture that's going to be forgotten, that you make one and you mentioned several that are being shown 70 years after he made them. So that is part of our family legacy.
Let's Talk Legacy
CLIP: Call From JFK / Riding Shotgun with an Oscar
Well, you know, it's interesting. My life took a turn. I was pleased with the work I was doing on Alfred Hitchcock and working with him on the Diary of Anne Frank. But then I went to Washington, Edward R. Murrow, the great war correspondent, went to work for President Kennedy, the United States Information Agency, and he invited me to go to Washington.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
I also recorded it so people can listen to My Place in the Sun on Audible or any of the services that you use or to read My Place in the Sun. So it's been a pleasure to have written.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
I am both optimistic and concerned. It's wonderful that these classic films, which continue to have such vitality, and they will continue to be shown on streaming or wherever you look for films. It is a challenge to how the theatrical film experience will develop in the future.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
And I'm rather confident that it will come back to a fuller strength because I'm sure you agree, there's nothing like being with other people before a big screen and to watch a film in the dark. But it's also wonderful that we have, as our screens get bigger at home, that we have this ability to watch films. So I'm optimistic, Gary, about the future of film. That's awesome.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
Well, I'm working on a very ambitious streaming historical series that is somewhat like The Crown, but about America. And I can't talk about the details, but I'm hard at work on that. And I'm hoping that we'll be doing that next year. Would that be a movie or a miniseries? A miniseries over maybe two seasons.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
Well, Gary, I would thank you for your continuing work to talk to people about legacy, because I think it can mean so much to people if they have a sense of it. And I've really enjoyed our conversation.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
And as I wrote my memoir, you know, I look back and I realize that our family really is about legacy. My great-grandmother, Georgia Woodthorpe, was an actress in San Francisco around the time of the Civil War. And she went on to become a star. And Edwin Booth was the greatest Hamlet, America's greatest Hamlet, the Booth Theater in New York. Nope. after him.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
And Georgia Woodthorpe was the youngest Ophelia to Edwin Booth's Hamlet. And Georgia started five generations of Stevens's in show business. Her daughter, Georgie Cooper, became an actress. and married an actor named Lander Stevens, and my father was their child, and he grew up around the theater.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
His mother gave him a box brownie camera when he was nine years old, and led him to become one of the greatest movie directors of all time, and he also photographed World War II. with a team of cameramen. And my mother's mother, Alice Howell, was a silent film star. She was in Charlie Chaplin's first five pictures. Then she went on to make a hundred movies of her own.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
So I've always been conscious, and particularly since writing the memoir, of what legacy means to a family, that you preserve the memory of of that family. You know, my father's films, movies have a way of getting lost and disappearing. And I've nurtured the preservation of his films.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
A great deal. There are a lot of stories of Hollywood sons who have difficult lives, and there can be different reasons for that. And my father was a wonderful man and You know, we became great friends. I worked with him. Again, it comes to legacy. I went with my father to the 1952 Academy Awards in Hollywood, a place in the sun had just been released.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
And we sat next to one another at the Pantages Theater. And Joseph Mankiewicz, a great director, had won the Oscar the year before for the Lady Eve, I believe. And he came out and read the nominations.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
And it was John Huston for The African Queen, William Wyler for Detective Story, Vincent Minnelli for An American in Paris, Elia Kazan for A Streetcar Named Desire, and George Stevens for A Place in the Sun. Quite a lineup. Heck yeah. And A Place in the Sun won. But riding home that night, the Oscar was on the seat between us in the car. I think I was about 18 years old.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
And my father looked over at me and he said, you know, this is before DVDs and streaming pictures came and went. And he said, we'll have a better idea what kind of a film this is in about 25 years. He understood that with art, what's important is what lasts. And when you talk about legacy,
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
The idea that you've not made a picture that's going to be forgotten, that you make one and you mention several that are being shown 70 years after he made them. So that is part of our family legacy.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
You know, I was interested in being a sports writer. You know, in school, I edited the paper and did all of that stuff. But it's unlikely that I would have been attracted to film or have had that sense. Definitely it was because I was around my father. And I have to recall, you know, because when I was young, I worked with them on Shane and then Giant.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
And then I went in the Air Force for two years and came back. And then I started working with Jack Webb, who made Dragnet, a terrific actor, producer. And he gave me a chance to start directing television. And I was directing Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Peter Gunn and things like that, and then went to work with my father on the Diary of Anne Frank.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
But I do admit my father was so talented and so in command of what he was doing and so respected that I really kind of in the back of my mind worried about whether I really would ever be able to live up to that quality of work.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
Well, you know, it's interesting. My life took a turn. I was pleased with the work I was doing on Alfred Hitchcock and working with him on the diary of Anne Frank. But then I went to Washington, Edward R. Murrow, the great war correspondent, went to work for President Kennedy, the United States Information Agency, and he invited me to go to Washington.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
And it was a huge decision to leave what I was doing in Hollywood and go off on this other tangent. But being with with President Kennedy and Murrow in the New Frontier, and we made documentary films. And there I really got a sense of my own work, that it was independent of my father, and it was highly regarded. You know, I went on to start the American Film Institute.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
And so pretty soon I got comfortable with my own place in the creative world. What was that like getting into politics and putting that on film? Well, it was just great. And, you know, the Kennedy years were just so exciting, the short time they lasted. And President Kennedy was an inspiration. Wonderful quotes he would make. And I wrote down one.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
He loved the ancient Greek poets, and he had one that was the Greek definition of happiness, full use of one's powers along lines of excellence. And I wrote that down, and here I was making these films under Edward R. Murrow, aspiring to make them famous. really excellent. And I realized I was living with President Kennedy, the Greek definition of happiness as a 29-year-old young man.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
So Kennedy, he, and then also Bobby, they had a great influence on me in terms of kind of my aspirations and values and ideals.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
Yes. I made a film called The Five Cities of June with a director called Bruce Hershenson, which told the story of President Kennedy going to Berlin in 1963 and standing before the Berlin Wall and making his famous Ich bin ein Berliner. I am a Berliner speech before Berlin. 400,000 people at the Berlin Wall. It was a very dramatic movie, and we showed it, of course, overseas.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
And one afternoon, I was in Edward R. Murrow's directors meeting with about 25 people and my assistant, my deputy, came in and handed me a note. And I read it and I kind of looked at Murrow and I got up and left the meeting and went down one flight to my office. And my assistant said, Mrs. Lincoln's on the line. She said, I'll ask her to put the president on.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
And it was President Kennedy calling me. And he came on the phone and he said, George, he said, I saw the five cities of June last night. He said, it's one of the best documentaries I've ever seen. He said, how many countries is it being shown in? How many languages? He asked all of these Kennedy questions.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
and he was known that president kennedy often wouldn't call the secretary of state he'd call somebody on the cambodia desk to ask questions because he wanted to get first-hand knowledge so he had called me to find out about this movie He was that kind of leader and inspiring figure.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
Well, when we started AFI, that was one of the reasons for starting it. We started a rescue program because half of the films that was in 1967 and half of the films that had made from 1900 till then were missing and they were made on nitrate film. so they could just decompose in their cans.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
And we started a rescue program and saved, there are 42,000 feature films in the Library of Congress in the American Film Institute collection, which were films that AFI saved and are preserved for generations today. So that was one of our big jobs. And we also started a conservatory which exists today. It's over 50 years old, which is really training the best filmmakers in America.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
Terrence Malick and David Lynch from those old days and Patty Jenkins and other wonderful contemporary filmmakers are all graduates of AFI.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
Yeah, well, again, I was inspired by President Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, who both have had real understanding of the problems of race in America. And we made films at USIA. One won the Academy Award called Nine from Little Rock. which was the story of the nine students who entered Little Rock High School. They were the first black students. And we tell the story of their lives.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
And much later, I wanted to tell the story of the cases that ended school desegregation. The unanimous Supreme Court decision led by the great Justice Earl Warren that outlawed segregated schools. In 1890, Plessy versus Ferguson ruled the Supreme Court that segregated schools were equal, segregated facilities were legal if they were equal.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
And of course, in the South, they were anything but equal, separate restrooms, separate schools. And Thurgood Marshall, as a young lawyer, took on this case to go to the Supreme Court and prove that separate but equal should not be the law of the land when it led to that unanimous Supreme Court decision. So we made separate but equal miniseries that won the Emmy for the best miniseries in 1991.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
And Sidney Poitier plays Thurgood Marshall and Burt Lancaster plays the other lawyer in the Supreme Court arguments. and a wonderful cast of actors, Cleavon Little and Albert Hall and Richard Kiley as Earl Warren. But for people to have the opportunity to understand the drama of what it took to end this unfortunate law, watching Separate but Equal can be a real treat.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
And Paramount is also releasing it on DVD. Awesome.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
Legacy is just so much a part of my life. You know, my memoir, My Place in the Sun, Life in the Golden Age of Hollywood in Washington, I wrote it and it really became all about legacy because my father was one of the great movie directors who left when I was 11 for three years to go to World War II in Europe. He was a
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
Oh, it was wonderful. And President Obama had just been there. And we went with a number of artists, Smokey Robinson and Dave Matthews and John Guare, the playwright and wonderful group. Usher was with us. There were performances with the Cubans. And again, it was a great signal of hope. But then again, there was a setback during the Trump years. Relations with Cuba were discouraged.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
And I hope that soon we will have an opportunity to, we should be friendly with Cuba. It's a small island and the people are wonderful and we should be friends.
Let's Talk Legacy
My Place in the Sun, with George Stevens, Jr.
You know, I think what may surprise them, people seem to enjoy the book so much because I've had this sort of blessed life where through generations, I've been involved with the most interesting people in the world, actors, directors, presidents. There are so many stories and people find them uplifting and kind of inspiring. So I've had the privilege to talk about my life in that way. And