Writer, director, producer, playwright, and author, George Stevens, Jr. dives into 5 generations of Stevens in showbiz, going all the way back to the Civil War, talks about riding shotgun with an Oscar award, working for the Kennedy Administration, starting the AFI, tackling social justice issues in his work, the future of movies and the cinema viewing experience, shares stories with Edward Murrow, JFK, and President Obama, and reflects on leaving a legacy.
Legacy means a lot of things to a lot of people. To some, it's lasting integrity. It's building and maintaining a history of greatness. It's making an impact on people and community. For others, it's dependable security and assurance in an uncertain time. To us, it's all of that and more. It's a mindset, a brother and sisterhood of hardworking people dedicated to doing the right
Let's talk legacy.
Welcome to Let's Talk Legacy. I'm Gary Michaels, the host of the show. And today we have George Stevens Jr. He's a writer, director, producer, playwright, author, and champion of American film. He's achieved an extraordinary creative legacy, which we're going to speak about today, spanning more than 50 years, enriching the nation's cultural heritage.
So I'm just so excited when I got to know that we were going to have you on the show, George. I got pretty fired up. So welcome to the show. Well, Gary, it's great. And I heard about your show and I'm looking forward to talking with you. Awesome. Awesome. So since we are talking about legacy, let's just go right into that.
Obviously, with your career and everything you've done, legacy is important to you. And so what does legacy mean to you?
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Well, they're huge. I mean, A Place in the Sun and Shane and Diary of Anne Frank. I mean, these are things that are not to be forgotten. When you think about your father and your family, how much influence did that have on you?
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.
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, 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.
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,
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.
Obviously, most of us in this world, we have good habits and bad habits from the way we were raised from our parents, right? And we have good tendencies and are definitely influenced by the way we were raised. Did you feel like getting into theater and movies and putting yourself out there was something that would have come naturally for you anyhow?
Or was it something that you feel like came to you because you were around that space?
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.
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.
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.
Did you ever feel like you arrived? Was there a time that there was a personal accomplishment that you did that made you feel like, yes, I honor my father. I was blessed to be in that situation, but you know what? I'm pretty proud of myself too.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Do you have any personal stories of your time with the Kennedys that really struck a chord with you?
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.
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.
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 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.
Now, you went on after that to help establish the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as serve as the founding director of the American Film Institute, which helped preserve and restore film. And during that time, tell us a little bit about the importance of then and today preserving the legacy of these films for the future generations.
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.
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.
Terrence Malick and David Lynch from those old days and Patty Jenkins and other wonderful contemporary filmmakers are all graduates of AFI.
Wow. So some of your best known works deal with the topic of race in America, including the play Thurgood about the Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and Separate But Equal. Your Emmy Award winning miniseries, which was about the landmark Supreme Court decision in 1954. Now that decision celebrates its 70th anniversary this year.
The series has just been released on DVD, and to honor that, talk to us a little bit about the making of Separate But Equal and the gravity you felt making it. I mean, there's so much here.
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.
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.
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.
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.
And Paramount is also releasing it on DVD. Awesome.
You know, your career also sort of came full circle in 2009 when President Obama asked you to serve on the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, where you had led the American Cultural Delegation to Cuba. Right. So when you were in the Kennedy administration in the 60s, things were a little different between U.S. and Cuba. What was it like to go there as a friend?
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.
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.
That certainly would be nice if we could all be friends all around the world, wouldn't it? In 2022, you released your memoir we've talked about a little bit, My Place in the Sun, which recounts much of what we've talked about today and much more from the presidents to fighting for social justice to getting your own Oscar and more. What would most surprise listeners about the book?
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
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.
With everything going streaming now, is film, in your opinion, on the upswing? With where we're at now, are you optimistic or concerned about what's next?
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.
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.
You've never really been a guy who slowed down. There's so much to do, right? And so much to get done. What's next for you?
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.
Oh, sweet. Well, I'll definitely be looking for that. I just want to thank you so much. So much of our show is about legacy and film is such a huge part of our history and where we've been and where we're going. And I just really appreciate, we really appreciate you taking the time to spend time with us today and share your story, George. I really, really appreciate it.
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.
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