William Wellman Director Signed Book Hollywood Legend Autograph Vintage

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Seller: memorabilia111 ✉️ (808) 100%, Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan, US, Ships to: US & many other countries, Item: 176277810603 WILLIAM WELLMAN DIRECTOR SIGNED BOOK HOLLYWOOD LEGEND AUTOGRAPH VINTAGE. WELLMAN, WILLIAM A. A Short Time for Insanity An Autobiography New York, NY, Hawthorn Books, Inc., 1974. First. Good, text block edges foxed, top edge more so, in Good+ DJ; INSCRIBED to Bill Hervey (California lawyer and yachtsman) by the author. Eps tanned, DJ is price-clipped, lt. Edge wear; Cloth backed boards; 8vo; DJ. William Augustus Wellman was an American film director known for his work in crime, adventure, and action genre films, often focusing on aviation themes, a particular passion. He also directed several well-regarded satirical comedies. 
Nationality: American. Born: William Augustus Wellman in Brookline, Massachusetts, 29 February 1896. Education: Attended Newton High School, Newton Highlands, Massachusetts, 1910–14. Military Service: Joined volunteer ambulance corps destined for France, 1917, then joined French Foreign Legion, where he learnt to fly planes; when United States entered World War I, became part of Lafayette Flying Corps, an arm of the Lafayette Escadrille. Family: Married 1) Helene Chadwick, 1918 (divorced 1920); three other marriages 1920–33; 5) Dorothy Coonan, 1933, seven children. Career: Professional ice hockey player for minor league team, 1914; film actor, United States, from 1919; messenger for Goldwyn Pictures, then directed first film, 1920; director for 20th Century-Fox, William Wellman William Wellman 1923; signed by Paramount, 1927. Awards: Oscar for Wings , 1927; Oscar for Best Writing (Original Story) for A Star Is Born (shared with Robert Carson), 1937. Died: 9 December 1975. Films as Director: 1920 The Twins from Suffering Creek 1923 The Man Who Won ; 2nd Hand Love ; Big Dan ; Cupid's Fireman 1924 The Vagabond Trail ; Not a Drum Was Heard ; The Circus Cowboy 1925 When Husbands Flirt 1926 The Boob ; The Cat's Pajamas ; You Never Know Women 1927 Wings 1928 The Legion of the Condemned ; Ladies of the Mob ; Beggars of Life 1929 Chinatown Nights ; The Man I Love ; Woman Trap 1930 Dangerous Paradise ; Young Eagles ; Maybe It's Love 1931 Other Men's Women ; The Public Enemy ; Night Nurse ; Star Witness ; Safe in Hell 1932 The Hatchet Man ; So Big ; Love Is a Racket ; The Purchase Price ; The Conquerors 1933 Frisco Jenny ; Central Airport ; Lily Turner ; Midnight Mary ; Heroes for Sale ; Wild Boys of the Road ; College Coach 1934 Looking for Trouble ; Stingaree ; The President Vanishes 1935 The Call of the Wild 1936 The Robin Hood of Eldorado (+ co-sc); Small Town Girl 1937 A Star Is Born (+ co-sc); Nothing Sacred 1938 Men with Wings (+ pr) 1939 Beau Geste (+ pr); The Light That Failed (+ pr) 1941 Reaching for the Sun (+ pr) 1942 Roxie Hart ; The Great Man's Lady (+ pr); Thunder Birds 1943 The Ox-Bow Incident ; The Lady of Burlesque 1944 Buffalo Bill 1945 This Man's Navy ; The Story of G.I. Joe 1946 Gallant Journey (+ pr, co-sc) 1947 Magic Town 1948 Iron Curtain 1949 Yellow Sky ; Battleground 1950 The Next Voice You Hear 1951 Across the Wide Missouri 1952 Westward the Women ; It's a Big Country (co-d); My Man and I 1953 Island in the Sky 1954 The High and the Mighty ; Track of the Cat 1955 Blood Alley 1958 Darby's Rangers ; Lafayette Escadrille (+ pr, co-sc) Other Film: 1919 Knickerbocker Buckaroo (Parker) (role) Publications By WELLMAN: book— A Short Time for Insanity: An Autobiography , New York, 1974. By WELLMAN: articles— "Director's Notebook—Why Teach Cinema?," in Cinema Progress (Los Angeles), June/July 1939. Interview, in Cinema (Beverly Hills), July 1966. On WELLMAN: books— Brownlow, Kevin, The Parade's Gone By . . . , New York, 1968. Thompson, Frank T., William A. Wellman , Metuchen, New Jersey, 1983. On WELLMAN: articles— Pringle, H.F., "Screwball Bill," in Collier's (New York), 26 February 1938. Griffith, Richard, "Wyler, Wellman, and Huston," in Films in Review (New York), February 1950. Sarris, Andrew, "Fallen Idols," in Film Culture (New York), Spring 1963. Brownlow, Kevin, "William Wellman," in Film (London), Winter 1965/66. Smith, J.M., "The Essential Wellman," in Brighton (London), January 1970. Wellman, William, Jr., "William Wellman: Director Rebel," in Action (Los Angeles), March/April 1970. Brooks, Louise, "On Location with Billy Wellman," in Film Culture (New York), Spring 1972. Fox, J., "A Man's World," in Films and Filming (London), March 1973. Eyman, S., and Allen Eyles, "'Wild Bill' William A. Wellman," in Focus on Film (London), no. 29, 1978. Langlois, Gerard, "William Wellman 1896–1975," in Avant-Scène du Cinéma (Paris), 1 March 1978. Gallagher, John, "William Wellman," in Films in Review (New York), May, June/July, and October 1982. Youngerman, Joseph C., "The Olden Days according to Youngerman," in DGA (Los Angeles), vol. 20, no. 3, July-August 1995. Hanisch, Michael, "Tough Guy—Fieger—Hollywood Professional," in Film-Dienst (Cologne), vol. 44, no. 5, 27 February 1996. * * * William Wellman's critical reputation is in many respects still in a state of flux long after re-evaluations and recent screenings of his major films should have established some consensus of opinion regarding his place in the pantheon of film directors. While there is some tentative agreement that he is, if nothing else, a competent journeyman director capable of producing entertaining male-dominated action films, other opinions reflect a wide range of artistic evaluations, ranging from comparisons to D.W. Griffith to outright condemnations of his films as clumsy and uninspired. His own preferred niche, as indicated by his flamboyant personality and his predilection for browbeating and intimidating his performers, would probably be in the same general class as highly masculine filmmakers like Howard Hawks, John Ford, and Raoul Walsh. While those three enjoy a distinct auteur status, a similar designation for Wellman is not so easily arrived at since much of his early work for Warner Bros. in the late 1930s is, at first glance, not easily distinguishable from the rest of the studio's output of sociological problem films and exposés of organized crime. In addition, his later films do not compare favorably, in many scholars' opinions, to treatments of similar themes (often employing the same actors and locales) by both Ford and Hawks. It might be argued, however, that Wellman actually developed what has come to be regarded as the Warner Bros. style to a greater degree than did the studio's other directors. His 1931 The Public Enemy , for example, stands above most of the other gangster films of the era in its creative blend of highly vivid images and in the subtle manner in which it created a heightened impression of violence and brutality by giving only hints of it on the screen. Exhibiting similar subtlety, Wellman's depiction of a gangster, beginning with his childhood, graphically alluded to the sociological roots of organized crime. While many of his more typical treatments of men in adversity, like 1927's Academy Award-winning Wings , were sometimes artificial, everything worked in Public Enemy. In Wellman's later films like The Ox-Bow Incident, The Story of G.I. Joe , and Battleground , the interactions of men in various groupings are shaped in such a way as to determine the direction and thematic force of each story. In others, like Track of the Cat , the emphasis shifts instead to one individual and his battle with forces of nature beyond his control. Yet in all cases, the issue is one of survival, a concept that manifests itself in some manner in all of Wellman's films. It is overt and recognizable in war dramas like Battleground or in a disaster film like The High and the Mighty , but it is reflected at least as much in the psychological tensions of Public Enemy as it is in the violence. It becomes even more abstract in a complex picture like Track of the Cat when the issue concerns the family unit and the insecurity of its internal relationships. In the more heavy-handed propaganda films such as The Iron Curtain and Blood Alley , the theme centers on the threat to democratic forms of government, and finally, in the Ox-Bow Incident , the issue is the very fragility of society itself in the hands of a mob. Wellman's supporters feel that these concerns arise from the latent cynicism of a disappointed romantic but are expressed by an instinctive artist with a keen awareness of the intellectual force of images conveyed with the raw power of many of those in Public Enemy. Yet it is the inconsistency of these images and a corresponding lack of inspiration in his work overall that clouds his stature as an auteur of the first rank. While, ultimately, it is true that Wellman's films cannot be easily separated from the man behind them, his best works are those that sprang from his emotional and psychological experiences. His lesser ones have been overshadowed by the cult of his personality and are best remembered for the behind-the-scenes fistfights, parties, and wild stunts, all of which detracted from the production. Perhaps he never got the chance to make the one indisputable masterpiece that would thematically support all of the seemingly irreconcilable aspects of his personality and firmly establish him as a director of the first magnitude. William Wellman, the Oscar-winning screenwriter-director of the original A Star Is Born (1937), was called "Wild Bill" during his World War I service as an aviator, a nickname that persisted in Hollywood due to his larger-than-life personality and lifestyle. A leap-year baby born in 1896 on the 29th of February in Brookline, MA, Wellman was the great-great-great grandson of Francis Lewis, one of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence. Wellman's father was a stockbroker and his mother, the former Cecilia McCarthy, was born in Ireland. Despite an upper-middle-class upbringing, the young Wellman was a hell-raiser. He excelled as an athlete and particularly enjoyed playing ice hockey, but he also enjoyed joyriding in stolen cars at nights. Cecilia Wellman served as a probation officer for "wayward boys" (juvenile delinquents) for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and was such a success in her field that she was asked to address Congress on the subject of delinquency. One of her charges was her own son, as the young Bill was kicked out of school at the age of 17 for hitting his high school principal on the head with a stink bomb. He tried making a living as a candy salesman and a cotton salesman, but failed. He worked for a lumber yard but was fired after losing control of a truck and driving it through the side of a barn. Eventually he wound up playing professional ice hockey in Massachusetts. While playing at the Colonial Theatre in Boston, an actor named Douglas Fairbanks took note of him. Impressed by Wellman's good looks and the figure he cut on ice, the soon-to-be silent-film superstar suggested to him that he had what it took to become a movie actor. Wellman's dream was to become an aviator, but since his father "didn't have enough money for me to become a flier in the regular way . . .I went into a war to become a flier." When he was 19 years old, through the intercession of his uncle, Wellman joined the air wing of the French Foreign Legion, where he learned to fly. In France he served as a pilot with the famous Lafayette Flying Corps (better known as the Lafayette Escadrille), where he won his nickname "Wild Bill" due to his devil-may-care style in the air. He and fellow pilot Tom Hitchcock, the great polo player, were in the Black Cat group. Wellman was shot down by anti-aircraft fire and injured during the landing of his plane, which had lost its tail section. Out of 222 Escadrille pilots 87 were killed, but Wellman was fated to serve out the duration of the war. In the spring of 1918 he was recruited by the US Army Air Corps, joining "because I was broke, and they were trying to get us in." Commissioned an officer, he was sent back to the US and stationed at Rockwell Field, in San Diego, CA, to teach combat fighting tactics to the new AAC pilots. Wellman would fly up to Hollywood and land on Fairbanks' polo fields to spend the weekend. Fairbanks told the returning hero that he would help him break into the movies when the war was over, and he was as good as his word. Fairbanks envisioned Wellman as an actor and cast him as the juvenile in The Knickerbocker Buckaroo (1919) and as a young officer in Evangeline (1919), but acting was something Wellman grew to hate, a hatred he later transferred to actors in his employ. He was fired by fellow macho director Raoul Walsh from "Evangeline" for slapping the lead actress, who Wellman didn't know was Walsh's wife. Disgusted with acting, Wellman told Fairbanks he wanted to be a director, and Fairbanks helped him into the production end of the business. It was a purely financial decision, he later recalled, as directors made more money than supporting actors at the time. Goldwyn Pictures hired him as a messenger in 1920 and he soon worked his way up the ladder, first as an assistant cutter, then as an assistant property man, property man, assistant director and second-unit director before making his uncredited directorial debut later that year at Fox with Twins of Suffering Creek (1920) starring Dustin Farnum (the silent film B-Western star whom Dustin Hoffman's star-struck mother named the future double-Oscar winner after). Wellman later remembered the film as awful, along with such other B-Westerns as Cupid's Fireman (1923), starring Buck Jones, whose westerns he began directing in 1923 after serving his apprenticeship. Fox Films gave Wellman his first directing credit in 1923 with the Buck Jones western Second Hand Love (1923) and, other than the Dustin Farnum picture The Man Who Won (1923), he turned out Jones pictures for the rest of his time at Fox. The studio fired him in 1924 after he asked for a raise after completing The Circus Cowboy (1924), another Buck Jones film. Moving to Columbia, he helmed When Husbands Flirt (1925), then went over to MGM for the slapstick comedy The Boob (1926) before landing at Famous Players-Lasky (now known as Paramount Pictures after its distribution unit), where he directed You Never Know Women (1926) and The Cat's Pajamas (1926). It was as a contract director at the now renamed Paramount-Famous Players-Lasky Corp. that he had his breakout hit, due to his flying background. Paramount entrusted its epic WW I flying epic Wings (1927) to Wellman, and the film went on to become the first Academy Award-winning best picture. Paramount paid Wellman $250 a week to direct "Wings". He also gave himself a role as a German pilot, and flew one of the German planes that landed and rolled over. The massive production employed 3,500 soldiers, 65 pilots and 165 aircraft. It also went over budget and over schedule due to Wellman's perfectionism, and he came close to being fired more than once. The film took a year to complete, but when it was released it turned out to be one of the most financially successful silent pictures ever released and helped put Gary Cooper, whom Wellman personally cast in a small role, on the path to stardom. "Wings" and Wellman's next flying picture, The Legion of the Condemned (1928)--in which Cooper had a starring role--initiated the genre of the World War One aviation movie, which included such famous works as Howard Hughes' Hell's Angels (1930) and Howard Hawks' The Dawn Patrol (1930). Despite his success in bringing in the first Best Picture Oscar winner, Paramount did not keep Wellman under contract. Wellman's disdain for actors already was in full bloom by the time he wrapped "Wings". Many actors appearing in his pictures intensely disliked his method of bullying them to elicit an performance. Wellman was a "man's man" who hated male actors due to their narcissism, yet he preferred to work with them because he despised the preparation that actresses had to go through with their make-up and hairdressing before each scene. Wellman shot his films fast. The hard-drinking director usually oversaw a riotous set, in line with his own lifestyle. He married five women, including a Ziegfeld Follies showgirl, before settling down with Dorothy Coonan Wellman, a former Busby Berkeley dancer. Wellman believed that Dorothy saved him from becoming a caricature of himself. She appeared as a tomboy in Wild Boys of the Road (1933), a Depression-era social commentary picture made for the progressive Warner Bros. studio (and which is a favorite of Martin Scorsese). It came two years after Wellman's masterpiece, The Public Enemy (1931), one of the great early talkies, one of the great gangster pictures and the film that made James Cagney a superstar. Scorsese says that Wellman's use of music in the film influenced his own first gangster picture, Mean Streets (1973) . Wellman was as adept at comedy as he was at macho material, helming the original A Star Is Born (1937) (for which he won his only Oscar, for best original story) and the biting satire Nothing Sacred (1937)--both of which starred Fredric March--for producer David O. Selznick. Both movies were dissections of the fame game, as was his satire Roxie Hart (1942), which reportedly was one of Stanley Kubrick's favorite films. During World War Two Wellman continued to make outstanding films, including The Ox-Bow Incident (1942) and Story of G.I. Joe (1945), and after the war he turned out another war classic, Battleground (1949). In the 1950s Wellman's best later films starred John Wayne, including the influential aviation picture The High and the Mighty (1954), for which he received his third and last best director Oscar nomination. His final film hearkened back to his World War One service, Lafayette Escadrille (1958), which featured the unit in which Wellman had flown. He retired as a director after making the film, reportedly enraged at Warner Bros.' post-production tampering with a film that meant so much to him. Other than David O. Selznick, not many people in Hollywood particularly liked the hell-raising iconoclast Wellman. Louis B. Mayer's daughter Irene Mayer Selznick, the first wife of David O. Selznick, said that Wellman was "a terror, a shoot-up-the-town fellow, trying to be a great big masculine I-don't-know-what". The Directors Guild of America in 1973 honored him with its Lifetime Achievement Award. William Wellman died (from leukemia) in 1975. William Wellman, in full William Augustus Wellman, (born February 29, 1896, Brookline, Massachusetts, U.S.—died December 9, 1975, Los Angeles, California), American film director whose more than 80 movies included Hollywood classics of documentary-like realism and who was ranked as an action director alongside Howard Hawks and John Ford. Born: February 29, 1896 Brookline Massachusetts Died: December 9, 1975 (aged 79) Los Angeles California Awards And Honors: Academy Award (1938) Notable Works: “Blood Alley” Early life and work Wellman’s stockbroker father came from a family of means; his mother, an Irish immigrant, was a well-respected probation officer who testified before Congress about juvenile delinquency and whose charges included her son when Wellman was kicked out of high school in Newton, Massachusetts. After trying his hand at a number of jobs, Wellman became a professional ice hockey player in Boston, where actor Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., saw him play, took a liking to him, and offered to find him a job in Hollywood. In 1917, before the United States had entered World War I, Wellman volunteered for ambulance duty in France, then joined the French Foreign Legion, and finally became a fighter pilot in the Lafayette Escadrille, a French air corps unit made up of American flyers. In the process he earned the nickname “Wild Bill,” was shot down, and won the Croix de Guerre for gallantry under fire. Before the war ended, Wellman joined the U.S. Army Air Corps and served as a flight instructor in San Diego. Following the war, Wellman took up Fairbanks’s longstanding offer and went to Hollywood but, after appearing in a small role in the silent film The Knickerbocker Buckaroo (1919), found that he did not like acting. With Fairbanks’s help, he then got a job at Goldwyn Pictures as a messenger and worked his way up through the ranks of the new industry. Films of the 1920s By 1923 Wellman was directing B-filmwesterns for the Fox Film Corporation (later Twentieth Century-Fox), and in 1926 he signed with Paramount. His third picture for that studio was Wings (1927), a World War I aviation drama written by former pilot John Monk Saunders and starring Clara Bow, Richard Arlen, and Charles (“Buddy”) Rogers (Gary Cooper also had a part). It shared with F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise what was in effect the first Academy Award for best picture. Wings reflected Wellman’s lifelong interest in aviation and his war experience while setting standards for documentary-like realism with its remarkable aerial camerawork and spectacular staging of airborne combat. Wellman and Saunders collaborated again on The Legion of the Condemned (1928), a tale about the Lafayette Escadrille that featured Cooper. For most of his career Wellman would work often and fast; as a result, many of his films were workmanlike and unremarkable, including his first partial sound film, Beggars of Life (1928), and the succession of underworld dramas and romances that followed during the late 1920s. Charles (“Buddy”) Rogers and Clara Bow in Wings (1927) Charles (“Buddy”) Rogers and Clara Bow in Wings (1927) Charles (“Buddy”) Rogers and Clara Bow in Wings (1927). Courtesy of Paramount Pictures Corporation Wings Wings Scene from Wings (1927), directed by William Wellman, with assistant director Norman Z. McLeod overseeing the aerial sequences. © 1927 Paramount Pictures Corporation Films of the early to mid-1930s In 1931 Wellman moved to Warner Brothers, where he directed 15 motion pictures over the next three years, including his next significant effort, The Public Enemy (1931), a genre-defining gangster saga that became one of the year’s biggest hits and launched James Cagney on the road to stardom. The Public Enemy had much to do with the establishment of the film Production Code in response to its realistic depiction of disreputable characters and callous violence, not least when Cagney’s cocky tough guy famously smashes a grapefruit into the face of a woman, played by Mae Clarke. Wellman’s next two films starred his favourite actress, Barbara Stanwyck, who played a fearless nurse who stands up to a gangster (Clark Gable) in Night Nurse (1931) and then played the lead in So Big (1932), a truncated version of Edna Ferber’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name. For the remainder of the early 1930s, Wellman made a series of melodramas—with some aerial adventure mixed in—before turning to the pre-Code gem Wild Boys of the Road (1933), a message film in the best Warner Brothers tradition about three Great Depression-ravaged kids who take to the road in search of a better life. James Cagney and Jean Harlow in The Public Enemy James Cagney and Jean Harlow in The Public Enemy James Cagney and Jean Harlow in The Public Enemy (1931). Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Subscribe Now Having made seven films for Warner Brothers in 1933, Wellman ended his association with the studio and began a very successful period as a freelancer. Among his films from the mid-1930s were The Call of the Wild (1935), a major box-office success that starred Gable as the Yukon-conquering hero of Jack London’s novel of the same name; The President Vanishes (1934), a cautionary political tale that is memorable chiefly for providing one of Rosalind Russell’s earliest screen appearances; and the love story Small Town Girl (1936), which teamed Robert Taylor and Janet Gaynor. William Augustus Wellman (February 29, 1896 – December 9, 1975) was an American film director known for his work in crime, adventure, and action genre films, often focusing on aviation themes, a particular passion. He also directed several well-regarded satirical comedies. Beginning his film career as an actor, he went on to direct over 80 films, at times co-credited as producer and consultant. In 1927, Wellman directed Wings, which became the first film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture at the 1st Academy Awards ceremony.[1] Contents 1 Early life 2 World War I 3 Film career 3.1 Innovations 3.2 Awards 4 Personal life and death 5 Career assessments 6 Selected filmography 7 See also 8 References 9 External links Early life Wellman was born in Brookline, Massachusetts. His father, Arthur Gouverneur Wellman, was a Boston Brahmin. William was a five times great-grandson of Puritan Thomas Wellman, who immigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony about 1640.[2] He was also a great-great-great-grandson of Francis Lewis of New York, one of the signatories to the Declaration of Independence. Wellman's mother, Cecilia McCarthy, was an Irish immigrant. During his teenage years, Wellman often found himself in trouble with authorities. He was expelled from Newton High School in Newtonville, Massachusetts for dropping a stink bomb on the principal's head.[3][4] He was also arrested and placed on probation for car theft.[5] His mother, who actually worked as a probation officer, was asked to address Congress on the subject of juvenile delinquency.[6] Later, young William worked as a salesman, as a general laborer in a lumber yard, and as a player on a minor-league hockey team.[5] World War I Wellman and Celia, his Nieuport 24 fighter, c. 1917 (one of several aircraft named for his mother) Wellman in a captured German Rumpler (image from his 1918 account Go Get Em!...) In World War I, Wellman enlisted in the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps to serve as a driver in Europe.[7] While in Paris, Wellman joined the French Foreign Legion and was assigned on December 3, 1917 as a fighter pilot and the first American to join N.87 escadrille in the Lafayette Flying Corps (not the sub-unit Lafayette Escadrille as usually stated),[8][9] where he earned himself the nickname "Wild Bill" and received the Croix de Guerre with two palms.[10] N.87, les Chats Noir (Black Cat Group) was stationed at Lunéville in the Alsace-Lorraine sector and was equipped with Nieuport 17 and later Nieuport 24 "pursuit" aircraft. Wellman's combat experience culminated in three recorded "kills", along with five probables, although he was ultimately shot down by German anti-aircraft fire on March 21, 1918.[11] Wellman survived the crash but he walked with a pronounced limp for the rest of his life.[7] Wellman's air-combat credits include the following:[12][13] January 19, 1918 a German "Rumpler" shot down in front of American lines in Lorraine by Wellman and Thomas Hitchcock. January 20, 1918 a German "Rumpler" shot down near German airfield at Mamy, France; pilot killed/gunner escaped March 8, 1918 forced 2 observers to jump from an observation balloon (attack unsuccessful; balloon taken down-was not shot down) March 9, 1918 fired on a German "Rumpler" over Parroy; plane escaped but rear gunner killed. March 9, 1918 shot down a German "Rumpler"; killed the rear Gunner; pilot killed by airman Ruamps. March 9, 1918 shot down a German "Albatros"; pilot killed; plane fell into American Lines March 17, 1918 shot down at least two +one[?] German Patrol planes; not confirmed as fight took place above German lines. March 18, 1918 shot down a German "Rumpler"; not confirmed as fight took place above German Lines. Maréchal des Logis (Sergeant) Wellman received a medical discharge from the Foreign Legion and returned to the United States a few weeks later. He spoke at War Savings Stamp rallies in his French uniform. In September 1918 his book about French flight school and his eventful four months at the front, titled Go Get 'Em! (written by Wellman with the help of Eliot Harlow Robinson), was published. He joined the United States Army Air Service but too late to fly for America in the war. Stationed at Rockwell Field, he taught combat tactics to new pilots. Film career While in San Diego, Wellman flew to Hollywood for the weekends in his Spad fighter, using Douglas Fairbanks' polo field in Bel Air as a landing strip.[7] Fairbanks was fascinated with the true-life adventures of "Wild Bill"[7] and promised to recommend him for a job in the movie business; he was responsible for Wellman being cast in the juvenile lead of The Knickerbocker Buckaroo (1919).[4] Wellman was hired for the role of a young officer in Evangeline (1919), but he was fired for slapping Miriam Cooper, the film's star and also the wife of the production’s director, Raoul Walsh.[6] Wellman as a flight instructor at Rockwell Field, 1919 Wellman hated being an actor, thinking it an "unmanly" profession,[14] and was miserable watching himself on screen while learning the craft.[15] He soon switched to working behind the camera, aiming to be a director, and progressed up the line as "a messenger boy, as an assistant cutter, an assistant property man, a property man, an assistant director, second unit director and eventually...director."[4] His first assignment as an assistant director for Bernie Durning provided him with a work ethic that he adopted for future film work. One strict rule that Durning enforced was no fraternization with screen femme fatales, which almost immediately Wellman broke, leading to a confrontation and a thrashing from the director. Despite his transgression, both men became lifelong friends, and Wellman steadily progressed to more difficult first unit assignments.[7] Wellman made his uncredited directorial debut in 1920 at Fox with The Twins of Suffering Creek. The first films he was credited with directing were The Man Who Won and Second Hand Love, released on the same day in 1923. After directing a dozen low-budget 'horse opera' films,[4] Wellman was hired by Paramount in 1927 to direct Wings, a major war drama dealing with fighter pilots during World War I that was highlighted by air combat and flight sequences. The film culminates with the epic Battle of Saint-Mihiel. In the 1st Academy Awards it was one of two films to win Best Picture (the other was Sunrise), although, due to tensions within the studio regarding time and budget overages, Wellman wasn't invited to the event.[15] Wellman's other films include The Public Enemy (1931), the first version of A Star Is Born (1937), Nothing Sacred (1937), Beau Geste (1939) starring Gary Cooper, Thunder Birds (1942), The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), Lady of Burlesque (1943), The Story of G.I. Joe (1945), Battleground (1949) and two films starring and co-produced by John Wayne, Island in the Sky (1953) and The High and the Mighty (1954).[16] While he was primarily a director, Wellman also produced 10 films, one of them uncredited, all of which he also directed. His last film was Lafayette Escadrille (1958), which he produced, directed, wrote the story for and narrated. He wrote the screenplay for two other films that he directed, and one film that he did not direct: 1936's The Last Gangster. Wellman wrote the story for A Star Is Born and (with Robert Carson) received the Academy Award for Best Story. Wellman is credited for the story in the remakes released in 1954, 1976, and 2018. Wellman reportedly worked fast, usually satisfied with a shot after one or two takes.[15] Despite his reputation for not coddling his leading men and women, he coaxed Oscar-nominated performances from seven actors: Fredric March and Janet Gaynor (A Star Is Born), Brian Donlevy (Beau Geste), Robert Mitchum (The Story of G.I. Joe), James Whitmore (Battleground), and Jan Sterling and Claire Trevor (The High and Mighty). Regarding actors, Wellman in a 1952 interview stated, "Movie stardom isn't about acting ability, it's personality and temperament". He then added, "I once directed Clara Bow. She was mad and crazy but what a personality!"[17] Innovations Wings led to several firsts in filmmaking including newly invented camera mounts that could be secured to plane fuselages and motor-driven cameras to shoot actors while flying as the cameramen ducked out of frame in their cockpits. Star Richard Arlen had some flying experience but co-star Buddy Rogers had to learn to fly for the film, as stunt pilots could not be used during close-up shots. Towers up to 100 feet were used to shoot low-flying planes and battle action on the ground.[15] During the filming of Beggars of Life, a silent film starring Wallace Beery, Richard Arlen and Louise Brooks, sound was added to Beery's introductory scene at the behest of Paramount Studio. Wellman reportedly hung a microphone from a broom so Beery could walk and talk within the scene, avoiding the static shot required for early sound shoots.[15] During the filming of Chinatown Nights (1929), he sat under the camera on a dolly with the mic between his legs, essentially inventing a shotgun mic.[18] Awards Wellman won a single Academy Award, for the story of A Star Is Born. He was nominated as best director three times: for A Star Is Born, Battleground and The High and Mighty, for which he was also nominated by the Directors Guild of America as best director. In 1973, the DGA honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Copies of both Wings and The Story of G.I. Joe are preserved in the Academy Film Archive.[19] Wellman also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 6125 Hollywood Blvd.[20] Personal life and death Wellman revealed near the end of his life that he had married a French woman named Renee during his time in The Lafayette Flying Corps. She was killed in a bombing raid during the war.[15] Later, between 1918 and 1934, he married four additional times in the United States: Helene Chadwick: married (1918-1923) separated after a month; later divorced Margery Chapin (daughter of Frederic Chapin): married (1925-1926); together for a short time; adopted Robert Emmett Tansey's daughter, Gloria. Marjorie Crawford: married (1930-1933) divorced Dorothy "Dottie" Coonan: married (March 20, 1934 – 1975); until his death; they had seven children - four daughters, three sons.[21] Dorothy starred in Wellman's 1933 film Wild Boys of The Road and had seven children with him, including actors Michael Wellman, William Wellman Jr., Maggie Wellman, and Cissy Wellman.[1] His daughter Kathleen "Kitty" Wellman married actor James Franciscus, although they later divorced. His first daughter is Patty Wellman, and he had a third son, Tim Wellman. William Wellman in 1975 died of leukemia at his Brentwood home in Los Angeles.[5] He was cremated, and his ashes were scattered at sea. His widow Dorothy, at age 95, died on September 16, 2009 in Brentwood, California.[1] Career assessments Decades after Wellman's death, William Jr. wrote two biographies about his father, The Man and His Wings: William A. Wellman and the Making of the First Best Picture (2006) and Wild Bill Wellman—Hollywood Rebel (2015). Fellow filmmakers have also examined Wellman's career. Richard Schickel in 1973 devoted an episode of his PBS series The Men Who Made the Movies to Wellman,[22] and in 1996, Todd Robinson made the feature-length documentary Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick.[23] Selected filmography This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (February 2011) The Knickerbocker Buckaroo (1919) (Wellman's debut as an actor) The Twins of Suffering Creek (1920) (first film as director—uncredited) The Man Who Won (1923) Second Hand Love (1923) Big Dan (1923) Cupid's Fireman (1923) The Vagabond Trail (1924) Not a Drum Was Heard (1924) The Circus Cowboy (1924) When Husbands Flirt (1925) The Boob (1926) You Never Know Women (1926) The Cat's Pajamas (1926) Wings (1927) Ladies of the Mob (1928) Beggars of Life (1928) The Legion of the Condemned (1928) Chinatown Nights (1929) Woman Trap (1929) The Man I Love (1929) Young Eagles (1930) Dangerous Paradise (1930) Maybe It's Love (1930) The Public Enemy (1931) Other Men's Women (1931) Night Nurse (1931) The Star Witness (1931) Safe in Hell (1931) The Hatchet Man (1932) So Big! (1932) Frisco Jenny (1932) The Purchase Price (1932) Love Is a Racket (1932) The Conquerors (1932) Central Airport (1933) Midnight Mary (1933) Lilly Turner (1933) Heroes for Sale (1933) Wild Boys of the Road (1933) College Coach (1933) Viva Villa! (1934) (uncredited) The President Vanishes (1934) Stingaree (1934) Looking for Trouble (1934) The Call of the Wild (1935) The Robin Hood of El Dorado (1936) Small Town Girl (1936) Tarzan Escapes (1936) (uncredited) A Star Is Born (also Story) (1937) Nothing Sacred (1937) Men with Wings (1938) Beau Geste (1939) The Light that Failed (1939) Thunder Birds (1942) Roxie Hart (1942) The Great Man's Lady (1942) Lady of Burlesque (1943) The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) Buffalo Bill (1944) This Man's Navy (1945) The Story of G.I. Joe (1945) Gallant Journey (1946) Magic Town (1947) The Iron Curtain (1948) Yellow Sky (1948) Battleground (1949) The Happy Years (1950) The Next Voice You Hear... (1950) Across the Wide Missouri (1951) Westward the Women (1951) My Man and I (1952) Island in the Sky (Director + Narrator (Uncredited)) (1953) The High and the Mighty (1954) Track of the Cat (1954) Ring of Fear (uncredited) (1954) Blood Alley (1955) Good-bye, My Lady (1956) Darby's Rangers (1958) Lafayette Escadrille (1958)
  • Country/Region of Manufacture: United States
  • Topic: Historical
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • Author: WILLIAM A WELLMAN
  • Subject: Biography & Autobiography
  • Original/Facsimile: Original
  • Language: English
  • Special Attributes: 1st Edition, Dust Jacket

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