Known for Directing
Vincente Minnelli, born in Chicago, was an American stage director and film director, famous for directing such classic movie musicals as Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), Gigi (1958), The Band Wagon (1953), and An American in Paris (1951). An American in Paris and Gigi both won the Academy Award for Best Picture, with Minnelli winning Best Director for Gigi. In addition to having directed some of the most famous and well-remembered musicals of his time, Minnelli made many comedies and melodramas. He was married to Judy Garland from 1945 until 1951; they were the parents of Liza Minnelli. With his background in theater, Minnelli was known as an auteur who always brought his stage experience to his films. The first film that he directed, Cabin in the Sky (1943), was visibly influenced by the theater. Shortly after that, he directed I Dood It with Red Skelton and Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), during which he fell in love with the film's star, Judy Garland. They had first met on the set of Strike Up the Band (1940), a Busby Berkeley film for which Minnelli was asked to design a musical sequence performed by Garland and Mickey Rooney. They began a courtship that eventually led to their marriage in June 1945. Their one child together, Liza Minnelli, grew up to become an Academy Award-winning singer and actress. The Minnelli family is thus unique in that father, mother and child all won Oscars. Widely known for directing musicals, including An American in Paris (1951), Brigadoon (1954), Kismet (1955), and Gigi (1958), he also directed comedies and melodramas, including Madame Bovary (1949), Father of the Bride (1950), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), Lust for Life (1956), Designing Woman (1957), and The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1963). His last film was A Matter of Time (1976). During the course of his career he directed seven different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Spencer Tracy, Gloria Grahame, Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn, Arthur Kennedy, Shirley MacLaine and Martha Hyer. Grahame and Quinn won. Minnelli received an Oscar nomination as Best Director for An American in Paris (1951) and later won the Best Director Oscar for Gigi (1958). According to Peter Bart in his book The Gross, Minnelli's films having 11 first-place finishes on Variety's opening release box office rankings. On February 8, 1960, Minnelli received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to the motion pictures industry at 6676 Hollywood Boulevard. He died in Beverly Hills, California.
Born
February 28, 1903
Died
July 25, 1986 (age 83)
Birthplace
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Filmography
54 films, 2 shows


A Matter of Time
1976 · 1h 37m · IT
During a press conference, international star Nina remembers simpler times, flashing back to her days as a maid in a run-down Italian hotel. As a young woman, Nina befriends Contessa Sanziani, an elderly woman who entertains Nina with memories of her vibrant, wealthy life with Count Sanziani. Inspired by her tales of success, young Nina fantasizes about her own adventures and seeks to find the same excitement in her life.


On a Clear Day You Can See Forever
1970 · 2h 9m · US
Daisy Gamble, an unusual woman who hears phones before they ring, and does wonders with her flowers, wants to quit smoking to please her fiancé, Warren. She goes to a doctor of hypnosis to do it. But once she's under, her doctor finds out that she can regress into past lives and different personalities, and he finds himself falling in love with one of them.


The Sandpiper
1965 · 1h 57m · US
A free-spirited single mother forms a connection with the wedded headmaster of an Episcopalian boarding school in Monterey, California.


Goodbye Charlie
1964 · 1h 56m · US
When a cavorting Hollywood writer is killed by the angry husband of a woman he was having an affair with, he comes back as a spirit in the form of a beautiful woman and moves in with his/her best friend as a base operation for enacting sweet revenge.


The Courtship of Eddie's Father
1963 · 2h · US
Although he's only seven, Eddie's got it all figured out. He wants his father, a widower, to get remarried — to the girl next door. Unfortunately, she's not one of the women that his dad's been dating.


Two Weeks in Another Town
1962 · 1h 47m · US
After spending three years in an asylum, a washed-up actor views a minor assignment from his old director in Rome as a chance for personal and professional redemption.


The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
1962 · 2h 33m · US
In Argentina, one daughter of patriarch Madariaga is married to a Frenchman while the other is married to a German thus leading to a crisis when Nazi Germany occupies France and some Madariaga family members fight on opposite sides.


Bells Are Ringing
1960 · 2h 6m · US
Ella Peterson works in the basement office of Susanswerphone, a telephone answering service. She listens in on others' lives and adds some interest to her own humdrum existence by adopting different identities for her clients. They include an out-of-work Method actor, a dentist with musical yearnings, and in particular playwright Jeffrey Moss, who is suffering from writer's block and desperately needs a muse.


Home from the Hill
1960 · 2h 30m · US
The wealthiest man in a Texas town decides to teach his teenage son how to hunt to make a man out of him.


Some Came Running
1958 · 2h 17m · US
A former novelist returns to his small Midwest town after serving in the Army during WWII, to the chagrin of his social-climbing brother, and becomes close with an easy-going professional gambler and torn between two very different women.


The Reluctant Debutante
1958 · 1h 34m · US
While visiting her father, an American teenage girl is thrown into London society during its final "Debutante Season."


Gigi
1958 · 1h 55m · US
A home, a motorcar, servants, the latest fashions: the most eligible and most finicky bachelor in Paris offers them all to Gigi. But she, who's gone from girlish gawkishness to cultured glamour before our eyes, yearns for that wonderful something money can't buy.


Designing Woman
1957 · 1h 58m · US
A sportswriter who marries a fashion designer discovers that their mutual interests are few, although each has an intriguing past which makes the other jealous.


Tea and Sympathy
1956 · 2h 2m · US
A sensitive young man recalls his time in boarding school when the only person who seemed compassionate towards him was his housemaster's wife.


Lust for Life
1956 · 2h 2m · US
An intense and imaginative artist, revered Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh possesses undeniable talent, but he is plagued by mental problems and frustrations with failure. Supported by his brother, Theo, the tormented Van Gogh eventually leaves Holland for France, where he meets volatile fellow painter Paul Gauguin and struggles to find greater inspiration.


Kismet
1955 · 1h 53m · US
A silver-tongued poet and self-proclaimed "King of the Beggars" searches old Baghdad for a rich bachelor to marry his dreamy daughter, Marsinah. Along the way, he poses as the renowned sorcerer Hajj and gets in and out of scrapes with an elderly thief, a dim-witted wazir, and his wife. Meanwhile, his daughter develops feelings for a handsome caliph.


The Cobweb
1955 · 2h 4m · US
Patients and staff at a posh psychiatric clinic clash over who chooses the clinic’s new drapes – but drapes are the least of their problems.


Brigadoon
1954 · 1h 48m · US
Americans Jeff and Tommy, hunting in Scotland, stumble upon a village - Brigadoon. They soon learn that the town appears once every 100 years in order to preserve its peace and special beauty. The citizens go to bed at night and when they wake up, it's 100 years later. Tommy falls in love with a beautiful young woman, Fiona, and is torn between staying or going back to his hectic life in New York.


The Long, Long Trailer
1954 · 1h 36m · US
A newly wed couple, Tacy and Nicky, travel in a trailer for their honeymoon. The journey is a humorous one that could end up destroying their marriage.


The Band Wagon
1953 · 1h 52m · US
A Broadway artiste turns a faded film star's comeback vehicle into an artsy flop.


The Story of Three Loves
1953 · 2h 2m · US
Passengers on an ocean liner recall their greatest loves.


The Bad and the Beautiful
1952 · 1h 58m · US
Told in flashback form, the film traces the rise and fall of a tough, ambitious Hollywood producer, Jonathan Shields, as seen through the eyes of various acquaintances, including a writer, James Lee Bartlow; a star, Georgia Lorrison; and a director, Fred Amiel. He is a hard-driving, ambitious man who ruthlessly uses everyone on the way to becoming one of Hollywood's top movie makers.


An American in Paris
1951 · 1h 53m · US
Jerry Mulligan is an exuberant American expatriate in Paris trying to make a reputation as a painter. His friend Adam is a struggling concert pianist who's a long time associate of a famous French singer, Henri Baurel. A lonely society woman, Milo Roberts, takes Jerry under her wing and supports him, but is interested in more than his art.


Father's Little Dividend
1951 · 1h 22m · US
Newly married Kay Dunstan announces that she and her husband are having a baby, leaving her father to come to grips with the fact that he will soon be a granddad.


Father of the Bride
1950 · 1h 32m · US
Proud father Stanley Banks remembers the day his daughter, Kay, got married. Starting when she announces her engagement through to the wedding itself, we learn of all the surprises and disasters along the way.


Madame Bovary
1949 · 1h 46m · US
In 19th-century France, doctor's wife Emma Bovary seeks to escape her dull provincial life through various extramarital affairs and extravagant spending, leading to tragic consequences.


The Pirate
1948 · 1h 42m · US
A girl is engaged to the local richman, but meanwhile she has dreams about the legendary pirate Macoco. A traveling singer falls in love with her and to impress her he poses as the pirate.


Undercurrent
1946 · 1h 56m · US
After a rapid engagement, a dowdy daughter of a chemist weds an industrialist, knowing little of his family or past. He transforms her into an elegant society wife, but becomes enraged whenever she asks about Michael, his mysterious long-lost brother.


Yolanda and the Thief
1945 · 1h 48m · US
Johnny Riggs, a con man on the lam, finds himself in a Latin-American country named Patria. There, he overhears a convent-bred rich girl praying to her guardian angel for help in managing her tangled business affairs. Riggs decides to materialize as the girl's "angel", gains her unquestioning confidence, and helps himself to the deluded girl's millions. Just as he and his partner are about to flee Patria with their booty, Riggs realizes he has fallen in love with the girl and returns the money, together with a note that is part confession and part love letter. But the larcenous duo's escape from Patria turns out to be more difficult than they could ever have imagined.


Ziegfeld Follies
1945 · 1h 50m · US
The late, great impresario Florenz Ziegfeld looks down from heaven and ordains a new revue in his grand old style.


The Clock
1945 · 1h 30m · US
A G.I. en route to Europe falls in love during a whirlwind two-day leave in New York City.


Meet Me in St. Louis
1944 · 1h 54m · US
A year in the life of a turn-of-the-century middle class family, leading up to the opening of the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.


I Dood It
1943 · 1h 42m · US
Constance Shaw, a Broadway dance star, and Joseph Rivington Reynolds, a keen fan of hers, marry after she breaks up with her fiancé. Connie thinks Joseph owns a gold mine, but he actually works as a presser at a hotel valet shop. When everyone learns what he really is, Joseph is banned from the theater. When he sneaks in again, he learns of a plot to set off a bomb in the adjoining munitions warehouse.


Cabin in the Sky
1943 · 1h 38m · US
When compulsive gambler Little Joe Jackson dies in a drunken fight, he awakens in purgatory, where he learns that he will be sent back to Earth for six months to prove that he deserves to be in heaven. He awakens, remembering nothing and struggles to do right by his devout wife, Petunia, while an angel known as the General and the devil's son, Lucifer Jr., fight for his soul.