You are here: MaxAbout.com > People

Leo McCarey

Personal Profile

Leo McCarey
  • Birth Name:
    Thomas Leo McCarey
  • Date of Birth:
    October 3, 1898
  • Zodiac Sign:
    Libra
  • Place of Birth:
    Los Angeles, California, USA
  • Place of Death:
    Santa Monica, California, USA
  • Date of Death:
    July 5, 1969
  • Cause of Death:
    Emphysema
  • Height:
    5' 9ΒΌ"
  • Sex:
    Male
  • Hair Color:
    Black
  • Nationality:
    American

Family

Leo McCarey
  • Spouse:
    Stella Martin

Career

Leo McCarey

Trivia

Leo McCarey
  • He is responsible for the original teaming of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, though Hal Roach claimed it later and is now sometimes erroneously given credit.
  • He is the first director to win three major categories at the Academy Awards--Best Picture, Best Director and Best Writing, Original Story, for )Going My Way (1945)_.
  • Directed 6 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Ralph Bellamy, Irene Dunne, Maria Ouspenskaya , Bing Crosby, Barry Fitzgerald and Ingrid Bergman. Crosby and Fitzgerald won for their performances in Going My Way (1944).
  • He is among an elite group of seven directors who have won Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay (Orig/Adapted).
  • The others are Billy Wilder, Francis Ford Coppola, James L. Brooks, Peter Jackson and Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (the brothers co-produced, co-directed and co-wrote No Country for Old Men (2007) with each other).
  • He accused Cary Grant of ripping off his persona while shooting The Awful Truth (1937), saying that the star's style and personality was just like his.
  • McCarey and Grant worked together several times after that but never fully extinguished their long-standing antagonism resulting from McCarey's comments.
  • Has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1500 Vine Street.
  • Was considered one of the most handsome directors in Hollywood, and some said as good looking as Cary Grant, whom he directed in four pictures
  • Rainbow Productions, the corporate alter ego of writer-producer-director Leo McCarey, joined SIMPP in 1944.

Quotes

Leo McCarey
  • "I still don't know what makes him tick. Of the sixteen hours a day when he's awake I don't think there are twenty minutes when he is not complaining. I've never seen a man more constantly in turmoil."
  • "I love when people laugh. I love when they cry, I like a story to say something, and I hope the audience feels happier leaving the theatre than when it came in."
  • "I don't know what my formula is. I only know I like my characters to walk in clouds. I like a little bit of the fairy tale. Let others photograph the ugliness of the world. I don't want to distress people."
  • "Thanks, but you gave it to me for the wrong picture."
  • "You can really call Irene Dunne 'The First Lady of Hollywood', because she's the first real lady Hollywood has ever seen."
View all Quotes: Leo McCarey

Biography

Leo McCarey
Last Updated: Wednesday, August 26, 2009

He was bour in Los Angeles, California, USA.  He was attended St. Joseph's Catholic school and Los Angeles High School.He was graduated from law school, passed the California bar and was a practicing criminal defense attorney for a short time before entering the movie business. He was pressured by his father to study law at USC. He was a brother of director Ray McCarey. He and his wife Stella lived at 1014 North Crescent Drive in Beverly Hills, two blocks away from McCarey's friend and fellow filmmaker Hal Roach.

He was a practicing criminal defense attorney for a short time in Los Angeles and San Francisco. McCarey often told a story about his last case when he was conned into defending a wife-beater, who chased him out of court and down the street. That incident was the conclusion of his legal career. McCarey would later claim that he never won a single case.

According to director Edward Dmytryk, who worked for him as an editor, McCarey never forgot a slight. He once told Dmytryk that early in his career Paramount had humiliated him by unceremoniously throwing him off the lot the moment a picture he was making for them was completed. After he became successful Paramount hired him for several more pictures, but McCarey got his revenge, he told Dmytryk, because "every picture I make for Paramount costs them a half-million more than it should".

Submit Content