Bye Bye Birdie
1963
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George Sidney (1916-2002) was an American film director and producer who made musicals, comedies, and period films at MGM and other studios. He also founded Hanna-Barbera animation studio and was a president of the Screen Directors Guild.
George Sidney (1916-2002) was a director, producer and writer who worked for MGM and Columbia Pictures. He won two Oscars for his short films and directed musicals such as 'Annie Get Your Gun', 'Showboat' and 'Bye Bye Birdie'.
- January 1, 1
- Long Island City, New York, USA
- January 1, 1
- Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
- Overview
- Early work
- Bathing Beauty and Anchors Aweigh
- Annie Get Your Gun, Kiss Me Kate, and Show Boat
- Later work
George Sidney, (born October 4, 1916, New York City, New York, U.S.—died May 5, 2002, Las Vegas, Nevada), American film director who directed a number of the most popular movie musicals of the 1940s and ’50s, including Anchors Aweigh (1945), Annie Get Your Gun (1950), Show Boat (1951), and Kiss Me Kate (1953).
Sidney was born into a show-business family. His father was a theatre producer, and his mother was a vaudevillian. He acted as a child but stopped performing in his early teens after allegedly ignoring directions from Frank Capra, who told him to become a director. At age 16 Sidney joined MGM as a messenger boy, and he soon advanced to the position...
In 1941 Sidney directed his first feature, Free and Easy, a B-film with Robert Cummings and Nigel Bruce as a father and son, respectively, who are hoping to marry wealthy women; Ruth Hussey played a prospective wife. After the patriotic Pacific Rendezvous (1942) and Pilot #5 (1943), Sidney helmed Thousands Cheer (1943), a Technicolor extravaganza that featured such top MGM players as Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Lena Horne, Red Skelton, and Gene Kelly. Sidney’s facility with the all-star production earned him another musical, Bathing Beauty (1944), which was Esther Williams’s first starring vehicle. Featuring a spectacular water finale and a fine comedic performance by Skelton, the film was a major success and launched a string of swimming musicals.
Sidney had an even bigger box-office hit with Anchors Aweigh (1945), which starred Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra as sailors on leave in Los Angeles who befriend an aspiring actress (Kathryn Grayson). The musical was especially noted for Kelly’s dancing duet with Jerry, the animated mouse; the sequence was a special-effects triumph. Sidney was then given the prestigious assignment of The Harvey Girls (1946), a musical set in the Old West, with Garland as a mail-order bride who leaves her husband and begins working in a restaurant; the strong supporting cast included Ray Bolger, Angela Lansbury, and John Hodiak. Sidney followed that hit with Holiday in Mexico (1946), a popular musical comedy that featured Jane Powell as a teenager who falls in love with pianist José Iturbi (playing himself) while trying to find a spouse for her father (Walter Pidgeon).
Key to the City (1950) was a forgettable romantic comedy with Loretta Young and Clark Gable. However, Annie Get Your Gun (1950), an adaptation of the Irving Berlin musical, was hugely popular, despite early production problems that included the firing of director Busby Berkeley and the departure of Garland, who reportedly had a nervous breakdown. Betty Hutton was subsequently cast in the title role, and directing duties were given to Sidney. He followed that success with the classic Show Boat (1951), a colourful version of the Jerome Kern–Oscar Hammerstein II Broadway musical, which was based on an Edna Ferber novel. Again, Garland was supposed to be one of the principals (Julie), but Ava Gardner ended up with the role; the cast also featured Grayson, Howard Keel, William Warfield, and Marge and Gower Champion. The production was lavish and well mounted, and it became one of MGM’s more popular musicals of the 1950s.
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Scaramouche (1952) was arguably even better. The popular swashbuckler, which was based on the Rafael Sabatini novel, featured Stewart Granger as a nobleman seeking revenge against the man who killed his friend in a duel. Granger returned for Young Bess (1953), which again demonstrated Sidney’s skill with costume pictures; Charles Laughton appeared as Henry VIII, and Jean Simmons (Granger’s real-life wife) was a young Elizabeth I. The 1953 Kiss Me Kate was an inventive filming of the stage hit that was based on the Shakespeare play The Taming of the Shrew. It featured an acclaimed Cole Porter score, and the cast included Grayson, Keel, Ann Miller, and Keenan Wynn. After the disappointing Jupiter’s Darling (1955), Sidney left MGM.
Notable among Sidney’s later films was the light comedy Who Was That Lady? (1960), which featured the amusing team of Dean Martin and Tony Curtis. Bye Bye Birdie (1963) was a lively version of the Broadway blockbuster that was inspired by Elvis Presley’s army induction; it starred Ann-Margret and Dick Van Dyke. Ann-Margret also appeared in Viva Las Vegas (1964), a hugely popular Presley musical; the singer played a cash-strapped race-car driver who takes a job in a casino to earn money. In 1967 Sidney directed his last feature film, the musical Half a Sixpence, a British production.
Sidney produced several of the films he directed, as well as the 36th Annual Academy Awards show (1964). He served as president of the Screen Directors Guild (1951–59) and of the organization that succeeded it, the Directors Guild of America (1961–67).
- Michael Barson
George Sidney. Director: Scaramouche. The son of Louis K. Sidney the vice president of M.G.M. and Hazel Mooney of The Mooney Sisters. In his teens he worked as studio messenger going through every department learning the techniques and secrets of the trade.
- October 4, 1916
- May 5, 2002
May 7, 2002 · George Sidney, who directed dozens of movie musicals when the genre was at its peak and presided over the directors organization in Hollywood for 16 years, died on Sunday at his home here. He was...
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May 6, 2002 · Director George Sidney, famous for helming MGM musicals “Anchors Aweigh,” “Kiss Me Kate” and “Annie Get Your Gun,” died at his Las Vegas home on Sunday from complications of lymphoma.
May 5, 2002 · George Sidney was an American film director and producer who worked at MGM and Columbia. He made musicals such as The Harvey Girls, Kiss Me Kate, and Bye Bye Birdie, and won a Golden Globe Award in 1958.
