- As a cinematographer at Hal Roach Studios, he is credited with saving the film career of young British comic Stan Laurel. Laurel's pale blue eyes would register as an unnatural white on orthochromatic film, the standard film in use at that time. Stevens knew of panchromatic film and was able to get a supply of it from Chicago. This film was sensitive to blue so that Laurel's eyes would photograph more naturally. Laurel would use Stevens for his short films at Roach. When Stan Laurel was teamed up with Oliver Hardy, the team make Stevens their cameraman of choice.
- Directed 16 different actors in Oscar®-nominated performances: Katharine Hepburn,Cary Grant, Charles Coburn, Jean Arthur, Oscar Homolka, Irene Dunne, Barbara Bel Geddes, Ellen Corby, Montgomery Clift, Shelley Winters, Brandon De Wilde, Jack Palance, James Dean, Rock Hudson, Mercedes McCambridge and Ed Wynn. Only Coburn and Winters won Oscars® for their performances in one of Stevens' movies.
- To date, only one of four people to have won the Best Director Oscar® more than once without any of those films having won the Oscar® for Best Picture. His two wins are for A Place in the Sun (1951) and Giant (1956), both starring Elizabeth Taylor. The other three individuals are Frank Borzage for directing 7th Heaven (1927) and Bad Girl (1931), Ang Lee for directing Brokeback Mountain (2005) and Life of Pi (2012), and Alfonso Cuarón for directing Gravity (2013) and Roma (2018).
- He was the Colonel of a combat photographic unit in Africa and Europe in World War II. They won the Presidential Unit Citation.
- Father of director George Stevens Jr..
- Directed Elizabeth Taylor in three different films: A Place in the Sun (1951), Giant (1956) and The Only Game in Town (1970).
- Directed Shelley Winters in three different films: A Place in the Sun (1951), The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) and The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965). Winters won the Academy Award® for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Petronella Van Daan in the second of these films.
- He led a camera team during the Allied invasion of Europe in WW11, getting rare colour footage of the liberation of Paris and the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp.
- Directed seven films nominated for Best Picture Oscars®---Alice Adams (1935), The Talk of the Town (1942), The More the Merrier (1943), A Place in the Sun (1951), Shane (1953), Giant (1956) and The Diary of Anne Frank (1959).
- His son George Stevens Jr. was a founding director of the American Film Institute.
- He has directed seven films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Swing Time (1936), Gunga Din (1939), Woman of the Year (1942), George Stevens' World War II Footage (1946), A Place in the Sun (1951), Shane (1953) and Giant (1956). He has also worked as a cinematographer on three films that are in the registry: Pass the Gravy (1928), Big Business (1929) and George Stevens' World War II Footage.
- (1941-1943) President of the Screen Directors Guild.
- (1946-1948) President of the Screen Directors Guild.
- President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1958 to 1959.
- Interred at Forest Lawn (Hollywood Hills), Los Angeles, California, USA, in the Morning Light section, Space 3, Plot #8034.
- Is portrayed by Craig Barnett in James Dean (2001), by Robert Mitchum in James Dean: Race with Destiny (1997) and by Eugene Roche in Liz: The Elizabeth Taylor Story (1995).
- Same birthday as Casper Van Dien who played James Dean in a film with Robert Mitchum as George Stevens.
- Younger brother of cameraman Jack Stevens.
- Member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1957.
- Head of jury at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1970.
- Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume One, 1890-1945". Pages 1051-1057. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1987.
- He was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located at 1709 Vine St.
- Describing him, auteur critic Andrew Sarris famously said that he "was a minor director with major virtues before A Place in the Sun (1951), and major director with minor virtues after.".
- Son of actor Landers Stevens and actress Georgie Cooper.
- Ex-son-in-law of actress Alice Howell.
- Grandfather of Michael Stevens
- Amongst all the top directors, Billy Wilder had the most Oscar® nominations with 8, Fred Zinnemann 7, Frank Capra 6, David Lean 6, Clarence Brown 5, John Ford 5, King Vidor 5, George Stevens 5, Alfred Hitchcock 5, and George Cukor 5.
- Grandson of actress Georgia Woodthorpe.
- Director George Stevens initially wanted Grace Kelly, John Wayne and Alan Ladd to be the stars of Giant (1956), but by the time the cameras rolled the stars were the ones we know; filming took place in Texas, Virginia and Hoillywood. The Texas shoot lasted six months in sweltering heat, on completion in the first half of September, Elizabeth Taylor went back to her husband and her home to relax. James Dean was driving around California on September 30, 1955, when he was given a speeding ticket outside Los Angeles. A few hours later, he crashed his car and died.
- In the years immediately following The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), he was approached about directing two westerns---The Stalking Moon (1968) and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)---but he withdrew from both projects.
- Joel McCrea said Columbia Studio boss Harry Cohn complained about every other director except George Stevens. Cohen complained that Stevens used more exposed film than "any other director I've ever had." When McRae asked Stevens why Cohen doesn't come down and ask you (about the amount of film used)? Steven's replied: Samuel J. Briskin made a deal for Leo McCarey and me to make a certain number of pictures for Columbia. He had put in there if Harry Cohen came down and disturbed us at any time during shooting we had the right to get up, leave the picture, and he could finish directing it himself.
- Cousin of James W. Horne.
- Nephew of Olive Cooper.
- In 1973, he was a member of the jury at the 8th Moscow International Film Festival.
- In 1970 the German movie OK was invited by the selection committee of the 1970 Berlinale as the official German entry in the competition. Due to the content, which was perceived as controversial, the festival jury under its president George Stevens decided after the screening to return the film to the selection committee and to request a re-examination of whether the film was suitable for participation. It was questionable, it was argued, whether the film promoted understanding between peoples, as the Berlinale statutes stipulated. Dusan Makavejev, a jury member from Yugoslavia, did not agree with this approach and Stevens' pressure on other members and opposed this course, which he perceived as censorship, and other jurors did the same.
- In 1970 he was head of the jury at the 20th Berlin International Film Festival, which ended in scandal. As president of the film festival jury, he, who was known as a strong supporter of the Vietnam War, threatened to resign if what he saw as the anti-American German competition film OK by Michael Verhoeven, which deals with US war crimes in Vietnam, was not removed from the competition competition would be taken. The festival then collapsed.
- He ended his directing career with the 1970 romantic comedy-drama The Only Game in Town with Warren Beatty and Elizabeth Taylor.
- He received the National Board of Review Award for Best Director and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director.
- In 1950, during the McCarthyist scare and related Hollywood blacklist, Stevens defended Joseph L. Mankiewicz from Cecil B. DeMille's attempt to recall him as president of the SDG.
- The moving image collection of George Stevens is held at the Academy Film Archive. The film material at AFI is complemented by material in the George Stevens papers at the Academy's Margaret Herrick Library.
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