A filmmaker's story
George Stevens Jr. recalls a lifetime in the business, from his father's career to his work on behalf of Washington
George Stevens Jr. had a charmed early life: As the son of director George Stevens, he was attending the Oscars before he was a teenager, having dinner with Elizabeth Taylor before either of them had turned 20, helping his father on the set of “Shane,” driving with James Dean in his ill-fated Porsche Spyder, and even doing second unit directing in Amsterdam for his father's film of “The Diary of Anne Frank.”
Not surprisingly, Stevens Jr.'s new memoir, “My Place in the Sun: Life in the Golden Age of Hollywood and Washington,” is filled with hugely entertaining anecdotes, featuring legends from Katherine Hepburn to Cecil B. DeMille. If it was just celebrity encounters, however, the book would have felt like a sugary confection of name-dropping.
Stevens Jr. not only uses his father's story — which includes “A Place in the Sun” and “Giant” but also historic footage shot at D-Day, in Berlin and at the liberation of Dachau — to illuminate where his own values came from. He also lived a full and fascinating life of his own once he moved out of his father's considerable shadow. (Stevens Jr. was never resentful and says, “The most satisfying work I ever did was making the documentary `George Stevens: A Filmmakers Journey.' ”)
Stevens Jr. came into his own producing 300 short documentary films for Edward R. Murrow at the United States Information Association during the Kennedy administration. The films included one on the March on Washington, the Oscar-nominated “The Five Cities of June,” which touched on everything from the fight for integration to John Kennedy's famous speech in Berlin, and the Oscar-winning “Nine From Little Rock.”
Determined to see filmmaking taken seriously as an art form, Stevens Jr. then founded the American Film Institute, creating an institution that taught, celebrated and preserved films. He also founded the Kennedy Center Honors and produced events like Barack Obama's 2008 inaugural. Along the way, he became close friends with Bobby and Ethel Kennedy, won Emmys for writing and producing “The Murder of Mary Phagan” and for writing and directing “Separate But Equal,” and wrote a play about Thurgood Marshall.
Stevens Jr. spoke recently by video from his porch in the Georgetown area of the capital. Now 90, he exuded a lowkey charm as he looked back at both his and his father's achievements. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
QYour book is filled with fascinating stories. Were you conscious of trying to make it more than just a series of amusing anecdotes?
AThere was a lot of discovery in writing the book — there are certain moments in life you remember but when you look back at them, they have a consequence that you didn't understand.
I remember riding home from the Academy Awards with my father after he won for “A Place in the Sun.” The Oscar was on the seat between us and he said, “We'll have a better idea what kind of picture this is in about 25 years.” He had a sense about films needing to stand the test of time. He didn't realize he was talking to the future founder of the American Film Institute, for which the test of time — in terms of the Life Achievement Award and preserving classic films — became a defining trait. So, looking back, there's a significance that I didn't attribute to it when it happened.
QYou worked for your father on movies like “Shane” and “Anne Frank” before leaving Hollywood for Washington. Were you worried about escaping that “George's son” tag?
AI was questioning whether I'd be able to operate at his level or whether I'd devote my life to becoming the second-best film director in my family. But he was so wonderful, and I had such regard for his skill, taste and intuition, so I was enjoying what I was doing. I wouldn't have traded that time for anything.
George Stevens Jr.'s new memoir, “My Place in the Sun: Life in the Golden Age of Hollywood and Washington,” is filled with entertaining anecdotes and details of his work with Edward R. Murrow and the founding of the American Film Institute. He's seen here at a 40th anniversary screening of “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” on April 21at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles.
Leaving to work for John Kennedy and Ed Murrow was not planned. I'd rejected Murrow once. It was a roll of the dice. I went to see Murrow in Washington. He said he really wanted my decision by the end of the day. I walked to the Lincoln Memorial — where I'd later film the March on Washington and produce the millennium show on New Year's Eve of 1999 and then Obama's Inaugural Gala in 2008. Then I climbed the Washington Monument. When I got to the top I just said, “OK, let's go.” It was not calculated in any detail.
QYou made some powerful films for the United States Information Association but they're all ultimately proAmerican while at the time the Kennedy administration, the FBI and the CIA were involved in some less than savory actions at home and abroad. Were you concerned about being part of a propaganda machine?
AI was nourished by having Ed Murrow as my chief, seeing his ease of leadership, purpose and integrity. He embraced the word “propaganda,” which comes from propagation of the faith, saying we would tell America's story, warts and all.
That made it very easy for me to accept we were doing the right thing. I was working under him and had such a belief in the Kennedy presidency. And I was young — I don't think I had any skepticism. The first time I felt it was after Ed left and there was pressure to make a film about Vietnam. I had believed in the Kennedy strategy there. But there came a time during Lyndon Johnson's presidency where we were asked to make this
film and I had come to question what was happening in Vietnam, so it was time for me to move on.
QHow long did you feel it took until you'd achieved your goal of getting film taken seriously as an art form?
AWhen I came to Washington, the only directors people there really knew of were Alfred Hitchcock and DeMille because they appeared publicly. When Congress introduced legislation to create the National Endowment for the Arts, they listed painting, poetry and literature but not film, which is America's indigenous art form. I called Sen. Hubert Humphrey and said, “How can you not include film?” So he added it.
We started AFI in 1967 and I would say by around 1980 the climate had changed. It was not only because of AFI, of course, but I think in those years the awareness and appreciation of film — and of the people who made films, not just the movie stars — quadrupled.
QYou became close to Bobby Kennedy. Do you see his assassination as ultimately more damaging than even his brother's or Martin Luther King's for America's future?
AAs hard as it is to imagine something worse than those assassinations, I do think Bobby's death was a greater tragedy. It's partly because he was the last of the three, so it felt like a point of no return. But it was also because he had the qualities that would have enabled him to bring together working class, the poor, the young, to pull the whole country together.