Gregory Ratoff

Last updated
Gregory Ratoff
ProfessionalSweetheart9.png
Ratoff as Ipswich in Professional Sweetheart (1933)
Born
Grigory Vasilyevich Ratner

April 20, c. 1893
Samara, Russia
DiedDecember 14, 1960 (1960-12-15) (aged 67)
Solothurn, Switzerland
Occupation(s)Film director, actor and producer
Years active1921–1960
Spouse Eugenie Leontovich (1923–1949; divorced)

Gregory Ratoff (born Grigory Vasilyevich Ratner; Russian : Григорий Васильевич Ратнер, tr. Grigoriy Vasil’evich Ratner; April 20, c. 1893 – December 14, 1960) [1] was a Russian-American film director, actor and producer. As an actor, he was best known for his role as producer "Max Fabian" in All About Eve (1950).

Contents

Biography

Ratoff was born in Samara, Russia, to Jewish parents. His mother was Sophie (née Markison) who claimed to have been born on September 1, 1878, but was married on June 14, 1894, when she would have been 15, to Benjamin Ratner (born 1864), [2] with whom she had four children, the eldest of whom was Grigory, whose date of birth she gave as April 7, 1895 [2] but later April 20 was cited as Gregory Ratoff's birthdate, and the year given as 1893, 1896 and 1897, variously. Sophie Ratner later adopted her son's stage surname (Ratoff) when she herself became a naturalized United States citizen. Sophie Ratoff died on August 27, 1955. Her date of birth is given as September 13, 1877 in the California Death Index (1940–1997), which would have made her a teenager when Gregory was born, as young as 15 if 1893 is the correct year of Gregory Ratoff's birth. Although his father's name was Benjamin, Gregory adopted the less Jewish-sounding patronymic of "Vasilyevich". [3]

Ratoff was pursuing a law degree at the University of St. Petersburg until his education was interrupted by service in the Czar's army in World War I. After the war, he abandoned law to join the Moscow Art Theater, where he began to make a name for himself as an actor. An eyewitness to the chaos of the Bolshevik Revolution, Ratoff fled Russia with his parents in 1922 and settled in Paris, where he wooed Evgenia Konstantinovna Leontovich (later known as actress Eugenie Leontovich), the daughter of a Czarist army officer, who, too, had escaped to Paris. They were both performing in a Paris production of the Russe Revue in 1922 when the New York impresario, Lee Shubert, founder of the Shubert Theaters, brought this show to Broadway, and the young couple along with it. They decided to stay in the United States, and the couple married on January 19, 1923. Leontovich gave Ratoff's year of birth as 1896 in her naturalization papers but did not include the month or day. A border crossing manifest, dated September 23, 1922, gives both her age and that of Gregory Ratner as 29, indicating 1893 as the year of birth of both. [2]

Career

Ratoff joined in the thriving Yiddish theater in New York City, producing, directing and acting for the Yiddish Players as he became something of a theatrical impresario, even performing in a Yiddish film. He graduated to Broadway later in the decade, appearing in Shubert productions as he learned English, though his mastery of the language always was heavily accented and this, in fact, became his stock-in-trade in his busy future career as a character actor.[ citation needed ]

When the Depression hit Broadway, Ratoff headed to Hollywood, as part of the exodus of New York theater pros who were quickly snapped up by producers terrified of films with dialogue, the "talkies". He arrived in 1931 and caught a lucky break: in Gregory La Cava's Symphony of Six Million , producer David O. Selznick had insisted, very unusually for the time, that this Fannie Hurst story of a brilliant Jewish doctor escaping his tenement roots be cast with authentic Yiddish actors from the Lower East Side. [4] His role as the beloved immigrant father who dies on his son's operating table led to five more jobs in quick succession, ranging from a George Kaufman comedy to a prestigious Selznick production, What Price Hollywood? (1932) directed by George Cukor. With these early critical and box-office winners, Ratoff was in constant demand as a character actor throughout the 1930s, many in B-pictures but increasingly with young directors who later had important careers. His role as a comic showbiz caricature was also popular, especially in such pre-Code films as I'm No Angel (1933), as Mae West's character's lawyer. Due to his large frame and uncertain command of English, he was often typecast as a villain in an American setting or as a foreigner in the dozens of 1930s films that recreated a glamorous fictional Europe on the Hollywood backlot. In Frank Lloyd's Under Two Flags (1936), he was in the French Foreign Legion. In Howard Hawks' The Road to Glory (1936), he was a Russian sergeant in World War I France.[ citation needed ]

In 1936, although he acted in six films, he first moved behind the camera, co-directing (with Otto Brower) Sins of Man for Twentieth Century-Fox. He followed with his first screenwriting effort, Cafe Metropole (1937), and soon directed on his own with Lancer Spy (1937), starring Peter Lorre, Dolores del Río and George Sanders. Ratoff directed five movies by 1939, all under contract for Fox, while still also acting. He directed Intermezzo: A Love Story (1939), when David O. Selznick was loaned Ratoff by Fox to direct his new Swedish protege Ingrid Bergman in her American debut. The original director, William Wyler, had walked out after a quarrel with Selznick. [5] The story was a remake of the Swedish film that had made Bergman a star, a tale of doomed love between a celebrated but married violin virtuoso (Leslie Howard) and his brilliant young piano accompanist (Bergman). Bergman was none too impressed with Ratoff, reportedly because she was struggling with English herself and found Ratoff difficult to follow. Ratoff, however, saw her as "sensational", as he told Life . Leslie Howard had been talked into the part with the promise of a co-producer credit. Ratoff never reached such heights again, and he never entered the top ranks of Hollywood directors. He dropped acting and left Fox in 1941 for a Columbia directing contract.[ citation needed ]

Later years

For the next decade, Ratoff directed comedies, musicals, crime dramas, war films, thrillers and swashbucklers—all solid but unspectacular fare in the wide range of genres then given to directors under contract. Song of Russia (1944), another love story between musical performers (Robert Taylor and Susan Peters), was set in Russia at the beginning of the Nazi invasion. Ratoff had been lent out for this MGM project because the musical romance had become one of his specialties after his work in Intermezzo. He collapsed near the end of shooting and had to be replaced by another emigre, Hungarian Laszlo Benedek. Taylor was a friendly witness for the House Un-American Activities Committee, and the film's two writers were hauled before the committee, questioned and harassed. Ratoff's directing career in Hollywood never recovered, and he returned to acting, playing his most famous role as the befuddled producer Max Fabian in All About Eve .[ citation needed ]

He directed a Broadway play The Fifth Season which was a hit.

Ratoff found his remaining opportunities outside of the U.S. The English comedy Abdulla the Great (1955), which he produced, directed, and starred in as a Middle Eastern potentate, proved a complete failure, but his low-budget film of Jo Eisinger's play Oscar Wilde (1960) won plaudits for Robert Morley in the title role, while Ralph Richardson was commended for his role as the barrister who destroys Wilde on the witness stand. [6] [7]

He was one of the two producers (with Michael Garrison [8] ) to have purchased and developed the original rights to the James Bond franchise from Ian Fleming in 1955, which subsequently became the subject of a bitter legal dispute. [9]

Ratoff was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in February 1960, just months before his death in Switzerland. One of his last roles as an actor was in the epic film Exodus (1960), for Otto Preminger, a director with whom he had first worked in the early 1930s.[ citation needed ]

Death

Ratoff died on December 14, 1960, in Solothurn, Switzerland from leukemia, aged 67. His body was returned to the United States for burial at Mount Hebron Cemetery, Flushing, New York. Divorced from Leontovich since 1949, he had remarried and was survived by his widow, Maria Ratoff. He was interred under a gravestone marked "Beloved Husband". [10] His death was reported in the U.S. Reports of Deaths of American Citizens Abroad, 1835-1974 (Basel, Switzerland, December 16, 1960). [2]

Filmography

Director

Actor

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Cukor</span> American film director and producer

George Dewey Cukor was an American film director and producer. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations. His career flourished at RKO when David O. Selznick, the studio's Head of Production, assigned Cukor to direct several of RKO's major films, including What Price Hollywood? (1932), A Bill of Divorcement (1932), Our Betters (1933), and Little Women (1933). When Selznick moved to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1933, Cukor followed and directed Dinner at Eight (1933) and David Copperfield (1935) for Selznick, and Romeo and Juliet (1936) and Camille (1936) for Irving Thalberg.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Cotten</span> American actor (1905–1994)

Joseph Cheshire Cotten Jr. was an American film, stage, radio and television actor. Cotten achieved prominence on Broadway, starring in the original stage productions of The Philadelphia Story (1939) and Sabrina Fair (1953). He then gained worldwide fame for his collaborations with Orson Welles on three films, Citizen Kane (1941), The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), and Journey into Fear (1943), which Cotten starred in and for which he was also credited with the screenplay.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David O. Selznick</span> American film producer (1902–1965)

David O. Selznick was an American film producer, screenwriter and film studio executive who produced Gone with the Wind (1939) and Rebecca (1940), both of which earned him an Academy Award for Best Picture. He also won the Irving Thalberg Award at the 12th Academy Awards, Hollywood's top honor for a producer, in recognition of his shepherding Gone with the Wind through a long and troubled production and into a record-breaking blockbuster.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Boyer</span> French-American actor (1899–1978)

Charles Boyer was a French-American actor who appeared in more than 80 films between 1920 and 1976. After receiving an education in drama, Boyer started on the stage, but he found his success in American films during the 1930s. His memorable performances were among the era's most highly praised, in romantic dramas such as The Garden of Allah (1936), Algiers (1938), and Love Affair (1939), as well as the mystery-thriller Gaslight (1944). He received four Oscar nominations for Best Actor. He also appeared as himself on the CBS sitcom I Love Lucy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dorothy McGuire</span> American actress (1916–2001)

Dorothy Hackett McGuire was an American actress. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for Gentleman's Agreement (1947) and won the National Board of Review Award for Best Actress for Friendly Persuasion (1956). She starred as the mother in the popular films Old Yeller (1957) and Swiss Family Robinson (1960).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Stevenson (filmmaker)</span> British-American film director (1905–1986)

Robert Edward Stevenson was a British-American screenwriter and film director.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Dieterle</span> German/American actor and film director (1893-1972)

William Dieterle was a German-born actor and film director who emigrated to the United States in 1930 to leave a worsening political situation. He worked in Hollywood primarily as a director for much of his career, becoming a United States citizen in 1937. He moved back to Germany in the late 1950s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anatole Litvak</span> Soviet film director

Anatoly Mikhailovich LitvakOBE, better known as Anatole Litvak, was a Ukrainian-born American filmmaker who wrote, directed, and produced films in various countries and languages. He began his theatrical training at age 13 in Petrograd, Russia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lewis J. Selznick</span> American businessman

Lewis J. Selznick was an American producer in the early years of the film industry. After initial involvement with World Film at Fort Lee, New Jersey, he established Selznick Pictures in California.

<i>What Price Hollywood?</i> 1932 film

What Price Hollywood? is a 1932 American pre-Code drama film directed by George Cukor and starring Constance Bennett with Lowell Sherman. The screenplay by Gene Fowler, Rowland Brown, Jane Murfin and Ben Markson is based on a story by Adela Rogers St. Johns and Louis Stevens. The supporting cast features Neil Hamilton, Gregory Ratoff, Brooks Benedict, Louise Beavers and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lee Garmes</span> American cinematographer (1898–1978)

Lee Garmes, A.S.C. was an American cinematographer. During his career, he worked with directors Howard Hawks, Max Ophüls, Josef von Sternberg, Alfred Hitchcock, King Vidor, Nicholas Ray and Henry Hathaway, whom he had met as a young man when the two first came to Hollywood in the silent era. He also co-directed two films with legendary screenwriter Ben Hecht: Angels Over Broadway and Actor's and Sin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roy Del Ruth</span> American filmmaker

Roy Del Ruth was an American filmmaker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pandro S. Berman</span> American film producer

Pandro Samuel Berman, also known as Pan Berman, was an American film producer.

<i>Intermezzo</i> (1939 film) 1939 film by Gregory Ratoff

Intermezzo is a 1939 American romantic film remake of a 1936 Swedish film of the same title. It stars Leslie Howard as a married virtuoso violinist who falls in love with his accompanist, played by Ingrid Bergman in her Hollywood debut. The film was directed by Gregory Ratoff and produced by David O. Selznick. It features multiple orchestrations of Heinz Provost's title piece, which won a contest associated with the original film's production. The screenplay by George O'Neil was based on that of the original film by Gösta Stevens and Gustaf Molander. It was produced by Selznick International Pictures.

Norman Krasna was an American screenwriter, playwright, producer, and film director who penned screwball comedies centered on a case of mistaken identity. Krasna directed three films during a forty-year career in Hollywood. He garnered four Academy Award screenwriting nominations, winning once for 1943's Princess O'Rourke, which he also directed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eugenie Leontovich</span> Russian-American dramatist

Eugenie Leontovich was a Russian-American actress with a distinguished career in theatre, film and television, as well as a dramatist and acting teacher.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hunt Stromberg</span> American film director

Hunt Stromberg was a film producer during Hollywood's Golden Age. In a prolific 30-year career beginning in 1921, Stromberg produced, wrote, and directed some of Hollywood's most profitable and enduring films, including The Thin Man series, the Nelson Eddy/Jeanette MacDonald operettas, The Women, and The Great Ziegfeld, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1936.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alan Marshal (actor)</span> Australian actor

Alan Marshal was an Australian-born actor who performed on stage in the United States and in Hollywood films. He was sometimes billed as Alan Marshall or Alan Willey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">C. Henry Gordon</span> American actor

C. Henry Gordon was an American stage and film actor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mount Hebron Cemetery (New York City)</span>

Mount Hebron is a Jewish cemetery located in Flushing, Queens, New York, United States. It was founded in 1903 as the Jewish section of Cedar Grove Cemetery, and occupies the vast majority of the grounds at Cedar Grove. The cemetery is on the former Spring Hill estate of colonial governor Cadwallader Colden. Mount Hebron is arranged in blocks, which are then split up into sections or society grounds. Sections were originally sold mainly to families or Jewish community groups such as landsmanshaftn, mutual aid societies, and burial societies. For instance, Mount Hebron is known for having a section reserved for people who worked in New York City's Yiddish theater industry. While this type of organization is common for American Jewish cemeteries, Mount Hebron has an especially diverse range of society grounds. About 226,000 people have been buried in Mount Hebron since it opened.

References

  1. ↑ Gregory Ratoff's petition for naturalization as a U.S. citizen and the Social Security Death Index both give his date of birth as April 20, 1893; however his mother's naturalization papers give his date of birth as April 7, 1895, and his gravestone bears the date April 20, 1897.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Ancestry Library Edition[ verification needed ]
  3. ↑ Sophie Ratoff death info from California, Death Index, 1940-1997, ancestry.com; accessed October 21, 2015.
  4. ↑ Jeremy Arnold, "Symphony of Six Million"
  5. ↑ Selznick by Bob Thomas, p. 186
  6. ↑ Review: Oscar Wilde (film), nytimes.com; accessed October 21, 2015.
  7. ↑ Oscar Wilde (film), imdb.com; accessed October 21, 2015.
  8. ↑ J.C. Macek III (October 4, 2012). "The Non-Bonds: James Bond's Bitter, Decades-Long Battle... with James Bond". PopMatters. Retrieved 2014-03-29.
  9. ↑ "Gregory Ratoff profile". Hollywood Walk of Fame. Retrieved 2014-03-29.
  10. ↑ Gregory Ratoff at Find a Grave
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.