Date of Birth
28 February 1903,
Chicago, Illinois, USA
25 July 1986,
Beverly Hills,
California,
USA (Alzheimer's disease)
Lester Anthony Minnelli
Height
5' 9" (1.75 m)
Mini Biography
Born Lester Anthony Minnelli in Chicago on February 28 1903, Vincente Minnelli kept lying over the years about his age and his exact origin. His father Vincent was a musical conductor of the Minnelli Brothers' Tent Theater and his only child to survive infancy spent his childhood on the road. Wanting to pursue an artistic career, he worked at the costume department of the Chicago Theater, then on Broadway during the depression as a set designer and costumer, adopting a Latinized version of his father's first Name when he was hired as an art-director by the Music Hall, then at Radio City. Fall of 1935 saw his directorial debut for a Franz Schubert revue, "At Home Abroad", the first of three, in the best Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. spirit, before receiving Arthur Freed's offer to join the MGM - not mentioning a first short unsuccessful contract at Paramount. He would not leave the MGM lots for the next 26 years. After working on numerous Mickey Rooney- Judy Garland vehicles, usually directed by Busby Berkeley, Arthur Freed gave him his first directorial assignment on Cabin in the Sky (1943), a risky screen project with an all-black cast, which he followed by the ambitious period piece Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) whose star Judy Garland he married in 1945. Employing first-class MGM technicians, Minnelli went on directing musicals - The Band Wagon (1953) - as well as melodramas - Some Came Running (1958) - and urban comedies - Designing Woman (1957), occasionally even working on two films simultaneously. Vincente Minnelli is one of the few directors, if not the only One, whom color seems to have been invented for, and usually included in every one of his movies features a dream sequence.
IMDb Mini Biography By:
Vincent Merlaud
Spouse
Trivia
Named his daughter Liza Minnelli after the Gershwin song "Liza." He had directed the number for Ziegfeld Follies (1946), but it was cut from the final version of the film.
Interred at Forest Lawn, Glendale, California, USA, in the Triumphant Faith Terraces area.
Father-in-law of Jack Haley Jr.
Daughter Christiana Nina Minnelli Born 1955.
Inventor of the "Crab Dolly", a camera dolly on wheels that can move the camera in any direction.
Insisted on using a shade of yellow in the design of his sets that had to be specially mixed. MGM painters began calling it "Minnelli Yellow."
When he was signed to MGM, he was allowed to apprentice for a year on the lot. By the time he started directing, he knew every department at the studio.
Was voted the 20th Greatest Director of all time by Entertainment Weekly.
Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume one, 1890-1945". Pages 778-787. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1987.
He had a daughter, Christiana Nina Minnelli, with wife Georgette.
His widow was his companion for a long time before their 1980 marriage.
Directed 7 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Spencer Tracy, Gloria Grahame, Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn, Arthur Kennedy, Shirley MacLaine and Martha Hyer. Grahame and Quinn won Oscar for their performances in one of Minelli's movies.
Is portrayed by Hugh Laurie in Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows (2001) (TV)
Member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1967
The godparents of his daughter Liza Minnelli were Ira Gershwin and Kay Thompson
one of the few Hollywood studio directors who can truly be said to have an unmistakable mise-en-scene, Minnelli was first a set and costume designer before being allowed to direct by Arthur Freed, head of the MGM musical unit. His visual touch in Technicolor is sometimes garish, close to vulgar, but in his best work ("Meet Me In St.Louis)every visual element is a reflection of his singularly original visual talent.
Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume Two, 1986-1990, Pages 632-633. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1999.
