Born a few months before the twentieth century July 7th, 1899, Cukor was a man of medium height and solid, stocky build, features sharp as perfect projection on a movie screen. His movements, gestures and eyes all gave the same impression: a contained but constantly flowing energy like the fountains in the garden of his house above the Sunset Strip.The Mouth, thickly lipped, opened and closed like a trap. The hands darted and swooped. When he laughed, which was often, everything seemed to gleam. He retired and rose early, didnt smoke, drank very lightly a Dubornnet, sometimes two, before dinner.His first exposure to theatre, he once told me, was his mothers party turn, when she entertained guests by dressing up and imitating famous contemporary actresses. The act of transformation and disguise, as he called it, fascinated Cuker the child and would become a recurring element in his films. So many of them, major and minor, from WHAT PRICE HOLLYWOOD? through SYLVIA SCARLETT, CAMILLE, HOLIDAY, THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, GASLIGHT, A DOUBLE LIFE, ADAMS RIB, THE ACTRESS, IT SHOULD HAPPEN TO YOU, A STAR IS BORN, HELLER IN PINK TIGHTS, MY FAIR LADY to LOVE AMONG THE RUINS, explore the dividing line between artifice and truth, theatre and life, who you pretend to be and who you really are.But the person who made these movies, was perfectly sure of who he is, what he is, as Cukors friend Lesley Blanch wrote in a letter to Kenneth Tynan, who quoted it in an article on Cukor for Holiday magazine. And because of this, she added, he has not, or has passed, ambition in the destructive sense. He does not envyis not eaten up by competition. People who really know who and what they are, however, often find it unnecessary to announce the fact. As a result, Cukors work has been underrated by those who expect an immediate signature on a film, and imagine theres no personality behind it unless they can respond to Buñuelsurrealism, Hitchcocksuspense, Fellinigrotesquerie or the Lubitsch touch. Even Tynan, in his Holiday article, could only come up with the comment that Cukors films epitomize Hollywood at its most stylish. The Hollywood label is an example of several meaningless ones that haunted his career: essentially theatrical, womens director, purveyor of glossy entertainment, etc.

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