“She had this absolute unerring touch with comedy… she acted as if she didn’t quite understand why it was so funny. Which is what made it so funny.”
Happy Birthday George Cukor, who was born on July 7th 1899.
Cukor directed Marilyn on two of her motion pictures: “Let’s Make Love” and her final and unfinished picture “Something’s Got To Give.” Cukor was an American film director, mainly concentrating on comedies and literary adaptations. Cukor racked up an impressive list of film credits in his lengthy career, including “Little Women” (1933) “Dinner At Eight” (1933) “David Copperfield” (1935) “A Star Is Born” (1954) and eventually winning an Oscar for his work on “My Fair Lady” in 1964.
Cukor was one of the select group of approved Directors on the list that Marilyn handed FOX Studios in late 1955. Although she had never worked with him, she was impressed by his reputation, In 1960, Cukor and Marilyn got their chance to work together on “Let’s Make Love” As ever with Marilyn, tension reigned on set. After the event Cukor admitted: “I had no real communication with her at all… and very little influence. All I could do was make a climate that was agreeable to her.” He also recognised her greateness. He found her to be “quite dazzling on screen, and at the end of the picture very generous to everyone she had worked with.”
The partnership of Cukor and Monroe came round again when they worked on “Something’s Got To Give” together. Even though Cukor was Marilyn’s suggestion to the studio as a potential director, any faith she had in him was starting to vanish as they disagreed on script changes and he struggled to cope with her lengthy absences from the set. The film however would never come to its completion, after the closing down of the production in 1962, shortly before Monroe’s untimely passing.
Cukor died of a heart attack on January 24th 1983 and is interred in Grave D, Little Garden of Constancy, Garden of Memory (private) Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale California.
Source: The Marilyn Encyclopedia
