Jean Negulesco

Biography

At the military hospital where fifteen-year-old Ioan Negulescu worked during the First World War, George Enescu came to play for the wounded. The boy sketched the composer's portrait, and Enescu bought the drawing. After that Negulescu decided to become a painter.

He was born in Craiova, the son of a hotel keeper, and attended Carol I National College. The date of his birth is disputed: by some accounts 13 March 1900, by others 26 February (13 February in the Julian calendar, then in use in Romania). In Hollywood and in his memoirs he himself gave 29 February as his birthday, and that was apparently his own invention. He began taking painting lessons in Bucharest. His father sent him to Paris to study economics and art, but he became absorbed in the Académie Julian and neglected economics, and his father stopped sending money. Negulesco washed dishes in restaurants, and by day copied the old masters in museums and sold the copies cheaply. In Paris he came to know avant-garde artists: Constantin Brancusi, Amedeo Modigliani, Chaim Soutine, Jules Pascin and the Dadaist Tristan Tzara. In the mid-1920s he painted landscapes on the south coast of France. The film director Rex Ingram bought one painting; by other accounts his very first exhibition sold 150 canvases, which is hard to verify.

In 1927 he married an American woman and moved to New York, where he held an exhibition. After a divorce in 1929 he travelled across the country, earning his living along the way by painting portraits, and reached California.

There he became interested in cinema and, at his own expense, made an experimental film, “Three and a Day”, with Mischa Auer. Through Auer he got a place at Paramount in 1932, making sketches for titles and scenes, working on “The Story of Temple Drake” and “A Farewell to Arms”, and directing individual sequences. His first screen credit as director came in 1936, when he co-directed the action picture “Crash Donovan” with William Nigh. He then worked at various studios as an assistant director and as the author of stories and screenplays, among them “Swiss Miss” (1938).

In 1940 he signed a contract with Warner Bros. and made his name with short films, above all musical ones, with unusual camera angles and sharp shadows; the studio called them “tone poems”. Without a credit, he finished “City for Conquest” (1940) when Anatole Litvak fell ill. His first film to carry his name was “Singapore Woman” (1941). The breakthrough came with “The Mask of Dimitrios” (1944), based on the novel by Eric Ambler, with Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre in the leading roles. It was followed by “The Conspirators” (1944), “Three Strangers” (1946), “Nobody Lives Forever” (1946), “Humoresque” (1946) and “Deep Valley” (1947).

“Johnny Belinda” (1948) told the story of a deaf-mute girl who becomes a victim of violence. Jane Wyman won an Academy Award for it, and Negulesco was nominated as director; the film made a profit for the studio. His contract had by then expired, and he left.

From 1948 to 1958 he worked at 20th Century-Fox: “Road House” (1948), “Three Came Home” (1950), “Phone Call from a Stranger” (1952). He was the first director to make two films in the widescreen CinemaScope process: “How to Marry a Millionaire” (1953), with Marilyn Monroe, nominated for a BAFTA Award, and “Three Coins in the Fountain” (1954), nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. Then came “Titanic” (1953), “Daddy Long Legs” with Fred Astaire, “Boy on a Dolphin” (1957), in which Sophia Loren appeared, and “The Best of Everything” (1959). His last pictures were “The Invincible Six” and “Hello–Goodbye” (1970). The Directors Guild of America nominated him for “Titanic” and “Three Coins in the Fountain”.

From the late 1960s he lived in Marbella, painting and collecting art. In 1984 his memoirs, “Things I Did and Things I Think I Did”, were published. He died in Marbella on 18 July 1993 and is buried in the Virgen del Carmen cemetery.