André de Toth
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| André de Toth | |
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| Born | Sâsvári Farkasfalvi Tóthfalusi Tóth Endre Antal Mihály May 15, circa 1912 Makó, Csanád County, Austria-Hungary (now Hungary) |
| Died | October 27, 2002 Burbank, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Film director |
| Years active | 1939–1987 |
| Spouse |
Veronica Lake (m. 1944–1952) Ann Green (m. 19??–2002) |
André de Toth (May 15, circa 1912[1][2] – October 27, 2002) was a Hungarian-American filmmaker, born and raised in Makó, Csongrád, Kingdom of Hungary Austro-Hungarian Empire.[3] He directed the 3-D film House of Wax, despite being unable to see in 3-D himself, having lost an eye at an early age. He is known for his gritty B movies in the western and crime genres.
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[edit] Career
Born ca. 1912 as Sâsvári Farkasfalvi Tóthfalusi Tóth Endre Antal Mihály, he earned a degree in law from the Royal Hungarian University in the early 1930s. He garnered acclaim for plays written as a college student, acquiring the mentorship of Ferenc Molnár and becoming part of the theater scene in Budapest. From that involvement he segued to the film industry and worked as a writer, assistant director, editor and sometime actor. In 1939 he directed five films just before war began in Europe. Several of these pictures received significant release in the Hungarian communities in the United States. De Toth went to England, spent several years as an assistant to fellow Hungarian émigré Alexander Korda, and eventually moved to the Los Angeles in 1942.
Based on his Hungarian films, the production work for Korda and writing he had done on American projects during earlier stints in Los Angeles, de Toth was given an oral contract as a director at Columbia from which he ultimately extricated himself by litigation.
Because he preferred working as an independent, de Toth had no “A” budgets early in his career and had to supplement his directing income with writing assignments, often uncredited. Introduced to Westerns by John Ford, de Toth worked mostly in that genre throughout the 1950s, often bringing elements of noir style into those films.[4] In 1951 he received an Oscar nomination for Best Writing (with co-writer William Bowers) for the story filmed as The Gunfighter.
While he is often remembered as the director of the earliest and most successful 3-D film, House of Wax, (all the more remarkable since, like Ford, Fritz Lang, and Raoul Walsh, de Toth had only one good eye), he was also responsible for two of the noir cycle's most unusual examples: Pitfall and Crime Wave.
[edit] Personal life
De Toth was married seven times and had 19 children.[5] His wives included:
- Veronica Lake, to whom he was married from 1944 until 1952. They had a son, Andre Anthony Michael De Toth (October 25, 1945-February 24, 1991 Olympia, Washington) and a daughter, Diana De Toth (born October 16, 1948). They divorced in 1952.
- Marie Louise Stratton, to whom he was married from 1953 until 1982, when they divorced. This marriage also produced two children, Michelle and Nicolas.
- He was married to Ann Green at the time of his death; they had no children together.
[edit] Death
In 1996, he published his memoir, Fragments –Portraits from the Inside (London: Faber and Faber, 1994).
On October 27, 2002, de Toth died from an aneurysm. He was interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery.[6]
[edit] Partial filmography
- Passport to Suez (1943)
- None Shall Escape (1944)
- Dark Waters (1944)
- Ramrod (1947)
- Pitfall (1948)
- Slattery's Hurricane (1949)
- Carson City (1952)
- Springfield Rifle (1952)
- Last of the Comanches (1953)
- House of Wax (1953)
- Thunder Over the Plains (1953)
- Tanganyika (1954)
- Crime Wave (1954)
- The Bounty Hunter (1954)
- The Indian Fighter (1955)
- Monkey on My Back (1957)
- The Two-Headed Spy (1958)
- Day of the Outlaw (1959)
- Play Dirty (1968)
[edit] References
- ^ The Los Angeles Times indicated in de Toth's obituary that found some birth listings as early as 1910.
- ^ Rick Lyman (2002-11-01). "Andre De Toth, the Director Of Noted 3-D Film, Is Dead". New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D00E2DD1E3FF932A35752C1A9649C8B63. Retrieved 2008-03-09. lists de Toth's year of birth as 1913, as does the United States Social Security Death Index (SSDI).
- ^ André de Toth at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ Obituary
- ^ Lyman, Rick (November 1, 2002). "Andre De Toth, the Director Of Noted 3-D Film, Is Dead". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/01/arts/andre-de-toth-the-director-of-noted-3-d-film-is-dead.html?scp=1&sq=Andr%C3%A9%20De%20Toth&st=cse.
- ^ Interment at Forest Lawn
[edit] Further reading
- Anthony Slide (editor), De Toth on De Toth: Putting the Drama In Front of the Camera (Faber, 1996)
[edit] External links
- André de Toth at the Internet Movie Database
- André de Toth at AllRovi
- "André de Toth". Find a Grave. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=6895741. Retrieved August 9, 2010.
- 1910s births
- 2002 deaths
- American film directors
- American memoirists
- Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills)
- Deaths from aneurysm
- English-language film directors
- Hungarian emigrants to the United States
- American people of Hungarian descent
- Hungarian nobility
- Naturalized citizens of the United States
- Western (genre) film directors
