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- Died
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Frank Borzage
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Frank Borzage (April 23, 1894 – June 19, 1962) was an Academy Award-winning American film director and actor, known for directing 7th Heaven (1927), Street Angel (1928), Bad Girl (1931), A Farewell to Arms (1932), Man's Castle (1933), History Is Made at Night (1937), The Mortal Storm (1940) and Moonrise (1948).
In 1912 Borzage found employment as an actor in Hollywood; he continued to work as an actor until 1917. His directorial debut came in 1915 with the film The Pitch o' Chance.
He was a successful director throughout the 1920s, but reached his peak in the late silent and early sound era. Absorbing visual influences from the German director F.W. Murnau, who was also resident at Fox at this time, Borzage developed his own style of lushly visual romanticism in a hugely successful series of films starring Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell, including 7th Heaven (1927), for which he won the first Academy Award for Best Director, Street Angel (1928) and Lucky Star (1929). He won a second Oscar for 1931's Bad Girl.
He directed 14 films between 1917 and 1919 alone. His greatest success in the silent era was with Humoresque, a box office winner starring Vera Gordon.
Borzage's trademark was intense identification with the feelings of young lovers in the face of adversity, with love in his films triumphing over such trials as World War I (7th Heaven and A Farewell to Arms), disability (Lucky Star), the Depression (Man's Castle), a thinly disguised version of the Titanic disaster in History Is Made at Night, and the rise of Nazism, a theme which Borzage had virtually to himself among Hollywood filmmakers from Little Man, What Now? (1933) to Three Comrades (1938) and The Mortal Storm (1940).
As director
The Big Fisherman
China Doll
The Day I Met Caruso
A Ticket for Thaddeus
Day is Done
Moonrise
That's My Man
I've Always Loved You
Magnificent Doll
The Spanish Main
Till We Meet Again
His Butler's Sister
Stage Door Canteen
Seven Sweethearts
The Vanishing Virginian
Smilin' Through
The Mortal Storm
Strange Cargo
Flight Command
Disputed Passage
Mannequin
The Shining Hour
Three Comrades
History Is Made at Night
Big City
Green Light
Desire
Hearts Divided
Stranded
Shipmates Forever
As actor
Murnau, Borzage and Fox
Jeanne Eagels
The Atom
The Curse of Iku
A Mormon Maid
Fear Not
Wee Lady Betty
A School for Husbands
Nugget Jim's Pardner
The Pilgrim
Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages
Land O' Lizards
A Flickering Light
The Courtin' of Calliope Clew
Immediate Lee
Realization
Two Bits
Unlucky Luke
The Code of Honor
Jack
The Demon of Fear
That Gal of Burke's
Nell Dale's Men Folks
The Forgotten Prayer
Matchin' Jim
In the Land of the Otter
The Cup of Life
The Secret of Lost River
The Tavern Keeper's Son
The Pitch o' Chance