George Stevens Jr. looks back on AFI, Kennedy Center Honors, a family legacy and a career from Hollywood to DC

With just two days until Christmas, I can’t think of a better gift for movie fans or those interested in iconic forces in the entertainment industry than Autobiography 2022 My place in the suntells the life of George Stevens Jr

Most important, however, is the story of father and son. The father is the legendary two-time Oscar winner George Stevens, whose films ranged from Astaire and Rogers musicals. Gunga Din, the more fortunate and woman of the year, until after World War II, including a number of immortal classics A place in the sun, Giant, Shane and The diary of Anne Frank. georg jr spent a lot of time with some of these sets until the 1965s The greatest story ever told, where he was an assistant director. But not only because of his name, but also because of the desire to prove himself, he had to step out of the shadow of a famous father and make his own name while, as the book’s title says, “my own place in the world “.. sun” found. Boy did it ever, and this book is fascinating proof of that. Its impact can still be felt today, around the time of year we celebrate.

steven jr is founder and director of the American Film Institute, which on January 13 recognizes, among others, those selected for the prestigious AFI Film and Television Program of the Year. He also created the equally prestigious AFI Lifetime Achievement Award, first given to John Ford in 1973 and most recently to Julie Andrews in June. Next week comes the broadcast of the Kennedy Center Honors on CBS, from a ceremony held earlier this month in DC and attended as always by the cream of Washington and economic powerhouses, including President Biden (every president except, ahem, Donald Trump does it have to), and it was Stevens who also created and produced it until 2014. Under President Obama, Stevens served as co-chair of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities.

He has won 15 Emmys, eight WGA Awards, two Peabodys, the Humanitas Prize and an honorary Oscar in 2012, among others. I like his previous book Conversations with the great filmmakers of Hollywood’s Golden Ageanother must for movie fans.

Breaking out of his father’s shadow wasn’t easy, but as this book tells, things began in earnest when legendary TV broadcaster Edward R. Murrow recruited him in the 1960s to lead the U.S. Intelligence Agency’s film service to the next take level to raise elevator. Indeed, it ushered in a golden era for it and its efforts at AFI to present films as art. As a filmmaker, he himself directed the special and award-winning documentary about his father, George Stevens: A Filmmaker’s Journey (Warren Beatty told him it was the best thing ever made about a filmmaker), as well as the documentary about his father’s wartime experiences, George Stevens: D-Day to Berlin. His Thurgood Marshall TV Biography Separate but equal Starring Sidney Poitier and a Broadway play He wrote, Thurgut, had a successful run.

There is so much more here, filled with fascinating anecdotes and encounters, but the core of how these documentaries, his relationship with his father and how it helped define the son that would lead to his unique success, is in Focus.

I had the opportunity to have lunch with Stevens and even at 90 it was a privilege to hear his full recollection of a wonderful life. I asked him why he decided to write this book, specifically George Stevens Jr. quoted Annette Bening’s definition at that honorary Oscar ceremony: “Producer, playwright, activist, politician, archivist, pioneer, gatekeeper, benevolent despot, artist, writer, mentor.” So which one does it he do you think he is

“Well, you know, I think that’s what makes me happy with the book,” he said. “A lot of times in my life it’s like, ‘Oh yeah, you founded the AFI’ or ‘Oh, you did the Kennedy Center Honors,’ but my life really has so many different aspects, as Annette said, and it’s pretty good Feel like I’m being ordered And I thought I didn’t discuss it talked about it but think I’m a bit introspective about it… I’ve never been to a psychiatrist. It’s always been one leg at a time, so the idea of ​​doing that and getting your life in order was fun.

A life lesson he learned when he went to the 1952 Academy Awards, where his father won best director A place in the Sun, was a special highlight for me when reading the book. Stevens said:

“You know, when I went to the Oscars with my dad, he drove the car. Me and my mother and grandmother, his mother, actress, in the back seat, Georgie Cooper, sat next to him. And Joseph Mankiewicz comes out, last year’s winner I think, and he reads the nominees. John Houston for The African QueenWilliam Wyler for detective story, Vincent Minelli for An American in ParisElia Kazan End station requiredand George Stevens A place in the Sun.

“And when I went home, I remember not giving it any importance at the time. I just remember my dad saying that when we were driving home in the car, and he looked at me and said, ‘In about 25 years we’ll have a better idea of ​​what that picture is.’

“You know, he grew up in the theater, never finished high school, but he read O’Neill and he grew and he knew it, and it was before DVDs. He knew he was talking about the test of time. It was 1952. Little did he know he was talking to the future founder of the American Film Institute. But you know, that idea was at the heart of the AFI, the preservation of the film, the Life Achievement Award, the test of time. So you have these experiences in your life that you remember that you don’t really realize how, in this case, how significant it was for me.”

Between all his time on both coasts, Stevens really seemed to clone himself – he seemed to be everywhere. In fact, Steven Spielberg said upon reading the book that he was exactly like that Zelig. But where is this man at home anymore? “I feel comfortable in both places. And you know, that’s where the hell I was born in Hollywood Hospital,” he laughed. “I don’t know who was in a bicoastal sense before, if anybody, but when I was at USIA and leading it to AFI, both of those places had to be me.”

He points to another life lesson from his father while they were at it The greatest story ever told and he was offered the opportunity by Murrow at USIA. “It was a father who saw it, much to his own discomfort, because at that point in the film I was a valuable ally in a very ambitious endeavor, but you know he taught me Father also that it was not to be interest, that was it mine interest and he saw better than I that this could be the best thing for me,” recalls Stevens.

In creating the Kennedy Center Honors, where recipients never have to give a speech, he cited another life lesson he used to write this book. He calls it Cary Grant’s Law, which states that no one has to speak or act because Grant will never accept an award if he has to give a speech. “He never accepted the AFI award,” he said, although I should add the notoriously interview-shy Grant, who unfortunately gave a speech while accepting an honorary Oscar. “I didn’t think people should also sing before dinner,” says Stevens. “So you’re coming to DC for the weekend. The performers never have to say a word.

“But now that I’m writing this book, I also had a Cary Grant act. I said, “Unless I have a really good story about Cary Grant, he’s not going to be in this book.” This is not a book to name names, so there are many people who are not in this book who are very close to my heart and who were important to me, but you know, those stories were not in it. But I realize now that in my lifetime, with the combination of Hollywood and people I knew, and 37 years of Kennedy Center Honors, we honored 188 of the greatest artists of that era, and in Washington, politicians, Liz [his wife] and I had all kinds of connections and friends, and that’s what populates this book, that we were happy and I could write about it.

What comes next in an appeal in which he points out the value of youth?

“You know, I have things I’d like to do. I have a quote in the book that I came across years ago not knowing how timely it would become. It belonged to Bertram Russell The pros and cons of ninety. He wrote: “A long-standing habit of working with a goal that is considered important is difficult to break.” And you know, I’ve never had no projects. I mean some of them happen.