Tarzan Escapes

Richard Thorpe (February 24, 1896 – May 1, 1991) was an American film director. Born Rollo Smolt Thorpe in Hutchinson, Kansas, he began his entertainment career performing in vaudeville and onstage. In 1921 he began in motion pictures as an actor and directed his first silent film in 1923. He went on to direct more than one hundred and eighty films. The first full length motion picture he directed for MGM was Last of the Pagans (1935) starring Ray Mala. After directing The Last Challenge in 1967, he retired from the film industry. He died in Palm Springs, California in 1991. Thorpe is also known as the original director of The Wizard of Oz. He was fired after two weeks of shooting, because it was felt that his scenes did not have the right air of fantasy about them. Thorpe notoriously gave Judy Garland a blonde wig and cutesy “baby-doll” makeup that made her look like a girl in her late teens rather than an innocent Kansas farm girl of about thirteen. Both makeup and wig were discarded at the suggestion of George Cukor, who was brought in temporarily. Stills from Thorpe’s work on the film survive today. For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Thorpe has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6101 Hollywood Blvd. —wikipedia

John Villiers Farrow, CBE (10 February 1904 – 27 January 1963) was an Australian, later American, film director, producer and screenwriter. In 1957 he won the Academy Award for Best Writing / Best Screenplay for Around the World in Eighty Days and in 1942 he was nominated as Best Director for Wake Island.

Farrow was born in Sydney, Australia, the son of Lucy Villiers (née Savage), a dressmaker, and Joseph Farrow, a tailor’s trimmer. Farrow began writing while working as a sailor in the 1920s. He moved to Hollywood to work in films as a marine technical advisor and stayed on as a screenwriter. He wrote for films between 1927 and 1959, and also directed between 1934 and 1959. Farrow was also a writer of short stories and plays (Laughter Ends), as well as non-fiction (Pageant of the Popes, and biographies of St Thomas More and Father Damien).

He was married to actress Maureen O’Sullivan from 12 September 1936 until his death. He fathered four daughters: actresses Mia, Prudence, Stephanie, Tisa; three sons: Michael Namien (1939–1958), Patrick Joseph (1942–2009), John Charles (born 1946). Maureen O’Sullivan was his second wife, after he converted to Catholicism and she received a papal dispensation to marry a divorcee.

He became an American citizen in 1947. In 1953 he was appointed an Honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). He was also appointed him a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre by Pope Pius XI.

He died from a heart attack in Beverly Hills, California at the age of 58 and was buried in the Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City.

Farrow was twice nominated for an Academy Award. He won the Oscar and Writers Guild of America Award for his adapted screenplay for Around the World in Eighty Days (1956).

He was nominated for an Oscar and won the 1942 New York Film Critics Circle Award for his direction of the rousing World War II battle drama Wake Island.

His star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is located at 6304 Hollywood Blvd. —Wikipedia

George Brackett Seitz (January 3, 1888 – July 8, 1944) was an American playwright, screenwriter, film actor and director. He was known for his screenplays for action serials, including:

Seitz was born in Boston, Massachusetts, started his career as a playwright, and also wrote some fiction for “up-market” pulp magazines such as Adventure and People’s Magazine.

Seitz did much of his early work in Fort Lee, New Jersey when many other early film studios in America’s first motion picture industry were based there. He was the director of 107 films, the writer of 31 screenplays, and an actor in 7 films. He worked at Columbia Pictures and at MGM where he directed 11 of the Andy Hardy series of films of the 1930s & 1940s. He died in Hollywood, California. Although an acquaintance of the cinematographer John F. Seitz, they were not related. He was the father of George B. Seitz Jr., who was a writer/director active in the 1940s and 1950s in films and television. —Wikipedia