Filmmakers' Autobiographies

In “My Life And My Films” published in 1974, five years before his death in Beverly Hills at 84, Jean Renoir takes the reader through his rich existence, starting from his early childhood. As the son of the illustrious painter, he knew he had to make a name for himself in whatever field he chose.

“June 15, 1964: I just got a request from America to publish my diaries. But I never wrote them with any literary ambition, and since I do not consider myself a writer, I had no wish to publish them.

In the summer 1947 Edward Dmytryk, known as Mr. RKO, was riding high on the wave of the recent success of his latest picture Crossfire.

It was August 1945 and in his two-story house on Whitley Terrace in the Hollywood Hills, Max Ophüls had started writing a personal bio at the request of a publicist for the company that had finally hired him after four years of unemployment. Like many of his European colleagues before him, the German-born and French-naturalized filmmaker had moved to America in 1941, hoping to find work in Tinseltown.

“In this semi-autobiography, where I often wander from the subject like the wayfarer in a picaresque novel seduced by the charm of the unexpected intrusion, the unforeseen story, certain false memories have undoubtedly remained, despite my vigilance. But it doesn’t matter.

Film Bios is an occasional series reviewing autobiographies of notable filmmakers. It was 1926 when Robert Parrish saw Douglas Fairbanks in The Black Pirate.

Film Bios is an occasional series reviewing autobiographies of notable filmmakers. Four years before he passed away in 2008 at age 91, Dino Risi published I Miei Mostri, a sort of memoir - or confessions as the Italians prefer to call it -  actually an eclectic mix of miscellaneous recollections of his long life whose title, of course, refers to one of his most famous films, The Monsters (1963).

Film Bios is an occasional series reviewing autobiographies of notable filmmakers.  It was October 24th, 1929 and Fred Zinnemann had just disembarked in New York after a seven-day crossing from Cherbourg, France.

Film Bios is an occasional series reviewing autobiographies of notable filmmakers.  “The 21st of October 1935 was my second birthday”, writes Otto Preminger at the very beginning of his memoirs, published in 1977and simply titled An Autobiography.

Film Bios is an occasional series reviewing autobiographies of notable filmmakers   “I lived three golden periods of my time: Paris in 1920, the Riviera in 1927 and Hollywood from 1930 to 1970. ” So writes director Jean Negulesco in his enchanting memoirs, “Things I Did …and Things I Think I Did”, published in 1984.