July 25

Vincente Minnelli dies of pheumonia and emphysema in Beverly Hills, 1986. With a background as a department store window dresser, then a costume and set decorator for stage productions, one would naturally expect the director to have a strong visual style. He also displayed a stubborn perfectionism that gave Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), his third full-length film, an authenticity born from the explicit set décor guidance he requested from author Sally Benson, on whose book the MGM musical was based. In the movie biography of Vincent van Gogh, Lust for Life (1956), Minnelli insisted that a field be spray-painted yellow to match one of the artist’s paintings. And in Gigi (1958), the director found the perfect-looking cat for Leslie Caron’s title character, though it despised Caron and had to be drugged so she could safely hold it while performing the song “Say a Prayer for Me Tonight.” Minnelli unfortunately did not get his way with Brigadoon (1954), with both him and star Gene Kelly wanting the MGM picture to be filmed on location in Scotland instead of the soundstages of Culver City. Studio heads overruled their request and the film subsequently suffered from an overwhelmingly artificial look.

Cedric Gibbons

“Gibbons was responsible for the physical look of most of the 20th century through his designs for MGM, which were wildly influential both at the time and now, when we look back at his era.”
— Historian Steven Bingen, author of MGM: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot, in an interview with Stuart Galbraith IV

Cedric Gibbons, a graduate of New York’s Art Student League, began his long association with the movies at Edison Studios in 1915. In 1918, he served as art director at Goldwyn Studios. When Goldwyn became incorporated with Metro Pictures and Louis B. Mayer Pictures in 1924, forming MGM, the young designer signed on as the new studio’s art director, a position he would hold for the next 32 years. More than 1,500 films bear his name as art director while a number of designers on his staff went uncredited. Nevertheless, the look of MGM films—and much of the studio proper—are reflections of Gibbons’s taste, creativity and discipline.

Here’s a brief look at his legacy.

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December 9

Kirk Douglas is born in Amsterdam, New York, 1916. His tough, angry, conflicted screen persona flourished in Champion (1949), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) and Lust for Life (1956)—all movies that landed him Best Actor Oscar nominations. “Virtue is not photogenic,” the actor once remarked. “What is it to be a nice guy? To be nothing, that’s what. A big fat zero with a smile for everybody.” For his role as Vincent van Gogh in Lust for Life, Douglas grew a beard, dyed his hair reddish brown and held audience attention in spite of the vivid color scheme director Vincente Minnelli used to approximate the bold hues of the painter’s works. (Minnelli even had a portion of a field spray-painted yellow.) Over the years, Douglas’s portrayal has lost none of its impact, though, on many prints, Minnelli’s vibrant palette has dimmed.