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.