HISTORY AND INCE AWARD
The Backlot Film Festival was founded in 2004 by writer/producer Ross Hawkins to pay tribute to the rich motion picture history in Culver City and LA's Westside.
The
first Backlot Film Festival was held at West Los Angeles College because
a portion of the campus was used by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios until
1967.
The two motion picture and television studios in Culver City, (Sony Pictures
Entertainment and The Culver Studios) were both built by pioneer filmmaker
Thomas H. Ince.
Ince
is mainly remembered for the mysterious circumstances of his death and
it is forgotten that he built three major studios, produced and directed
thousands of films and created the studio system still in existence today.
MICKEY ROONEY - A CULVER CITY TREASURE
by Marc Wanamaker
I can't think of any living personality that so identifies with Culver City's history as Mickey Rooney. He spent most of his childhood and young adult life at the Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios, spanning over 26 years.
Beginning with "Beast of the City" made at MGM in 1932, Rooney appeared in countless features, musicals and shorts. One of his last films made at the Culver City studio in 1958 was "Andy Hardy Comes Home."
Mickey Rooney not only was an MGM star; he was an accomplished musician, singer, dancer, writer, producer and general overall entertainer -- making him one of Hollywood's greatest talents ever.
Rooney was born Joe Yule on September 23, 1920, in Brooklyn, New York. The son of vaudevillians, he made his first stage appearance at 15 months and before long became an indispensable part of the family act - singing, dancing, mimicking and telling jokes. He made his film debut at six, playing a midget in the short "Not To Be Trusted" (1926), and in the following year appeared in the silent feature "Orchids and Ermine" (1927) for First National Films.
Between 1927 and 1933 he starred in some 50 two reel comedies playing the famed comic strip character, "Mickey Mcquire." He changed his name to Mickey Rooney in 1932 when he began appearing in small roles in feature films at various studios.
Famed producer David O. Selznick persuaded MGM head Louis B. Mayer to sign Rooney to a contract in 1934. In that year, he was cast as Clark Gable as a boy in the W.S. Van Dyke gangster epic, Manhattan Melodrama, which also starred William Powell and Myrna Loy. It’s worth noting that Manhattan Melodrama was immortalized as the last film, notorious bank robber John Dillenger saw before he was gunned down by Melvin Purvis and several FBI agents outside the Biograph Theatre in the Lincoln Park area of Chicago.
Mickey Rooney appeared in several classic films at MGM including Clarence Brown's adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's Ah Wilderness! and Victor Fleming's Captains Courageous which won Spencer Tracy an academy award for Best Actor in 1937. Rooney was loaned out to Warner Bros. in 1935 to appear as "Puck" in Max Reinhardt's version of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night's Dream with James Cagney, Dick Powell and Olivia de Havilland.
In 1937, Rooney appeared in the first of a long-running series of “Andy Hardy” films. A Family Affair starred Rooney as the teenage Andy Hardy whose life was filled with teenage problems (like asking two different girls to the same dance!) and who always learned a lesson on growing up from his wise father, Judge Hardy. Rooney appeared in fifteen of these very popular family-oriented films at MGM.
He co-starred with Spencer Tracy in Boys Town in 1938 and won an Academy Award that year for his overall work in the industry. By 1939, Rooney was voted number one at the box-office by the Motion Picture Theatre Owners of America (Clark Gable was voted number two!) and co-starred in the first of a series of popular musicals with Judy Garland (often called the "let's put on a show" series).
With the coming of the 1940s, Rooney continued to star in such popular films at MGM as Young Tom Edison (1940), The Human Comedy (1943), and National Velvet (1944) which firmly launched Elizabeth Taylor's career. It was also in 1944 that he entered the armed services at the height of World War II, and entertained the troops in camp shows throughout the European War Theatre.
In 1948, he started his own production company and made many appearances on early television shows and starred in his own series "The Mickey Rooney Show" which ran for almost two years.
In 1954, when he was well into his thirties, Rooney starred in Drive A Crooked Road for Columbia Pictures. He played a lonely auto mechanic with dreams of driving in the Grand Prix - dreams he knows won't come true. His fellow mechanics tease him mercilessly about his lack of experience with women.
One day an unattainable woman (Diane Foster) gives him the big eye and he succumbs, but she's just the cat's paw for her real boyfriend (Kevin McCarthy). The boyfriend is living the high life in his beach-house bachelor pad and plans to knock over a bank in Palm Springs, using Rooney as his daredevil driver. With Foster's urging, Rooney signs on. The resolution is the classic falling out of thieves. However, the movie's staying power is Rooney's portrayal of the dupe, the victim – made all the more memorable for Rooney’s understated performance.
In 1957, Rooney was nominated for his role as a soldier running a floating crap game on the Italian Front during World War II in Joseph H. Lewis' The Bold and the Brave. Rooney co-wrote the title song for the film with Ross Bagdasian, creator of "Alvin and The Chipmunks.” The film had a very limited release and has not been seen since, as the distributor, RKO, was sold by owner Howard Hughes to The General Tire Company which soon after went out of the motion picture business.
Rooney’s multi-faceted talent continued with such diverse films as Blake Edwards’ Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Ralph Nelson's Requiem For A Heavyweight, Stanley Kramer’s It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World and Carroll Ballard’s The Black Stallion.
For his lead role in the TV film "Bill" in 1981 – the story of a mentally retarded lonely old man – Rooney won an Emmy, a Golden Globe award and Peabody award. Sir Laurence Olivier called Mickey Rooney, "the most talented actor in America."
Rooney continues to capture new audiences, appearing in the hit film, Night at The Museum (2006) which reunited him with Dick Van Dyke (appearing together in the 1969 film, The Comic); Bamboo Shark (2007); and, in 2009, Driving Me Crazy and Now Here.
He hasn't stopped entertaining for almost a century, and beloved by several generations the world over.
But it was in Culver City that Mickey Rooney became one of its most famous celebrities. He worked on all of MGM’s back lots. From its Lot #2 on Overland Avenue to Lot #3 on Jefferson Boulevard, Culver City was his playground and the studio his home. Everyone in the town knew him and were proud that he was among them. Mickey Rooney became one of the few MGM stars that was known around the world along with his work ‘home’, Culver City.
THOMAS
INCE
Biography
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BUDD
SCHULBERG
Biography
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