Kenneth Macgowan
Description
Kenneth Macgowan (November 30, 1888 – April 27, 1963) was an American film producer. He won an Academy Award for Best Color Short Film for La Cucaracha (1934), the first live-action short film made in the three-color Technicolor process.Born on November 30, 1888 in Winthrop, Massachusetts, Macgowan began his career as a drama critic. He wrote many books on the modern theater including The Theatre of Tomorrow (1921), Continental Stagecraft (1922) with Robert Edmond Jones, Masks and Demons (1923) with Herman Rosse, and Footlights Across America (1929). In 1922, he ran the Provincetown Playhouse as its producer, with Eugene O'Neill and Robert Edmond Jones as business partners. His close relationship with O'Neill lasted their lifetimes.In 1928 he moved to Hollywood, California to become a story editor for the newly-formed RKO Radio Pictures and quickly became an assistant producer. By 1932, Macgowan had become a film producer for RKO, including Little Women (1933), starring Katharine Hepburn, Joan Bennett, Frances Dee and Jean Parker as the March sisters. Macgowan produced many films between 1932 and 1947, not only at RKO, but also for 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures. He produced the first feature film made in the three color Technicolor process, Becky Sharp (1935). He also produced Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) with Henry Fonda, Fritz Lang's Man Hunt (1941) and Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944). Other films produced by Macgowan include The Penguin Pool Murder (1932), Double Harness (1933), Rafter Romance (1933), Murder on the Blackboard (1934), Murder on a Honeymoon (1935), Lloyd's of London (1936), Stanley and Livingstone (1939), The Story of Alexander Graham Bell (1939), and Jane Eyre (1944). In 1947, he left the movie industry to become the first chair of the Department of Theater Arts at UCLA. The theater building on the school's campus is named in his honor. Throughout his life, he wrote books on a number of subjects including drama and film, most notably Behind the Screen, a history of cinema published in 1965 after his death. He died on April 27, 1963, in West Los Angeles, California, aged 74.
Books
Behind the screen
From Goodreads: William Mann's Behind the Screen is a thoughtful and eye-opening look at the totality of the gay experience in studio-era Hollywood. Much has been written about how gays have been portrayed in the movies but no book -- until now -- has looked at their influence behind the screen. Whether out of or in the closet, gays and lesbians have from the very beginning played a significant role in shaping Hollywood. Gay actors were among the earliest matinee idols and gay directors have long been among the most popular and commercially successful filmmakers. In fact, gay set and costume designers created the very look of Hollywood.With this landmark book, Mann fills a void in the Hollywood history archives. Written in the tradition of Neal Gabler's An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood and based on hundreds of hours of interviews with survivors of this golden age, Behind the Screen is destined to become a classic of film literature.
The living stage
Examines the personalities and events which shaped the development of acting and the theater from ancient Egypt.
Golden ages of the theater [by] Kenneth Macgowan [and] William Melnitz
Review of the first edition: "Golden Ages of the Theater is the very best up-to-date short history of the theater available in English. Kenneth Macgowan and William Melnitz are to be congratulated for the clear and vivid writing and excellent organization as well as the abundant information that make this book indispensable to anyone interested in theater and drama."—John Gassner. Sterling Professor of Playwriting and Dramatic Literature, Yale University. This revised and updated edition has been expanded to include two completely new sections. Medieval Theater—The book examines its ceremonial function, cycle plays, passion plays, farce and morality plays and describes the emergence of professional theater in the medieval world. The Theater of Today—The authors trace the rapid development of modern theater in the U.S. and abroad through the 1970s, focusing on the most recent theatrical productions, including those of the new avant-garde, and examining the most up-to-date influences on theater from the Vietnam War to the Women's Movement.