Born: October 15th, 1900 (San Francisco)
Died: September 13th, 1987 (Alzheimer's)
Marriages: Edna Murphy (1927-1933), Doris Warner (1934-1942), Katherine Spiegel LeRoy (1946-?)
Children: He had two children with his last wife: Warner LeRoy & Linda LeRoy Janklow.
Interesting Fact: His family lost everything in the San Francisco earthquake of 1909. To make ends meet, he sold newspapers and began his performing career at Vaudeville, singing with his brother.
Success: Mervyn claimed to have never directed a complete flop. With his well rounded films of comedies, dramas, fantasies and musicals, that is hard to do. His film "Little Caesar" (1931) started the gangster craze and many other hits led the way on into the forties. With the decline of the studios he began to withdrawal himself from the cinema.
Awards: He was only nominated once for Best Director and it was on "Random Harvest" (1942). He did, however, receive a honorable Oscar for the Frank Sinatra short "The House I Live In" (1945) and the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. He has received six other achievements along with eleven other nominations.
My Favorite Film: "Random Harvest" (1942) is my favorite movie on romance. He also did "Blossoms in the Dust" (1941), "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo" (1944) and "The FBI Story" (1959) which are all among my favorites.
I have already written much about him above but I wanted to speak again on his beginning. After leaving Vaudeville he went to Hollywood and literally climbed the ladder from the bottom rung. While seeing others step in greatness I'm sure he counted each rung as a blessing of knowledge. He believed that good stories makes good movies and he was right.
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