DGA Monthly

J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 I 9 "King Vidor" — the name sounds like a character from a movie, a match for Darth Vader perhaps. It carries connotations of majesty and the Latin root for video, videre — to see. Vidor was a beloved figure in the industry and a famous Director from the silent era to CinemaScope and beyond. He received five best Director nominations and an honorary Oscar. More than that, he was a guiding force in the formation of the Screen Directors Guild (later the DGA), serving as our first president in decisive and difficult years. For his distinguished career, he was presented with the Guild's Lifetime Achievement Award in 1957. Vidor described the process of directing this way to his fellow filmmaker Alan Pakula: There are "a hundred people around the camera [and] that one fellow, the only person who can say yes or no. It all has to be filtered through one person to have it work at all. And it's my belief that it's just as personal as writing a book or painting a picture." Apart from his extraordinary career as a filmmaker, the role Vidor played in the foundation of the Directors Guild is a story worth telling, and one that points to the ever-changing status of the Director. It's too easy to think of the 1930s as a happy "golden age." Rather, it was an era of desperate confusion in which no one was sure of the future. At that time, the public hardly knew anything about Directors, and there were studio bosses — even those as sympathetic as Irving Thalberg — who disputed a Director's authority. Sound had come to the picture business both as a blessing and a disaster and the industry required infrastructural investment just when American money was drying up. The Crash of 1929 was followed by years of sinking economic depression. In the early '30s, the size of the audience withered. The studios faced ruin. Not long after the 1933 inauguration of Franklin Roosevelt, the studios threatened drastic pay cuts. For several years, the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences had attempted to act as arbiter between management and labor, but was rightfully regarded as a forum for the studios. After a meeting at the Roosevelt Hotel about the cuts called by the Academy, about six or eight Directors congregated on the sidewalk outside the hotel. "The realization was very strong," Vidor recalled, "that we must have an organization to speak for us." Vidor and DeMille had history together. In 1931, DeMille had enlisted Vidor and several other Directors in a failed plan to produce and distribute films independently. At the first general membership meeting of the new Guild at the Hollywood Athletic C l u b o n J a n . 2 2 , 1 9 3 6 , D e M i l l e w a s d i s m i s s i v e , if not downright hostile to the new organization. His main concern was that the Directors would align with the already organized writers and actors who had brought their organizations under the umbrella of what he considered the "Bolshevik" American Federation of Labor. Two days after the meeting, the SDG announced that it would not affiliate. Vidor understood that he would need DeMille for bigger battles ahead, and thanks, at least partially, to his practical politicking, DeMille was not permanently alienated from the Guild, and became a member in 1939. Meanwhile, Vidor continued to implore members to join. Under his leadership (1936-38), he brought Assistant Directors into the ranks in 1937, and in two years membership rose to about 600, including virtually every active Director and Assistant Director. In a recruiting King Vidor, the Guild's First President January 2025 marks 89 years since the founding of our Guild. In this article we look back at King Vidor who co-founded the Screen Directors Guild and became our first president. His legacy as a fighter for Directors' rights continues today. — continued on page 10 Vidor's house in Beverly Hills where the Guild was born in 1935. Celebrating Our History Vidor was an active member of the MPDA when he appeared on the cover of its magazine in 1926.

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