Young director King Vidor knew he had a great gig in his working relationship with First National Pictures. The company, impressed by Vidor's earlier movies, hired him in late 1919 and funded his very own production studio in Santa Monica, California, naming it 'Vidor Village.' His April 1921 "Sky Pilot," starring Colleen Moore, was a culmination of small, yet successful movies that were made mostly inside his cozy studio building. But to film "Sky Pilot," a picture about a minister who arrives at a hostile Western town to begin a church, required shooting in the High Sierra mountains.
The movie proved to be much more expensive than Vidor's other projects, causing studio executives to raise their eyebrows. When the cost overruns ate into its profits, First National decided to cut ties with the director. Vidor became a free-lancer once again. But the studio's severance didn't stop what turned out to be one of the longest Hollywood careers in history. Vidor directed movies for 67 years, was nominated for the Academy Awards five times, and received an honorary Oscar for his body of work.
Named after his uncle, King Wallis, the Galveston, Texas, 1894-born lad witnessed the 1900 destructive Galveston Hurricane, destroying much of the town. He later put his memory of the storm to good use when he directed the tornado scene with Dorothy and Toto in 1939's 'The Wizard of Oz.' King was given a heavy dose of Christian Science religion by his mother early on, a faith that touched many of his movies. At 18, after working for a Houston, Texas film production company, he headed out to California with his newlywed, actress Florence Cobb Vidor. While Vitagraph Studio hired the two in 1916 to act, King's passion was scriptwriting and directing. After directing a moralistic film series, he gathered ten doctors to finance his first feature movie, 1919's 'The Turn in the Road.' An instant financial success, the movie's tidy profit gave the doctors the impetus to form a film production company backed by young Vidor's directorship.
The movie proved to be much more expensive than Vidor's other projects, causing studio executives to raise their eyebrows. When the cost overruns ate into its profits, First National decided to cut ties with the director. Vidor became a free-lancer once again. But the studio's severance didn't stop what turned out to be one of the longest Hollywood careers in history. Vidor directed movies for 67 years, was nominated for the Academy Awards five times, and received an honorary Oscar for his body of work.
Named after his uncle, King Wallis, the Galveston, Texas, 1894-born lad witnessed the 1900 destructive Galveston Hurricane, destroying much of the town. He later put his memory of the storm to good use when he directed the tornado scene with Dorothy and Toto in 1939's 'The Wizard of Oz.' King was given a heavy dose of Christian Science religion by his mother early on, a faith that touched many of his movies. At 18, after working for a Houston, Texas film production company, he headed out to California with his newlywed, actress Florence Cobb Vidor. While Vitagraph Studio hired the two in 1916 to act, King's passion was scriptwriting and directing. After directing a moralistic film series, he gathered ten doctors to finance his first feature movie, 1919's 'The Turn in the Road.' An instant financial success, the movie's tidy profit gave the doctors the impetus to form a film production company backed by young Vidor's directorship.