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Henry Hathaway (March 13, 1898 – February 11, 1985) was an American film director and producer. He is best known as a director of Westerns, especially starring Randolph Scott and John Wayne. He directed Gary Cooper in seven films. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director for The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935).
His title of Marquess was inherited from his paternal great grandfather J.B. de Fiennes, a Belgian nobleman and barrister in service to King Leopold I of Belgium. When his great grandfather failed in his commission to secure the Sandwich Islands (now Hawaii) for Belgium, the disgraced elder Marquis self-exiled to San Francisco in 1850.Canham, 1973 p. 139 There he established a law practice and married.
Hathaway left school in 1912 at the age of fourteen to become an Property master at Universal Pictures, and began playing adolescent roles in 1917.Canham, 1973 p. 139-140 With the entry of the United States into World War I, Hathaway served as a gunnery instructor at Fort Winfield Scott in San Francisco for the duration of the conflict.Canham, 1973 p. 140
In 1923, Hathaway began working in as an assistant to directors such as Victor Fleming and Josef von Sternberg, and made the transition to sound with them. He was the assistant director to Fred Niblo on the 1925 version of starring Francis X. Bushman and Ramon Novarro. Hathaway continued as an assistant director through the remainder of the 1920s, helping direct such actors as Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, Adolphe Menjou, Fay Wray, Walter Huston, Clara Bow, and Noah Beery.Canham, 1973 p. 142, p. 148: Hathaway "'worked with Randolph Scott eight times; John Wayne on six; Tyrone Power on five; Richard Widmark on four... Cooper appeared on seven occasions' in films directed by Hathaway."
It began a series of Hathaway-directed Scott Westerns from Grey novels, Wild Horse Mesa (1932), The Thundering Herd (1933), Sunset Pass (1933), To the Last Man (1933), Man of the Forest (1933) and The Last Round-Up (1934).
Hathaway directed an action film set in the Philippines, Come On Marines! (1934) starring Richard Arlen and Ida Lupino, followed by a drama The Witching Hour (1934), and an early Shirley Temple film, Now and Forever (1934). The latter also starred Carole Lombard and Gary Cooper
Hathaway got the job because the film changed directors and Cooper, who had director approval, admired Hathaway's films.Eyman p 6 The movie was a hit and received seven Academy Awards nominations, including Best Picture and for which Hathaway won his only nomination for the Academy Award for Directing. Canham, 1973 p. 141: Hathaway's "first popular success as a director."Canham, 1973 p. 154: "Hathaway had a great respect for Gary Cooper as an actor before coming to direct him, and this respect is reflected in the natural ease of Cooper's performances in his work for Hathaway."
Hathaway was now established as one of the main directors on the Paramount lot. He made another with Cooper, Peter Ibbetson (1935). This was followed by The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936), his first color movie, for which Walter Wanger borrowed him, paying him $1000 a week. He also worked on the troubled I Loved a Soldier (1936) which was never finished, and did a Mae West movie, Go West, Young Man (1936).
Hathaway was back with Cooper for the anti-slaving adventure story, Souls at Sea (1937), co-starring George Raft. With Raft and Henry Fonda he made Spawn of the North (1938).
The Real Glory (1939), with Cooper, was a reprise of Bengal Lancers set in the Philippines. After this he had a fight with Paramount and left to join Fox.Eyman p 7
He returned to Paramount to direct John Wayne in The Shepherd of the Hills (1941). For Walter Wanger, he made another Imperial action film, Sundown (1941).
Back at Fox he made Ten Gentlemen from West Point (1942), China Girl (1942), Wing and a Prayer (1944), Home in Indiana (1944) and Nob Hill (1945).
During the 1940s, Hathaway began making films using the semidocumentary style, often in the film noir genre. These included The House on 92nd Street (1945), for which he was nominated for a Best Director award by the New York Film Critics Circle, The Dark Corner (1946), 13 Rue Madeleine (1947), Kiss of Death (1947) and Call Northside 777 (1948), in which Hathaway presented one of the first on-screen uses of a Fax.
Hathaway returned to adventure films with Down to the Sea in Ships (1949). He was reunited with Power for The Black Rose (1950). Hathaway had some time off for a cancer operation then returned to make (1951) was a biopic of General Rommel. It was followed by Fourteen Hours (1951), a noir about a man going to commit suicide, You're in the Navy Now (1951), a military comedy with Cooper, and two with Power: Rawhide (1951), a Western, and Diplomatic Courier (1952).
Hathaway directed the film noir Niagara (1953) which was Marilyn Monroe's breakthrough role and White Witch Doctor (1953) with Susan Hayward and Robert Mitchum. He was reunited with Cooper on Garden of Evil (1954), a Western, then did the swashbuckler Prince Valiant (1954).
After The Racers (1955), with Zanuck's mistress Bella Darvi, Hathaway left Fox.
John Wayne hired him to make Legend of the Lost in 1957 for Wayne's company. Back at Fox, he made the Western From Hell to Texas (1958). During filming, Dennis Hopper attempted to assert himself artistically on the set. Perhaps influenced by his recent experience with fellow actor James Dean's rebellious attitude on the sets of Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Giant (1956), Hopper forced Hathaway to shoot more than 80 takes of a scene before he acquiesced to Hathaway's demands. After the shoot, Hathaway reportedly told the young actor that his career in Hollywood was over. Hopper later admitted he was wrong to have disrespected Hathaway as a youth and called him "the finest director I have ever worked with," and again worked with Hathaway on both The Sons of Katie Elder (1965) and True Grit (1969).
Hathaway then made a melodrama, Woman Obsessed (1959); and a thriller, Seven Thieves (1960). He was reunited with Wayne on the comedy-action "northern," North to Alaska (1960).
He visited Spain to work with Wayne again on Circus World (1964), on which Wayne asked Hathaway to cast John Smith in the role of Steve McCabe. From 1959 to 1963, Smith had played rancher Slim Sherman on NBC-TV's Laramie. An Internet biography of Smith claims that Hathaway developed an intense dislike for the actor and stopped him from landing choice roles thereafter in Hollywood.
Circus World was a box office disappointment, but Wayne and Hathaway's next movie together, The Sons of Katie Elder (1965), was a hit. So too was Nevada Smith (1966), a Western starring Steve McQueen with a story extrapolated from a brief section of Harold Robbins' novel The Carpetbaggers.
Hathaway went to Africa to make The Last Safari (1967), then directed the Western 5 Card Stud (1968) with Dean Martin and Robert Mitchum. It was a mild success, but True Grit (1969), produced by Hal B. Wallis, was a box office success and won John Wayne a Best Actor Oscar.
He stepped in for George Seaton to direct some winter outdoor scenes for the all-star disaster film Airport (1970), featuring Burt Lancaster and Dean Martin. Hathaway did it as a favor for Seaton, for no payment.
In 1971, he made a war movie with Richard Burton, Raid on Rommel, and then another Western for Wallis, Shoot Out. Hathaway's 65th and final film was Hangup (1974), a blaxploitation movie. He turned down the True Grit sequel Rooster Cogburn (1975) as he did not like the script.
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