George Stevens, Jr., son of former DGA president George Stevens, Sr., learned the craft of filmmaking by visiting the sets of his father’s movies as a child, before moving up to P.A for the films A Place in the Sun (1951), Shane (1953) and Giant (1956). Stevens then served as associate producer and location director for his father’s The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) where they worked closely with her father, Otto Frank. Stevens then set out on his own and directed episodes of the television series Peter Gunn and Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
Stevens went on to work at the United States Information Agency where he produced Jacqueline Kennedy’s Asian Journey (1962) and The Five Cities of June (1963) among other short documentary pieces. In 1967, along with chairman Gregory Peck, MPAA head Jack Valenti and a board of 22 trustees, Stevens founded the American Film Institute. In 1978 Stevens, along with Roger Stevens, founded the Kennedy Center Honors, an annual honor given to those in the performing arts, and has produced the televised event every year since its inception. Stevens continued to work in feature films; producing the Oscar nominated The Thin Red Line (1999), documentaries; a biography of his father, George Stevens: A Filmmaker’s Journey (1985); as well as directing a critically acclaimed movie for television, Separate But Equal (1991).
Stevens has received fifteen Primetime Emmys, seven Writers Guild of America Awards as well as an Oscar nomination for The Five Cities of June. In 2011 he produced and wrote the DGA Award nominated movie for television Thurgood, directed by his son Michael Stevens. Stevens catalogued his journey in his recent memoir, My Place in the Sun: Life in the Golden Age of Hollywood and Washington. Stevens has been a member since 1951.
For more on Director George Stevens Jr. and his legacy, visit his website available through the link below.
georgestevensjr.com