Capra went on to co-write and direct 1946’s It’s a Wonderful Life, perhaps his best-known work. After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Capra joined the Army again and during his time in the service made several well-received propaganda films, including Prelude to War (1943), which earned an Academy Award for Best Documentary. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), which featured Stewart as an incorruptible U.S. In 1940, Capra took home a fourth Best Director Oscar for Mr.
Capra received a third Best Director Oscar for You Can’t Take It With You (1938), a movie about an eccentric family that starred James Stewart, Jean Arthur and Lionel Barrymore and was based on the Pulitzer prize-winning play of the same name by Moss Hart and George Kaufman. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), which starred Gary Cooper as a man who inherits a large fortune and wants to use it to help Depression-era families. Capra won a second Best Director Oscar for Mr.
The film took home Oscars in five categories: Best Director, Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Actor and Actress. The following year, Capra helmed the comedy It Happened One Night, starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. Army, Capra worked his way up through the movie industry he had his first big success as a director with 1933’s Lady for a Day, which received a Best Picture Academy Award nomination. After graduating from the California Institute of Technology and serving in the U.S. His major films embodied his flair for improvisation and spontaneity, buoyant humor and sympathy for the populist beliefs of the 1930s.”Ĭapra was born in Sicily, on May 18, 1897, and as a young boy sailed to America in steerage with his family, who settled in Los Angeles. According to his obituary in the New York Times: “Capra movies were idealistic, sentimental and patriotic. Smith Goes to Washington and It’s a Wonderful Life, dies at the age of 94 at his home in La Quinta, California. On this day in 1991, Frank Capra, a leading Hollywood director in the 1930s and 1940s whose movies include the now-classic You Can’t Take It With You, Mr.