Curtiz.

Michael Curtiz

It is Michael Curtiz, but please have look at Errol's hand!
When Errol was uncomfortable, nervous or tense he had a habit to rub his index finger over his thumbnail like he wanted to push back the cuticle and on this picture he is doing it exactly.
Is Curtiz annoying Errol? It looks like it - his face says a lot!
Tina

Maybe he's wishing he had a cigarette?! Curtiz has one, but EF does not.

Since those are San Antonio sideburns, I believe this photo was shot in '45, four years after Flynn last worked for Curtiz in Dive Bomber. As for Errol's clenched/withered hand, I'd be surprised if a subsequent shot didn't show him punching out Curtiz, considering the way the director terrorized him from Captain Blood on.

Hi SeanW:
I am sure you are right - Michal Curtiz did antagonized Errol to a great extent. Was it because Errol was married to Lili one of Michael Cutiz's former wives?

According to Lincoln Hurst, Curtiz was never married to Lili Damita although this is reported as fact quite often.

Hi David,

Did Linc ever give his source or the reason he believed that Damita/Curtiz were never married.
I have to say I have never come across anything definite to confirm that they were married but do recall a conversation with Gerry Connolly that seemed to hint that they were indeed married. I don't want to misquote Gerry as he was very cryptic in what he said (obviously he didnt want to reveal too much about his Damita book) but as I say I got the feeling that he was convinced Damita and Curtiz were married.

It would be interesting to know one way or the other and could help explain a lot of the bad feeling between the two men.

I haven't spoke to Gerry for a few years now so now might be a good time to get in touch with him and ind out how things are progressing with the book.

best wishes,

Brian.

Hi Brian;
Michael Curtiz was married to Lili Damita in 1925 in Germany when he directed her in "Das Spielzeug" - English "The Toy", they divorced in 1926, when Curtiz came to America. Lili Damita came to Hollywood in 1928 on Sam Goldwyn's request and made her first movie with Goldwyn "The Rescue" in 1929.

It was Lili's first leading role in Das Spielzeug (1925) directed by Hungarian-born director Michael Curtiz, whom she married in 1925, but they divorced a year later.
Did Curtiz run out on Lili? I wonder why? Did he needed his distance too? Ouh La La!
Tina

Hi Brian. If you could get feedback on the book that would be so great. I am interested in Lili. I'm curious about her relationship with her son as well as Errol.

Va-va-voom and hello!
Michael Curtiz was married to Lili Damita, next time I go to Vienna maybe I get a copy of their marriage license?!
Here is another article which tells us that she came to Hollywood with him in 1926 - just for the ride! True or ? - but there is not one record on the Internet, when a reference is made to marriage that she was not married to him, all of them say so, On her data and on Michael Curtiz's data, including all his various names. Except on the family tree of her 3rd husband Allen Loomis. whom she married in 1962, after Errol passed away and so did his cash box, but was divorced a couple of years later. Maybe she has a laps of memory and never told him about it, after all is was 1925, who can remember that long back!
Bye the way Lili Damita had several stage names too, here are three of them Lily Deslys | Lily Seslys | Damita del Rojo.
Happy reading!

Michael Curtiz
Alternate Names: Mahala Kurtez, Mihaly Kertesz, Michael Courtice, Kertesz Mihaly, Michael Kertesz

Producer, Director
Gender: Male
Born: December 24, 1888
Died: April 11, 1962
Birthplace: Budapest, Hungary

Full Biography

From All Movie Guide: Michael Curtiz was one of Hollywood's most prolific and colorful directors. Born to a well-to-do Jewish family in Budapest, he ran away from home at age 17 to join a circus, then trained for an acting career at the Royal Academy for Theater and Art. He worked as a leading man at the Hungarian Theatre before directing stage plays and then films. His first cinematic effort was Az Utolsó Bohém (1912), which was also the first feature-length film ever made in Hungary. Curtiz soon moved on to the more progressive Danish film industry, returning to his homeland in 1914 and serving a year in the Austro-Hungarian infantry before resuming his film career. While it may be arguable that Curtiz was Hungary's finest director, he was certainly its busiest, making no fewer than 14 films in 1917, most of which starred his first wife, actress Lucy Dorraine. When the Hungarian film industry was nationalized by the new communist government in 1919, Curtiz packed his bags and headed for Sweden, France, Germany, and Austria. He directed 21 European pictures in a seven-year period, including the epic Sodom and Gomorrah (1923), which was also the film debut of Walter Slezak.

In 1926, Curtiz was brought to Hollywood by Warner Bros.; going along for the ride was the director's second wife, actress Lili Damita, who later married Curtiz's frequent star Errol Flynn. (The director's third and final wife was screenwriter Bess Meredyth). Curtiz's first few American films were stylish but only moderately expensive. But not so 1929's Noah's Ark, a super-spectacular production which bombed at the box office but also firmly established Curtiz as a "prestige" director. It also set the standard for an utter lack of concern for the well-being of actors; several extras died during the climactic flood sequence, reportedly because Curtiz, hoping to incur genuine panic in his performers, had failed to inform them that they'd be deluged with tons of water. Most leading actors despised the dictatorial filmmaker, but were willing to work with him time and again due to his uncanny knack for turning out top-notch movies. While his detractors have noted that Curtiz's much-praised visual style was due more to Warner's team of cinematographers and art directors than to the director himself, few can deny that his films were among the best and most profitable that the studio ever turned out. Listing his greatest sound films would require a book, in itself, but a representative cross-section of Curtiz's creative contributions of the 1930s and '40s include: Captain Blood (1935), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Angels With Dirty Faces (1938), Casablanca (1942, and for which he won an Oscar), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Mildred Pierce (1945), Night and Day (1946), and Life With Father (1947). Even in his professional dotage, he was responsible for one of the biggest box-office successes of the mid-'50s, White Christmas (1954). Curtiz died in 1962, one year after completing his final film, The Comancheros with John Wayne. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide