April 12, 1973(1973-04-12) (aged 78) Los Angeles, California, United States
Occupation(s)
Lyricist, film producer
Musical artist
Arthur Freed (September 9, 1894 – April 12, 1973)[1] was an American lyricist and a Hollywood film producer. He won the Academy Award for Best Picture twice, in 1951 for An American in Paris and in 1958 for Gigi. Both films were musicals, and both were directed by Vincente Minnelli. In addition, he produced the film Singin' in the Rain, the soundtrack for which primarily consisted of songs he co-wrote earlier in his career.
Freed was born to a Jewish family in Charleston, South Carolina,[2][3] and wrote poetry while a high schooler at Phillips Exeter Academy.[4] After graduating in 1914, he began his career as a song-plugger and pianist in Chicago. After meeting Minnie Marx, he sang as part of the act of her sons, the Marx Brothers, on the vaudeville circuit, and also wrote material for the brothers.
In 1939, after working (uncredited) in the role of associate producer[5]onThe Wizard of Oz, he was promoted to being the head of his own unit within MGM, and helped elevate the studio to the leading creator of film musicals. His first solo credit as producer was the film version of Rodgers and Hart's smash Broadway musical Babes in Arms (also 1939),[1] released only a few months after The Wizard of Oz. It starred Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, and it was so successful that it ushered in a long series of "let's put on a show" "backyard" musicals, all starring Rooney and Garland.
He allowed his directors and choreographers free rein, something unheard of in those days of committee-produced film musicals, and is credited for furthering the boundaries of film musicals by allowing such moments in films as the fifteen-minute ballet at the end of An American in Paris (1951), after which the film concludes moments later with no more dialogue or songs, and he allowed the musical team of Lerner and Loewe complete control in their writing of Gigi (1958).
According to Hugh Fordin's book The World of Entertainment, Freed did have a hand in the stage-to-screen adaptation of the 1951 Technicolor remake of Kern and Hammerstein's stage classic, Show Boat. It was Freed who disagreed with the original structure of the show's second act, in which more than 20 years pass between most of the act and the final three scenes of the musical. He felt that it made for a lack of drama in the story, and with screenwriter John Lee Mahin, Freed hit upon the idea of having the gambler Gaylord Ravenal leave his wife Magnolia while both are still young and Magnolia is expecting a baby, and then having Julie, the half-black actress who is forced to leave the boat because of her mixed-race background, be the person who brings Ravenal and Magnolia back together again after a separation of only a few years rather than twenty. Also, Freed cast Ava Gardner in the role of Julie.[6]
Two of his films won the Academy Award for Best Picture: An American in Paris and Gigi.[1] On the night that An American in Paris won Best Picture, Freed received an Honorary Oscar, and his version of Show Boat was up for two Oscars that year. The year 1951, in which Freed won the Academy Award for Best Picture for Paris, was the first year that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated producers by name rather than by studio. He was the only person nominated for An American in Paris, thus being the first person in the history of the award to win by name rather than by studio. Singin' in the Rain (1952), now his most highly regarded film, won no Oscars. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972.
Shirley Temple wrote in her 1988 autobiography that when aged 12 she was interviewed by Freed with a view to transferring her career to MGM. She wrote that during the interview, Freed unzipped his trousers and exposed himself to her.[7] "Being innocent of male anatomy, she responded by giggling, and he threw her out of his office", said the actress's obituary.[8] She also reported this claim on Larry King Live when interviewed on October 25, 1988, further alleging that Louis B. Mayer sexually propositioned her mother in an adjacent room during this incident. Temple stated these are the reasons she left MGM after only one film and returned to Fox.[9]
Freed left MGM in 1961.[1] He served as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences until leaving in 1966.[10][11] He died of a heart attack on April 3, 1973.[12]
^Imdb gives this job title to Freed's uncredited work on the film, so does the documentary on the Freed unit in the 50th Anniversary edition of Singin' in the Rain, but Thomas Hischak in The Oxford Companion to the American Musical (NYC: OUP, 2008, p264) suggests "co-producer".
^Fordin, Hugh (January 1, 1975). The world of entertainment!: Hollywood's greatest musicals (1st ed.). Doubleday. ISBN9780385039659.
