Jean Negulesco

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Jean Negulesco

Born

February 26, 1900
Craiova, Dolj, Romania

Died

July 18, 1993
Marbella, Andalusia, Spain

Spouse(s)

Dusty Anderson (1946-1993)

Awards won
Academy Awards
Nominated: Best Director 1948 Johnny Belinda

Jean Negulesco (born Jean Negulescu; February 26, 1900–July 18, 1993) was a Romanian film director and screenwriter.

Born in Craiova, he attended Carol I High School. In 1915, he moved to Vienna, and, in 1919, to Bucharest, where he worked as a painter, before becoming a stage decorator in Paris. In 1927 he came to New York City for an exhibition of his paintings, and subsequently settled there.

Jean Negulesco (1986).

In 1934 he entered the film industry, first as a sketch artist, then as an assistant producer, second unit director and in the late 1930s he became a director and screenwriter. He made a reputation at Warner Brothers by directing short subjects, particularly a series of band shorts featuring unusual camera angles and dramatic use of shadows and silhouettes.

The first feature film Negulesco directed was Singapore Woman in 1941. In 1948 he was nominated for an Academy Award for Directing for Johnny Belinda. In 1955, he won the BAFTA Award for Best Film for How to Marry a Millionaire. His 1959 movie, The Best of Everything, made it on Entertainment Weekly's "Top 50 Cult Films of All-Time" list.

From the late 1960s, he lived in Marbella, Spain. He died there at age 93, of heart failure.

During his Hollywood career and in his 1984 autobiography, Negulesco claimed to have been born on February 29, 1900; he was apparently motivated to make this statement because birthdays on Leap Year Day are comparatively rare. In fact, 1900 was not a leap year, so there was no February 29 in 1900. Negulesco's autobiography (in which this claim appears) is appropriately titled Things I Did and Things I Think I Did.