Kenneth Macgowan (November 30, 1888 – April 27, 1963) was an American film producer. He won an

Academy Award The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence ...

for Best Color Short Film for ''

La Cucaracha La Cucaracha (, "The Cockroach") is a popular folk song about a cockroach who cannot walk. The song's origins are Spanish, but it became popular in the 1910s during the Mexican Revolution. The modern song has been adapted using the Mexican genr ...

'' (1934), the first

live-action Live action is a form of cinematography or videography that uses photography instead of animation. Some works combine live action with animation to create a live-action animated feature film. Live action is used to define film, video games or ...

short film A short film is a film with a low running time. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of not more than 40 minutes including all credits". Other film o ...

made in the three-color

Technicolor Technicolor is a family of Color motion picture film, color motion picture processes. The first version, Process 1, was introduced in 1916, and improved versions followed over several decades. Definitive Technicolor movies using three black-and ...

process.

Biography

Born on November 30, 1888, in

Winthrop, Massachusetts Winthrop is a city in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 19,316 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. Winthrop is an ocean-side suburban town in Greater Boston situated at the ...

, Macgowan began his career as a drama critic. He wrote many books on modern theater, including ''The Theatre of Tomorrow'' (1921), ''Continental Stagecraft'' (1922) with

Robert Edmond Jones Robert Edmond Jones (December 12, 1887 – November 26, 1954) was an American scenic, lighting, and costume designer. He is credited with incorporating the new stagecraft into the American drama. His designs sought to integrate scenic ele ...

, ''Masks and Demons'' (1923) with

Herman Rosse Hermann Rosse (1 January 1887 – 13 April 1965) was a Dutch-American architect, illustrator, painter, theatrical designer, and art director. He won an Academy Awards, Academy Award for Best Art Direction for the film the ''King of Jazz''. ...

, and ''Footlights Across America'' (1929). In 1922, he ran the

Provincetown Playhouse The Provincetown Playhouse is a historic theatre at 133 MacDougal Street between West 3rd and 4th streets in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It is named for the Provincetown Players, who converted the forme ...

as its producer, with

Eugene O'Neill Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of Realism (theatre), realism, earlier associated with ...

and Robert Edmond Jones as business partners. His close relationship with O'Neill lasted their lifetimes.Memorial lecture about Macgowan given at UCLA in 1964
/ref> In 1928, he moved to

Hollywood, California Hollywood, sometimes informally called Tinseltown, is a List of districts and neighborhoods in Los Angeles, neighborhood and district in the Central Los Angeles, central region of Los Angeles County, California, within the city of Los Angeles. ...

to become a

story editor Story editor is a job title in motion picture and television production, also sometimes called supervising producer. The responsibilities of the story editor vary depending on the production; this article describes the duties the role most commo ...

for the newly formed

RKO Radio Pictures RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, is an American film production and distribution company, historically one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Kei ...

and quickly became an assistant producer. By 1932, Macgowan had become a film producer for RKO, including ''

Little Women ''Little Women'' is a coming-of-age novel written by American novelist Louisa May Alcott, originally published in two volumes, in 1868 and 1869. The story follows the lives of the four March sisters— Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy—and details th ...

'' (1933), starring

Katharine Hepburn Katharine Houghton Hepburn (May 12, 1907 – June 29, 2003) was an American actress whose Katharine Hepburn on screen and stage, career as a Golden Age of Hollywood, Hollywood leading lady spanned six decades. She was known for her headstrong ...

Joan Bennett Joan Geraldine Bennett (February 27, 1910 – December 7, 1990) was an American stage, film, and television actress, one of three acting sisters from a show-business family. Beginning her career on the stage, Bennett appeared in more than 70 fil ...

Frances Dee Frances Marion Dee (November 26, 1909 – March 6, 2004) was an American actress. Her first film was the musical ''Playboy of Paris'' (1930). She starred in the film ''An American Tragedy (film), An American Tragedy'' (1931). She is also known ...

and Jean Parker as the March sisters. Macgowan produced many films between 1932 and 1947, not only at RKO, but also for

20th Century Fox 20th Century Studios, Inc., formerly 20th Century Fox, is an American film studio, film production and Film distributor, distribution company owned by the Walt Disney Studios (division), Walt Disney Studios, the film studios division of the ...

and

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation, commonly known as Paramount Pictures or simply Paramount, is an American film production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the flagship namesake subsidiary of Paramount ...

. He produced the first

feature film A feature film or feature-length film (often abbreviated to feature), also called a theatrical film, is a film (Film, motion picture, "movie" or simply “picture”) with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole present ...

made in the three-color Technicolor process, ''

Becky Sharp Rebecca "Becky" Sharp, later describing herself as Rebecca, Lady Crawley, is the main protagonist of William Makepeace Thackeray's 1847–48 novel '' Vanity Fair''. She is presented as a cynical social climber who uses her charms to fascinate ...

'' (1935). He also produced '' Young Mr. Lincoln'' (1939) with

Henry Fonda Henry Jaynes Fonda (May 16, 1905 – August 12, 1982) was an American actor whose career spanned five decades on Broadway theatre, Broadway and in Hollywood. On screen and stage, he often portrayed characters who embodied an everyman image. Bo ...

Fritz Lang Friedrich Christian Anton Lang (; December 5, 1890 – August 2, 1976), better known as Fritz Lang (), was an Austrian-born film director, screenwriter, and producer who worked in Germany and later the United States.Obituary ''Variety Obituari ...

's '' Man Hunt'' (1941) and

Alfred Hitchcock Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English film director. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featu ...

's '' Lifeboat'' (1944). Other films produced by Macgowan include '' The Penguin Pool Murder'' (1932), '' Double Harness'' (1933), ''

Rafter Romance ''Rafter Romance'' is an American 1933 Pre-Code Hollywood, pre-Code romantic comedy film directed by William A. Seiter and released by RKO Radio Pictures. The film, which was based on the 1932 novel of the same name by John Wells, stars Ginger ...

'' (1933), '' Murder on the Blackboard'' (1934), '' Murder on a Honeymoon'' (1935), ''

Lloyd's of London Lloyd's of London, generally known simply as Lloyd's, is a insurance and reinsurance market located in London, England. Unlike most of its competitors in the industry, it is not an insurance company; rather, Lloyd's is a corporate body gover ...

'' (1936), '' Stanley and Livingstone'' (1939), ''

The Story of Alexander Graham Bell ''The Story of Alexander Graham Bell'' is a somewhat fictionalized 1939 biographical film of the famous inventor. It was filmed in black-and-white and released by Twentieth Century-Fox. The film stars Don Ameche as Bell and Loretta Young as Ma ...

'' (1939), and ''

Jane Eyre ''Jane Eyre'' ( ; originally published as ''Jane Eyre: An Autobiography'') is a novel by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published under her pen name "Currer Bell" on 19 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The firs ...

'' (1944).

Personal life

In 1947, he left the movie industry to become the first chair of the Department of Theater Arts at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

. The theater building on the school's campus is named in his honor. Throughout his life, he wrote books on several subjects, including drama and film, most notably ''Behind the Screen'', a history of cinema published posthumously in 1965. He graduated from

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate education, undergraduate college of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Part of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Scienc ...

in 1911.https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt5c60194v/ He died on April 27, 1963, in West Los Angeles, California, aged 74.

Selected filmography

* '' The Beloved Traitor'' (1918) * ''

Love and Hisses ''Love and Hisses'' is a 1937 American musical comedy film directed by Sidney Lanfield and starring Walter Winchell, Ben Bernie and Simone Simon. It is the sequel to the film '' Wake Up and Live''.Lev p.24 Twentieth Century Fox's Darryl F. Zanu ...

'' (1937)

References

External links

*
Contour in Time, Kenneth Macgowan
{{DEFAULTSORT:Macgowan, Kenneth 1888 births 1963 deaths Film producers from California People from Hollywood, Los Angeles People from Winthrop, Massachusetts Producers who won the Live Action Short Film Academy Award Film producers from Massachusetts American theater critics Harvard College alumni