Film director and producer
Uncle of director George Sidney.
Nephew of actor/director George Sidney.
Brother of producer Louis K. Sidney.
Hungarian-born comedian with long vaudeville experience. Began on stage in 1900 and acted in films from 1915. He was the uncle of the director George Sidney.
His second wife Jane Robinson was the widow of actor Edward G. Robinson.
His father was a prosperous Broadway producer, his mother and uncle also stage performers. He was a child actor, who appeared in vaudeville but started his film career at MGM as a messenger.
Was an innovator who paired live actors like Gene Kelly on screen with animated characters like cartoon mouse Jerry in Anchors Aweigh .
First recipient of the DGA presidents award, 1998.
Co-founded and co-financed Hanna-Barbera Productions (with William Hanna , Joseph Barbera , and Columbia Pictures Screen Gems television division) in 1957 in and was the companys president for 10 years.
Son of Hazel Mooney and nephew of the actor George Sidney.
(1951-1959) President of the Screen Directors Guild.
(1961-1967) President of the Directors Guild of America (DGA).
Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume One, 1890-1945". Pages 992-997. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1987.
Started at MGM directing the "Our Gang" (Little Rascals) comedies in the late 1930s.
Son of Louis K Sidney.
Sidney worked as a musician in vaudeville bands before joining MGM in 1932. He started with MGM as a second unit director and director of Pete Smith shorts, winning Oscars and 1940 and in 1941. On the strength of this, he was promoted to feature films as part of the Arthur Freed unit, becoming MGMs most successful director in the 1940s. Sidney was an expert in big budget musicals, but also handled rollicking swashbucklers like The Three Musketeers and Scaramouche (1952) . Some of his biggest hits were movie versions of successful Broadway plays, like Annie Get Your Gun and Show Boat . After leaving MGM in 1955, Sidney went over to Columbia under a seven-year contract and had one more major hit with Pal Joey , made under the banner of his own production company. He simultaneously worked with, and financed, the burgeoning Hanna-Barbera cartoon company.
He stared his directorial career with screen tests at age 2. He helmed Red Skeltons Guzzlers Gin routine, which he re-filmed for "Ziegfelds Follies" in 1946.
Inherited the Our Gang comedies when MGM took over the franchise from Hal Roach Studios. Robert Blake was added to the group during Sidneys tenure.
In 1936 Sidney joined the MGM shorts department where he made 85 shorts on existing sets with up=and-coming talent and won two Oscars.
A constant pipe smoker.
[on Judy Garland] The studio was very patient with her. You had to be,with this great talent. I simply thought she was bored, so I would,devise difficult bits of business to keep her preoccupied. But this,widespread notion that the studio somehow destroyed her is nonsense.
Her personal life got too much for her. I prefer to think of her as she,is in "The Harvey Girls" near the peak of her talent. .
