Victor Fleming entered the film business as a stuntman in 1910, mainly doing stunt driving - which came easy to him, as he had been a mechanic and professional race-car driver. He became interested in working on the other side of the camera, and eventually got a job as a cameraman on many of the films of 'Douglas Fairbanks , which turned out to be a major critical and financial failure.
Interred at Hollywood Memorial Cemetery (now called Hollywood Forever), Hollywood, California, USA, in the Abbey of the Psalms, Sanctuary of Refuge, #2081.
Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume One, 1890-1945". Pages 351-357. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1987.
He directed 9 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Emil Jannings , Spencer Tracy , Vivien Leigh , Hattie McDaniel , Clark Gable , Olivia de Havilland , Frank Morgan , Jos Ferrer and Ingrid Bergman. Jannings, Tracy, Leigh and McDaniel all won Oscars for their performances in one of Flemings movies.
The only director to have two films listed in the top 10 of the American Film Institutes 1998 list of the 100 greatest American films, Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz .
When making Gone with the Wind , he wanted Scarlett, for at least once in the film, to look like his hunting buddy Clark Gable s type of woman. So, when wearing the stunning low-cut burgundy velvet dress with rhinestones that Scarlett wears to Ashley Wilkes birthday party in the second half of the film, to achieve the desired cleavage for Fleming, Walter Plunkett had to tape Vivien Leigh s breasts together.
Did not live to see The Wizard of Oz , which he directed, become a sensation on television and an all-time classic through its annual telecasts.
Actress Victoria Leigh is his grandniece.
He was working as a chauffeur for a wealthy family when he met director Allan Dwan in 1913. When the director began talking to him about repairing his own car, he discovered Fleming was knowledgeable about cameras and offered him a job as assistant cinematographer. Working behind the camera, Fleming learned about action pictures from Dwan and comedies from Marshall Neilan.
Mervyn LeRoy , producer of The Wizard of Oz and a major director in his own right, said of Fleming, "Vic was one of the best directors that ever lived. The funny thing is, nobody mentions him anymore. He was a great director and a great man".
He served in the Signal Corps as a cameraman during World War I.
Director Henry Hathaway , a former Fleming assistant director, said of his old boss, "There was more of Fleming in [Clark Gable ] than there was Gable in Gable. I think that Gable really mimicked Victor Fleming and became that kind of man on the screen".
Along with Ernst Lubitsch , Jack Conway , Michael Curtiz , John Ford , Alfred Hitchcock , Sam Wood , Francis Ford Coppola , Herbert Ross and Steven Soderbergh , he is one of ten directors to have more than one film nominated for Best Picture in the same year. Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz (which he co-directed with George Cukor , Mervyn LeRoy , Norman Taurog and King Vidor ) were both so nominated at the 12th Academy Awards in 1940 while the former won the award.
