John Ford – 1895-1973

Born Sean Aloysius O’Feeney in Maine, Ford moved to Hollywood in 1914, became a prop man for a film studio, changed his name, and directed his first movies in the 1920s. As a director, he was noted for brilliant cutting, which put the emphasis on action without ever compromising sharp and colorful characterization. Some of his most notable films —The Grapes of Wrath (1940), How Green Was My Valley (1941), and The Quiet Man (1952)— won Academy Awards for direction and emphasized social themes, but he is even better remembered as a master of the western genre, with such classics as Stagecoach (1939), My Darling Clementine (1946), The Searchers (1956), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), How the West Was Won (1962), and Cheyenne Autumn (1964).