March 31 - Robert Stevenson

On this day, in 1905, Robert Edward Stevenson was born in Buxton, Derbyshire, England. Robert attended St. Johns College, part of Cambridge, on a scholarship. While there he won an award for aeronautics and graduated in 1927 with a degree in engineering. At that point, his parents gave him six weeks to find employment, so, of course, he became an assistant to Michael Balcon, who was one of the most famous British film producers of the time.

Robert's first real task under Michael was to write scripts (not as hard as it might seem as movies were still silent at this point). The first film he received story credit on was the 1928 war picture Balaclava. But even as movies became talkies, it was evident that Robert had a real talent for story crafting. Over the next few years, he would write musicals (1930's Greek Street), mysteries (1931's Night in Montmartre), dramas (1931's The Calendar) and comedies (1932's Lord Babs).

In 1932, Robert was given his first shot at directing a movie, a musical called Happily Ever After. Throughout the rest of the Thirties, he continued cutting a path through the British film industry, sometimes writing, sometimes directing and often doing both. He did several films with Jack Hulbert, another writer/director/actor type, and worked with the likes of Paul Robeson and Boris Karloff. By 1940, Robert had gained the attention of American producer David O. Selznick, who invited him to hop the pond and ply his craft in Hollywood.

While under contract to Selznick, Robert was loaned out to RKO Pictures for hits like 1942's Joan of Paris and to Universal for 1941's Back Street, which garnered an Oscar nomination for Music. In 1943, he wrote and directed an well received adaptation of Jane Eyre starring Orson Welles. When his contract with Selznick ran out, Robert signed a new one with RKO in 1949 and produced a string of films that consistently lost money even though they had stars like Robert Mitchum, Joseph Cotton and Jane Russell. This led to a period of television directing in the early Fifties for everything from Alfred Hitchcock Presents to Gunsmoke. Many of the gigs he got during this period came from old friends in the industry (Robert and Hitchcock had worked closely together in 1940 for instance) and Robert's career could have fizzled into obscurity at this point, but a change of studio did wonders for his legacy.

In 1956, Robert was hired by the Walt Disney Studio to direct some of the live action movies they were starting to get more heavily into. His first project was Johnny Tremain. Set during the American Revolution, Tremain was filmed as part of the Disneyland television show but released to theaters before appearing on the small screen. Tremain was quickly followed up with one of the all time Disney classics, Old Yeller, the success of which cemented Robert's position with the studio.

Most of the rest of the nineteen films that Robert would direct for Disney over the next two decades are recognizable to the vast majority of people (and the few that aren't really are little gems just waiting to be discovered). His well known titles include Kidnapped, The Absent-Minded Professor and its sequel Son of Flubber, In Search of the Castaways, The Misadventures of Merlin Jones and its sequel The Monkey's Uncle, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, That Darn Cat!, The Love Bug and its sequel Herbie Rides Again, and The Shaggy D.A. His lesser known films are Darby O'Gill and the Little People, The Gnome-Mobile, Blackbeard's Ghost, The Island at the Top of the World and One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing.

Eagle eyed readers may have noticed that I've only listed eighteen movies so far. That's because the nineteenth film on the list (although in the middle of the pack chronologically) is the biggest one by far, for both Robert and the company. He was the man in charge of bringing Walt's magnum opus to life: Mary Poppins. Not only did Poppins become a run away hit, it gave Robert the only Oscar nomination for Best Director that Walt Disney Pictures had ever received (or would receive for years to come). Yes, he lost to My Fair Lady (which probably was extra galling because of the whole Julie Andrews 'controversy'), but that's still quite an accomplishment.

In a list published at the end of 1976, Robert was declared the most commercially successful director in the history of films. He had 16 films on the list of top grossing movies, all of them Disney pictures. The number two man (and of course it was a man, this was only the Seventies) only had 12. Robert's final picture, The Shaggy D.A., would join the list and push his supremacy even higher. It was estimated that he had worldwide grosses of over $750 million. I don't know if any of that was adjusted for the 20 year time frame the films spanned, but that's over $3.3 Billion in today's terms. Not to shabby for an engineer.

Robert spent the final decade of his life relaxing in his home in Santa Barbara, California with his fourth (and final) wife of 23 years, Ursula. He passed away on April 30, 1986 at the age of 81. He was posthumously declared an official Disney Legend as part of the class of 2002 as part of the opening of Disneyland Paris.

January 20 - Leon Ames

On this day, in 1902, Harry Wycoff was born in Portland, Indiana. A fairly typical Midwestern boy, Harry attended Indian University at Bloomington, served in World War I in the Army as a field artillery gunner (later transferring to the flying corps) and always dreamed of becoming an actor. He began pursuing that dream as a stage manager for playwright Charles K. Champlin's theatre company. He eventually drifted on stage in progressively larger roles until he played the lead in Tomorrow and Tomorrow in Los Angeles.

That performance led to a name change to Leon Waycoff and, in 1931, to his big screen debut in a pre-code Spencer Tracy/George Raft film called Quick Millions. Leon spent the Thirties playing dozens of bit parts in film. By 1935 he'd changed his name again to Leon Ames. Fame still eluded him until he became an "overnight" success after playing Mr. Smith, Judy Garland's father, in Meet Me in St. Louis in 1944. Leon worked steadily for the rest of the decade and into the Fifties, working alongside Red Skelton, Clark Gable, Elizabeth Taylor and Doris Day.

Image copyright Disney

Leon was also a regular player on the stages of Broadway. He made his debut in 1933 in It Pays to Sin (which apparently didn't pay all that well, it closed after three performances). Over the next three decades, he appeared in a dozen shows on the Great White Way including 1942's The Russian People and 1958's Winesburg, Ohio.

Leon joined the Disney family in 1961 as the President of Medfield College, Rufus Daggett, in the Fred MacMurray classic The Absent-Minded Professor. He reprised the overly stuffy Rufus for the 1963 sequel, Son of Flubber. In 1964, he appeared with Tommy Kirk and Annette Funicello in The Misadventures of Merlin Jones, as an overly stuffy judge (who also happens to write crime novels on the side). Leon would again reprise his role in that movie's sequel, The Monkey's Uncle, the following year.

Image copyright TriStar Pictures

Leon spent much of the rest of his career as a staple on television and in movies. For the small screen, he had recurring roles in Mr. Ed, Father of the Bride (a one season series based on the Spencer Tracy film) and Bewitched. On the big screen, his appearances include Tora! Tora! Tora! and Timber Tramps. His final film was Peggy Sue Got Married in 1986 as Kathleen Turner's grandfather.

There are two other aspects to Leon's life worth mentioning. First, he was one of the founding members of the Screen Actors Guild in 1933. In 1957, he would serve a term as its president. Second, on February 12, 1964, an armed intruder broke into his home and held Leon and his wife hostage in demand for $50,000. Leon called his business partner for the money, the business partner alerted the police on the way over and the intruder was captured shortly after leaving the house (with Mrs. Ames and the business partner in the trunk of the car).

Leon would enjoy his twilight years until he suffered a stroke on October 12, 1993. He passed away in his home in Laguna Beach, California from complications brought on by that stroke and was buried in the Hollywood Hills Forest Lawn Cemetery. He was 91.