Wesley Ruggles
- Known for
- Directing
- Born
- June 10, 1889
- Died
- January 8, 1972 (aged 82)
- Birthplace
- Los Angeles, California, USA
Biography
Wesley Ruggles (June 11, 1889 – January 8, 1972) was an American film director. He was born in Los Angeles, a younger brother of actor Charles Ruggles. He began his career in 1915 as an actor, appearing in a dozen or so silent films, on occasion with Charles Chaplin. In 1917, he turned his attention to directing, making more than 50 mostly forgettable films — including a silent film version of Edith Wharton's novel The Age of Innocence (1924) — before he won acclaim with Cimarron in 1931. The adaptation of Edna Ferber's novel Cimarron, about homesteaders settling in the prairies of Oklahoma, was the first Western to win an Academy Award as Best Picture. Although Ruggles followed this success with the light comedy No Man of Her Own (1932) with Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, the comedy I'm No Angel (1933) with Mae West and Cary Grant , College Humor (1933) with Bing Crosby, and Bolero (1934) with George Raft and Carole Lombard, few of his later films were in any way memorable (an exception is Arizona). His career was on the downslide when he teamed with the Rank Organisation in 1946 to produce and direct London Town with Sid Field and Petula Clark, based on a story he wrote. The film — British cinema's first attempt at a Technicolor musical extravaganza — is notable as being one of the biggest critical and commercial failures in that country's film history. Ironically, Ruggles had been hired to helm it because as an American, it was thought, he was better equipped to handle a musical — despite the fact that nothing in his past had prepared him to work in the genre. It was his last film. An abridged version was released in the U.S. under the title My Heart Goes Crazy by United Artists in 1953. Ruggles died in 1972 in Santa Monica and was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. Description above from the Wikipedia article Wesley Ruggles, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
Known For
Photos
Filmography
London Town
Movie · Director
See Here, Private Hargrove
Movie · Director
Slightly Dangerous
Movie · Director
Somewhere I'll Find You
Movie · Director
You Belong to Me
Movie · Director
Arizona
Movie · Director
Too Many Husbands
Movie · Director
Invitation to Happiness
Movie · Director
Sing, You Sinners
Movie · Director
True Confession
Movie · Director
I Met Him in Paris
Movie · Director
Valiant Is the Word for Carrie
Movie · Director
The Gilded Lily
Movie · Director
The Bride Comes Home
Movie · Director
Accent on Youth
Movie · Director
Mississippi
Movie · Co-Director
Bolero
Movie · Director
Shoot the Works
Movie · Director
I'm No Angel
Movie · Director
College Humor
Movie · Director
The Monkey's Paw
Movie · Director
No Man of Her Own
Movie · Director
Roar of the Dragon
Movie · Director
Cimarron
Movie · Director
Are These Our Children?
Movie · Director
The Sea Bat
Movie · Director
Honey
Movie · Director
Condemned!
Movie · Director
Street Girl
Movie · Director
Girl Overboard
Movie · Director
Scandal
Movie · Director
The Cross Country Run
Movie · Director
Finders Keepers
Movie · Director
The Fourflusher
Movie · Director
The Relay
Movie · Director
The Cinder Path
Movie · Director
Around the Bases
Movie · Director
Breaking Records
Movie · Director
Flashing Oars
Movie · Director
Beware of Widows
Movie · Director
Silk Stockings
Movie · Director
Hooked at the Altar
Movie · Director
The Last Lap
Movie · Director
A Man of Quality
Movie · Director
The Collegians
Movie · Director
The Plastic Age
Movie · Director, Continuity
A Broadway Lady
Movie · Director
The Age of Innocence
Movie · Director
Mr. Billings Spends His Dime
Movie · Director
The Heart Raider
Movie · Director
Slippy McGee
Movie · Director
The Remittance Woman
Movie · Director
Wild Honey
Movie · Director
If I Were Queen
Movie · Director
Uncharted Seas
Movie · Director
Over the Wire
Movie · Director
The Greater Claim
Movie · Director
Sooner or Later
Movie · Director
The Desperate Hero
Movie · Director
The Leopard Woman
Movie · Director
Love
Movie · Director
Piccadilly Jim
Movie · Director
Outcast
Movie · Assistant Director
For France
Movie · Director