Mamoulian, Rouben

(1897-1987)

   Son of an actress, Rouben Mamoulian was born in Russia and studied law at the University of Moscow. He abandoned his legal pursuits to study at Eugene Vakhtangov's Studio Theatre. He directed The Beating on the Door (1922) in London, then headed George Eastman's Theatre in Rochester, New York, from 1923-1926. In 1926, Mamoulian joined the Theatre Guild as a teacher, and in 1927, he directed Dubose and Dorothy Heyward's Porgy. In 1928 alone, Mamoulian directed six Broadway productions, including Eugene O'Neill's Marco Millions and Robert Nichols and Maurice Browne's Wings over Europe. His other productions in this period range from a revival of Karel Cäpek's R.U.R. (1929) to Ivan Turgenev's A Month in the Country (1930). After 1930, Mamoulian continued to direct for the stage with some frequency, but mostly for musicals including such seminal productions as Porgy and Bess (1935), Oklahoma! (1943), Carousel (1945), and Lost in the Stars (1949). With the arrival of sound motion pictures, Mamoulian also turned his attentions to directing movies: Applause (1929), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1932), Golden Boy* (1939), Blood and Sand (1941), and Silk Stockings (1957), among many others.