Vincente Minnelli Biography

During summer holidays, whilst working as a billboard painter, he showed a talent for drawing and, on leaving school, joined Chicago's Balaban and Katz motion picture theatre chain, as an assistant stage manager and costume designer for its live pre-feature programme.

In 1933, he was appointed art director of The Radio City Music Hall in New York, starting to direct two years later. After staging successful Broadway musicals including Ziegfield Follies, he was invited to Hollywood by MGM producer, Arthur Freed, in 1940.

His first screen work was staging isolated musical numbers for Judy Garland in Busby Berkeley's 'Strike Up the Band' (1940) and 'Babes on Broadway' (1941), and he soon began directing features, his first being the all-black musical 'Cabin in the Sky' (1943).

Minnelli is famed as an outstanding director of musicals, known for their lavish visual style, striking use of colour, surrealist sequences, use of ballet and clever integration of songs with the narrative theme. 'An American in Paris' (1951) won the Academy Award for Best Picture and 'The Band Wagon' (1953) and 'Gigi' (1958) won both best picture and best director.

His non-musicals were also successful, including comedy, 'Father of the Bride' , drama, 'The Bad and the Beautiful' and the Van Gogh bio-pic 'Lust for Life'. His memoirs, 'I Remember it Well', took their title from a charming duet in 'Gigi'.

Minnelli married four times, most notably to his first wife, Judy Garland. Their famous daughter, Liza Minnelli (the first of two Minnelli daughters), was also the star of his last film, A Matter of Time (1976).

He died in 1986.