MICHAEL CURTIZ
Oscar Winning Director of - CASABLANCA
(Oscar nomination), 1938's The Adventures of Robin Hood, 1938's Four Daughters (Oscar (Oscar
nomination), 1938's The Adventures of Robin Hood, 1938's Four Daughters (Oscar nomination),
1940's The Sea Hawk, 1942's Yankee Doodle Dandy (Oscar nomination), 1943's This Is Yankee
Doodle Dandy (Oscar nomination), 1943's This Is the Army, 1946's Night and Day and 1954's (Oscar
nomination), 1943's This Is the Army, 1946's Night and Day and 1954's White Christmas. He the Army,
1946's Night and Day and 1954's White Christmas. He even directed one of Elvis Presley's most
credible films, King Creole in 1958.
ADOLF ZUKOR
Producer and Founder of the Paramount Pictures Empire and Loew's Theatres.
One of the very first studio moguls, Zukor was truly a rags-to-riches story. His success was born of
hard work, ambition and a shrewd ability to understand the public's whimsical taste.
WILLIAM FOX
Producer and Hollywood Mogul - Founder of Fox Studios. Fox invented the global media news
gathering organization emulated today by CNN, BBC, ITN, DW and others. Fox secured his place in
history by commercializing talking pictures and then introducing a larger movie screen.
ANDY VAJNA
Producer, Hollywood Legend: President of Cinergi Productions, Co-Founder of Carolco Pictures.
Carolco made motion picture history when it introduced a new cinematic hero, Rambo. Other Carolco
projects include Music Box, Total Recall, Air America and Jacob's Ladder. Other films include, Die Hard
With a Vengeance, Terminator, Color of Night, Judge Dredd, The Scarlett Letter, Oliver Stone's Nixon,
and Evita.
GEORGE CUKOR
Oscar Winning Director Cukor's career flourished at RKO and later MGM where he directed a string of
impressive films including What Price Hollywood? (1932), A Bill of Divorcement (1932), Dinner at Eight
(1933), Little Women (1933), David Copperfield (1935), Romeo and Juliet (1936), and Camille (1937).
His films helped several actors win Academy Awards. James Stewart won a Best Actor Oscar for The
Philadelphia Story, Ronald Colman won a Best Actor Oscar for A Double Life (1947) and Judy Holliday
won for Best Actress for Born Yesterday (1950 ). Cukor won an Academy Award himself for Best
Director, for My Fair Lady (1964)
MIKLÓS RÓZSA
Triple Oscar Winning Film Composer The Thief of Baghdad (1940), The Jungle Book (1942)
Spellbound (1945) Julius Caesar (1953), Ben-Hur (1959) and El Cid (1961) Rózsa's best known
concert work is the orchestral theme, Variations and Finale, op. 13, which was on the program when
Leonard Bernstein made his conducting debut.
RCA Victor honored Rózsa in 1975 with a special album of his classic film scores, recorded in
quadraphonic sound by Charles Gerhardt and the National Philharmonic Orchestra, Spellbound: The
Classic Scores of Miklós Rózsa.
FRANK DARABONT
His parents fled Hungary after the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. When he was still an infant, his family
moved to the United States. He is a three-time Academy Award nominated American film director,
screenwriter and producer. He has directed two Academy Award-nominated films, The Shawshank
Redemption and The Green Mile.
JOE ESZTERHAS
A prolific Screenwriter, "Highest-paid writer in Hollywood", is known for his screenplays for the films
Basic Instinct and Showgirls. He has also written an autobiography called Hollywood Animal. He is
best known for his vicious, sexy, highly literate crime and mystery scripts: The Jagged Edge (1985),
Betrayed (1988), and the Sharon Stone star maker, Basic Instinct (1989).
ANDRE De TÓTH
He was known for his tough, hard edged pictures. He was best known for his film House of Wax shot in
3-D which put De Tóth in a somewhat odd position since he had only one eye. Other films included:
1954 Bounty Hunter. He was Assistant Director on 1942 Jungle Book, 1962 Lawrence of Arabia and
1978 Superman. He received an Oscar Nomination for The Gunfighter
PETER MEDÁK
Fled his native country in 1956 due to the Hungarian Revolution. In 1967, he signed with Paramount
Pictures to make feature films. His first feature was Negatives followed by The Ruling Class, The
Changeling, and The Krays
MENYHÉRT LENGYEL
Screenwriter. His film, Ninotshka was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. He lost to
Gone with the Wind.
LÁSZLÓ BENEDEK
He gained wide recognition for his direction of 1951's Death of a Salesman for which he won the
Golden Globe Award for Best Director and a Best Director nomination from the Directors Guild of
America. He is best remembered for his directorial efforts on the 1953 film, The Wild One.
GEORGE PAL
Director, Producer and Cinematographer. He came to America in 1939. He developed a method of
integrating animated special effects with live action. Frank Freeman, the President of Paramount
Studios, offered him his own studio with a staff of 25 film makers. From 1941 to 1947 he created more
than 40 Puppetoon films (Oscar), and received a special Academy Award in 1943. He received six
Oscars and seven Oscar nominations for Best Short Subject. Some of his more memorable films are:
Destination Moon (Oscar) When Worlds Collide (Oscar), Houdini, The War of the Worlds (Oscar), The
Time Machine (Oscar), Tom Thumb (Oscar) Atlantis, the Lost Continent, The Wonderful World of the
Brothers Grimm and 7 Faces of Dr. Lao.
JOE PASTERNAK
He emigrated to Universal's Hollywood studio in 1936 where he cast a 14 year-old singer Deanna
Durbin in Three Smart Girls, which helped save Universal from bankruptcy. In 1941, Pasternak moved
to MGM, where he continued to produce films featuring the rich singing voices of Kathryn Grayson, Jane
Powell, and Mario Lanza giving him his biggest success with The Great Caruso. In the 1960's, he
made musicals with Elvis Presley and Connie Francis. His career as a film producer spanned 40
years and earned him two Oscars and three Golden Globe Award nominations. He produced more
than 90 feature-length films as well as three Academy Award shows. Just a few of his films include:
The Merry Widow, The Student Prince, Where the Boys Are, Please Don't Eat The Daisies, The
Courtship of Eddie's Father, Meet Me In Las Vegas, Love Me Or Leave Me, and the 37th, 38th and 39th
Annual Academy Awards.
IVAN TORS
He produced Namu, The Killer Whale, Around The World Under The Sea and Hello Down There. His
quote was, "If we learn to communicate with animals, there is some hope that one day we will learn to
communicate with each other." He created Sea Hunt in 1960 and innovated underwater
cinematography with features like, Underwater Warrior.
BÉLA LUGOSI
He was an iconic Hungarian stage and film actor, best known for his portrayal of Count Dracula in the
American Broadway stage production (1927) and subsequent film (1931) of Bram Stoker's classic
vampire story, Dracula. Following the success of Dracula (1931), Lugosi received a studio contract with
Universal. - He was the Original Dracula!
TONY CURTIS -Oscar-Nominated Actor, Artist and Hollywood Legend! He is best known for light
comedic roles, most memorably in Some Like It Hot (1959) with Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe. He
is also remembered for his dramatic role, in The Defiant Ones (1958), which earned him an Academy
Award nomination. Since 1949, he has appeared in more than 100 films.
PETER LORRE - Actor; Chaplin called him, "the greatest actor alive." He made an international
sensation in 1931 with his portrayal of a serial killer in the German film, M. Later, he became a popular
featured player in Hollywood crime films and mysteries, notably alongside Humphrey Bogart, and as
the star of the successful Mr. Moto detective series. Maltese Falcon (1941), Casablanca (1942), The
Raven (1963)
ISTVÁN SZABÓ
Director, Writer, Producer - Academy Award in 1981
Though he stayed home in Hungary, he won an Academy Award in 1981 for his acclaimed film
"Mephisto." Other recent credits include "Sunshine," "Meeting Venus," and "Oberst Redl."
LAJOS KOLTAI
Film director and cinematographer. Best known for his work with Hungarian director Istvan Szabo, and
Italian filmmaker Giuseppe Tornatore. He joined the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) and
began to compile an impressive body of work, notably Luis Mandoki's White Palace, Wrestling Ernest
Hemingway, Born Yesterday, When a Man Loves a Woman, Just Cause, Jodie Foster's directorial'
debut, Home For The Holidays, and Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau's last film together Out to Sea.
He was nominated for an Academy Award in 2000 for his work on the film Malèna; 2004 Being Julia
nominated European film Award; 2002 Taking Sides won ADF Cinematography Award; Kodak Award.
He directed: Fateless and Evening.
LASZLÓ KOVÁCS
He was on the ASC Board of Directors and the ASC Education Committee. 2002 Recipient of the ASC
Lifetime Achievement Award. Recipient of two Lifetime Achievement Awards for Cinematography, one
in Hawaii and one in Poland. László Kovács has compiled more than 60 narrative film credits,
including Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, Paper Moon, Shampoo, New York, New York, What’s Up Doc?,
The Last Waltz, The Runner Stumbles, Ghostbusters, The Mask, Little Nikita, F.I.S.T., Blow Out, Legal
Eagles, My Best Friend’s Wedding, Return to Me, Copycat, Multiplicity, Sliver, and Miss Congeniality.
VILMOS ZSIGMOND
Legendary Cinematographer - Oscar Winner and Multiple Oscar Nominations
First cinematographer to use the Panaflex camera on a movie -- The Sugarland Express. His long-
overdue Academy Award came in 1977, with his powerful achievements on Steven Spielberg's, Close
Encounters of The Third Kind. The following year found Zsigmond's dark and disturbing work on
Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter (1978) receiving an Oscar nomination. Another nomination was
received for the daring and powerful look he brought to Mark Rydell's, The River (1983).
ZSA ZSA GABOR
Glamorous Actress with a Hungarian Temper!
Her more prominent films: John Huston's Toulouse-Lautrec biopic, "Moulin Rouge,, The Story of Three
Loves (1953) The Girl in the Kremlin (1957), and Orson Welles' classic, Touch of Evil(1958),
GABOR CSUPO
Co-founder of Klasky-Csupo, one of the world's leading independent animation studios. Founder of
Tone Casualties. Musician. Five EMMYS and two CABLE ACE Awards. Produced Rugrats and The
Simpsons.
EVA GÁRDOS
Acclaimed Screenwriter, Director and Editor
She began her film career as an editor on 1983 film, Valley Girl and later worked on films such as
Mask, Barfly, Tales from the Crypt, and Time of the Butterflies. An American Rhapsody marked Eva’s
debut as both a screenwriter and director. She worked as an editor and screenwriter on Children of
Glory.
ANTAL NIMROD
Best know for writing and directing Kontroll (2003). His film, Vacancy, starring Kate Beckinsale and
Luke Wilson, was released on April 20, 2007. His latest film Armored is in post production.
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