Biography for William A. Wellman

After an aimless, misspent youth, including a stint in the foreign legion, Wellman became an ace pilot in WWI. He was discharged as a war hero after his plane was shot down and, in 1918, was stationed as a flight instructor at an air base in Southern California. He was then invited to Hollywood by Douglas Fairbanks, whom he had met and befriended before the war.

Garbed in full military splendor, Wellman greeted Fairbanks and was promptly offered a substantial part in "Knickerbocker Buckaroo" (1919); he found the experience unbearable, and acting an unmanly undertaking. He opted instead for a directing career and worked his way up the ranks; has first job, as a messenger, involved delivering fan notices to his estranged first wife, Helene Chadwick. Wellman made his directorial debut with Fox in 1923 and, over the course of four years, graduated from low-profile westerns to major productions; in 1927 he directed "Wings," the first film to win an Academy Award.

Wellman went on to prove a capable, well-rounded technician, and was responsible for such excellent, diverse films as "Public Enemy" (1931), the definitive Cagney gangster film; the original "A Star Is Born" (1937), for which he earned a best screenplay Oscar; "Nothing Sacred" (1937), a scathingly funny screwball comedy; and "The Ox-Bow Incident" (1943), a didactic drama about lynching. He also directed two fine war films, "The Story of GI Joe" (1945) and "Battleground" (1949). Among his later wives were singer-dancer Margery Chapin and actress Dorothy Coonan, whom he directed in "Wild Boys of the Road" (1933).