Other names George P. Breakston TV shows African Patrol Role Actor | Name George Breakston Years active 1935 - 1966 | |
Occupation Film actorProducerFilm director Died May 21, 1973, Paris, France Movies The Manster, No Greater Glory, Golden Ivory, The Scarlet Spear, Life Returns Similar People Jane Hylton, Peter Dyneley, John Bentley, Jerry Ito, Robert Urquhart | ||
George Paul Breakston (January 22, 1920 – May 21, 1973) was a French-American actor, producer and film director, active in Hollywood from his days as a child actor in Andy Hardy films in the 1930s, to a period as an independent producer/director in the 1950s.
Biography
Breakston first entered the entertainment world by working in radio as a child actor from 1930. Hs came to the notice of Hollywood and appeared in a variety of films. He made his stage debut in A Midsummernight's Dream and made his motion picture debut in It Happened One Night (1934).
During World War II he was commissioned in the US Army Signal Corps through Officers Candidate School then served in the Pacific Theatre of Operations as a photographer. When the war ended Breakston remained in Japan.
He reentered the civilian film world by co-writing, producing, directing and starring in Urubu: The Vulture People filmed in location in the Mato Grosso, Brazil. He followed it up with the documentary African Stampede filmed in the Belgian Congo and Kenya where he would later make his home.
Returning to Japan, Breakston co-produced and wrote Tokyo File 212 a 1951 American film credited as Hollywood's first feature film totally filmed in Japan. He followed it up by filming and directing Oriental Evil (1951) and Geisha Girl (1952) in Japan. He had planned a film, which according to Los Angeles Times had interested Errol Flynn.
Breakston moved to Kenya filming several safari adventure feature films The Scarlet Spear, Golden Ivory, Escape in the Sun, and The Woman and the Hunter. Many of these featured John Bentley who starred in a television series produced by Breakston and filmed in Kenya, African Patrol. Breakston also filmed another series in Kenya Adventures of a Jungle Boy (1957) and planned a third Trader Horn.
Breakston joined the horror bandwagon by making The Manster back in Japan in 1959, then made several films in Yugoslavia.
He died in Paris in 1973.