Cause of death heart attack Role Film director Name John Stahl | Ethnicity Jewish Nationality United States | |
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Full Name Jacob Morris Strelitsky Children C. Ray Stahl, Roxana Ray Stahl Movies Leave Her to Heaven, Imitation of Life, The Keys of the Kingdom, Magnificent Obsession, Back Street Similar People Cornel Wilde, Gene Tierney, Jeanne Crain, Fannie Hurst, Otto Preminger | ||
JOHN M. STAHL FILMS
JOHN M. STAHL TRIBUTE
John Malcolm Stahl (January 21, 1886 – January 12, 1950) was an American film director and producer.
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Life and work
He was born Jacob Morris Strelitsky in Baku (Azerbaijan) to an eastern European Jewish family. When he was a child, his family left the Russian Empire and moved to the United States, settling in New York City. At a young age, Strelitsky began working in the city's growing motion picture industry and directed his first silent film short in 1914.
He took the name John Malcolm Stahl and in the early 1920s, signed on with Louis B. Mayer Pictures in Hollywood. In 1924 he was part of the Mayer team that founded MGM Studios. In 1927, Stahl was one of the thirty-six founding members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. With the industry's transition to talkies and feature-length films, Stahl successfully made the adjustment. From 1927 through 1930 Stahl was an executive at the short-lived independent studio Tiffany Pictures, and renamed the company "Tiffany-Stahl Productions".
For Universal Pictures, he directed the 1934 film Imitation of Life, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. The following year, he directed Magnificent Obsession, starring Irene Dunne and Robert Taylor.
John Stahl continued to produce and direct major productions as well as filler shorts up to the time of his death. Some of his other notable directorial work was for The Keys of the Kingdom in 1944 and the 1945 film noir, Leave Her to Heaven starring Gene Tierney, who was nominated for Best Actress.
Stahl died in Hollywood in 1950. He is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
On February 8, 1960, for his contributions to the motion pictures industry, Stahl received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6546 Hollywood Boulevard.