Michael Curtiz (born Manó Kaminer, December 24, 1886 – April 10, 1962) was a Hungarian American film director. He had early credits as Mihály Kertész and Michael Kertész. He directed more than 50 films in Europe and more than 100 in the United States, many of them cinema classics, including The Adventures of Robin Hood, Captain Blood, Dodge City, The Sea Hawk, The Sea Wolf, Angels with Dirty Faces, Casablanca (for which he won the Academy Award for Best Director), Yankee Doodle Dandy, Mildred Pierce, and White Christmas.
He thrived in the heyday of the Warner Bros. studio in the 1930s/40s. He was less successful after the 1940s, when he attempted to move from studio direction into production and freelance work, but continued working until shortly before his death. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6640 Hollywood Blvd.
Life
Early life
Curtiz was born Manó Kaminer to a Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary (then Austria-Hungary). In 1905 he Hungaricised his name to Mihály Kertész. He claimed to have been born December 24, 1886. Both the date and the year are open to debate: he was fond of telling tall tales about his early life, including that he had run away from home to join the circus and that he had been a member of the Hungarian fencing team at the 1912 Olympic Games. In reality, Curtiz had a conventional middle-class upbringing; he studied at Markoszy University and the Royal Academy of Theater and Art, Budapest, before beginning his career as an actor and director as Mihály Kertész at the National Hungarian Theater in 1912.