Samuel Grosvenor Wood (July 10, 1883 – September 22, 1949) was an American film director and producer who is best known for having directed such Hollywood hits as A Night at the Opera, A Day at the Races, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, The Pride of the Yankees, and For Whom the Bell Tolls and for his uncredited work directing parts of Gone with the Wind. He was also involved in a few acting and writing projects.
As a youth, Wood developed an enthusiasm for physical fitness that persisted into his senior years and influenced his interest in making sports-themed films.
Wood advanced from making largely competent yet routine pictures in the 1920s and 1930s to directing several highly regarded works during the 1940s at the peak of his abilities, among them Kings Row (1942) and Ivy (1947).
Wood's quick, efficient and professional execution of his film assignments endeared him to studio executives, and though not a "brilliant" director, Wood's legacy represents "a long and respectable film career."
Early life and family
Samuel Grosvenor Wood was born on July 10, 1883, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to William Henry Wood and Katherine (née Corn) Wood. He attended M. Hall Stanton School. One of Wood's daughters, born Gloria Wood, was film and television actress K.T. Stevens.
Early career in Hollywood
When Wood turned 18 years old in the summer of 1901, he and a companion began a year-long trek across the United States, ultimately arriving in Los Angeles, where Wood embarked on a successful career as a real estate broker. By 1906, the then-primitive film industry in Southern California enticed Wood to gain entrée into the nascent industry by acting, adopting the screen name "Chad Applegate." He carefully concealed his (then regarded) ill-reputed avocation from real estate associates and clients.
In 1908, Wood married Clara Louise Roush, who encouraged her spouse to commit to a career in film. Spurred by a collapse in the real estate market, Wood obtained work as a movie production assistant and, by 1914, was serving as an assistant director to Cecil B. DeMille. During the next five years, Wood contributed to the manufacture of hundreds of movies shorts as an assistant director, mostly for Paramount Pictures.
Directorial debut: The Wallace Reid films, 1920
At the end of 1919, Wood won his first assignment as director in the Paramount feature Double Speed, the first of five films he was paired with screen star Wallace Reid, all of which were filmed and released in 1920. Wood demonstrated efficient and effective direction that made him attractive to Paramount executives. The success of these hour-long action comedies were highly praised by production head Jesse Lasky for their "assembly line" output and profitability.
Actor Reid, injured during a shoot in 1919, suffered from chronic pain that he treated with morphine. (A functioning addict during his collaboration with Wood, he would die in 1923 at the age of 32 due to complications related to his addiction.)
Despite the outstanding success of his Reid features, Wood expressed a desire to work on other projects. Paramount, "perhaps as a sign of displeasure" obliged Wood by demoting him to their subsidiary movie unit, Realart, a venue for the production of low-budget "routine programme pictures" that offered little in the way of substance. Wood endured the assignment, making four films at Realart, starring Ethel Clayton and Wanda Hawley, all filmed in 1920. Wood's perseverance at Realart earned him a reputation as a reliable studio asset.
The Swanson-Wood pictures, 1921-1923
Paramount's appreciation for Wood's "fast, efficient" delivery of film products and his excellent rapport with his cast and crew landed him the honor of directing their recently acquired actor Gloria Swanson in her first starring vehicle, The Great Moment (1921). DeMille, whom Wood had served as an assistant director from 1914 to 1916, and Swanson, a close personal friend to Wood, each influenced Paramount's choice.
With the popular success of The Great Moment, co-starring Milton Sills (in one scandalous scene, he sucks rattlesnake venom from Swanson's chest) Paramount proceeded to finance nine more Swanson-Wood collaborations over the next two years, beginning with Under the Lash (1921) and finishing with Bluebeard's 8th Wife (1923). Cameraman Alfred Gilks photographed all ten of the productions. During the Wood-Swanson series of films "the costume department broke all records for Hollywood lavishness..."