Hungarian-born Karoly Vidor spent the First World War as a lieutenant in the Austro-Hungarian infantry. Following the armistice, he made his way to Berlin and worked for the German film company Ufa, as editor and assistant director. In 1924, he emigrated to the U.S. and, for several years, earned his living as a singer in Broadway choruses and (at...
Two of Vidor's sons and one stepson were enormously successful in the restaurant business: Michael Vidor (mother actress Karen Morley) opened "L'Auberge," one of the first French restaurants in Portland, Oregon, while Brian Vidor (mother Warner Bros. heiress Doris Warner) runs "Typhoon," a fashionable restaurant at the Santa Monica airport in Los Angeles; Charles' stepson, Warner Leroy (mother Doris Warner, father director Mervyn LeRoy) owned New York's famous "Maxwell's Plum".
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Vidor worked for many years at Columbia Pictures, although he did not get along particularly well with Harry Cohn, the studio owner. Cohn had a reputation as a crude and foul-mouthed man, in addition to being a vindictive one. Vidor tired of Cohn's constant swearing and profanity--much of it directed at him--and in 1946 he took Cohn to court in an attempt to get him to stop. He lost the case, and Cohn made his life a living hell until 1948, when Vidor bought out his contract for $75,000.
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Fought in the Hungarian army during World War I.
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Member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1958.
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Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume One, 1890-1945." Pages 1125-1130. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1987.
$1.5 Million
