Jean Renoir

One of the most influential film directors Is Jean Renoir born on September 15, 1894. He wrote screen scripts, produced and acted in films. More than forty films are credited to Jean Renoir. Grand Illusions (1937) and The Rules of the Fame (1939) are cited as being among the best films made. Renoir wrote the biography of his father Pierre Auguste Renoir (Painter) Renoir, My Father in 1962.
During the 1930s Renoir directed On Purge BeBe, La Chienne, and Boudu Saved From Drowning. He made films that were somewhat political such as The Crime of Monsieur Langhre, Life Belongs to Us and La Marseillaise (1938). Renoir directed The Rules of the Game in 1939 but this film was banned when France entered WWII. The negatives of the film were destroyed in bombing raids, but in 1950 the film was pieced together.
Hollywood was not kind to Renoir but he did direct This Land is Mine with Maureen O'Hara and Charles Laughton. He also directed Southerner which gave him a nomination for an Academy Award for Directing. In 1945 Renoir directed Diary of a Chambermaid and The Woman on the Beach (1947). These films were not well received and were the last American films Renoir directed and produced.
His first color film was The River made in India and it won the International prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1951. Renoir made his last film The Little Theatre of Jean Renoir in 1969. After this film he was unable to secure financing and his health started to decline. He spent the last years of his life writing novels and his memoirs.
He died on February 12, 1979 leaving behind Catherine Hessling and Dido Freire (wives) as well as a son.