Feb 28, 1903

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Born Lester Anthony Minnelli in Chicago on February 28 1903, Vincente Minnelli kept lying over the years about his age and his exact origin. His father Vincent was a musical conductor of the Minnelli Brothers' Tent Theater and his only child to survive infancy spent his childhood on the road. Wanting to pursue an artistic career, he worked at the costume department of the Chicago Theater, then on Broadway during the depression as a set designer and costumer, adopting a Latinized version of his f... ... (read more...) ather's first name when he was hired as an art-director by the Music Hall, then at Radio City. Fall of 1935 saw his directorial debut for a Franz Schubert revue, "At Home Abroad", the first of three, in the best Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. spirit, before receiving Arthur Freed's offer to join the MGM - not mentioning a first short unsuccessful contract at Paramount. He would not leave the MGM lots for the next 26 years. After working on numerous Mickey Rooney- Judy Garland vehicles, usually directed by Busby Berkeley, Arthur Freed gave him his first directorial assignment on Cabin in the Sky (1943), a risky screen project with an all-black cast, which he followed by the ambitious period piece Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) whose star Judy Garland he married in 1945. Employing first-class MGM technicians, Minnelli went on directing musicals - The Band Wagon (1953) - as well as melodramas - Some Came Running (1958) - and urban comedies - Designing Woman (1957), occasionally even working on two films simultaneously. Vincente Minnelli is one of the few directors, if not the only one, whom color seems to have been invented for, and usually included in every one of his movies features a dream sequence.