- Born
- Died
- Born in New York, director Bernard Vorhaus made his name in England during the 1930s and later became a victim of the Hollywood blacklist. His most well-known film was The Last Journey (1935), but his quirky thriller about phony spiritualists, The Amazing Mr. X (1948), has a loyal following. A graduate of Harvard University, Vorhaus gave a young director by the name of David Lean his first job as a film cutter. Lean went on to become an Oscar-winning director known for such intelligent epics such as Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Doctor Zhivago (1965). Lean called Vorhaus the "greatest influence" in his life. After being blacklisted, Vorhaus relocated to England, where he lived with his Welsh-born wife until his death in November 2000.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Luis32789@aol.com
- Bernard was born in New York and became hooked on films at an early age. His elder sister, Amy, wrote for films at the Fort Lee Studios in New Jersey and used to take him to the studios with her and leave him on the set to watch the filming. After studying law at Harvard he asked Harry Cohn of Columbia for a job and was taken on as a writer at $50 a week. Soon he was providing material for MGM, Paramount and Fox as well. He made his directing debut in 1928 with the silent film Sunlight starring Zasu Pitts and which he financed from his own savings. With sound coming and a silent short not likely to make an impact he went to Britain and stayed for 7 years working for several of the quickie outfits. Most of his dozen or so British films were made at Twickenham but with the British film industry hitting a crisis in 1937 he returned to Hollywood and signed a contract with Republic Pictures, which he said was one of the worst mistakes he ever made, Even so he tried to make something of the terrible material they gave him especially 2 offbeat John Wayne films - Three Faces West (1940) and Lady From Louisiana (1941). In '42 he joined the US Air Force Film Unit where he directed several propaganda shorts in which Ronald Reagan, the units security officer, appeared in several of them. He then returned to B films one of which, So Young So Bad (1950) was the only one in his career over which he had full creative control. In 1951 he was named in the House of UnAmerican Actvities Committee as a Communist sympathiser. He moved to Europe where he directed a film in France and one in Italy the latter being released under a pseudonym as the American Projectionists Union threatened to black all United Artists releases if his name appeared in the credits. Narrowly escaping extradition to America from Italy he moved to Britain and kept a low profile and created a new career for himself refurbishing houses and apart from some uncredited script doctoring and an abortive plan to co produce TV documentaries with Russia he made no more films.
.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Tonyman 5
- SpouseHetty Davies(1934 - 1997) (her death, 2 children)
- His was one of the names given to the House Un-American Activities Committee by director Edward Dmytryk in the 1950s. Eventually, the accusation ended his U.S. film career. However, for several films in the '50s and '60s, Vorhaus was credited as an assistant director named Piero Musetta.
- Graduate of Harvard University.
- In 1936 Vorhaus was with a camera crew on the Austrian side of the Zugspitze, a mountain on the Austrian-German border, shooting skiing scenes for Hideout in the Alps (1936). German troops crossed over into Austrian territory, demanding that the Austrian skiers who were guiding Vorhaus' party be turned over to them, accusing them of being involved in "anti-Nazi activities". The guides quickly turned around and skiied down the mountainside, with the Germans firing at them. A bullet grazed Vorhaus' face but did not injure him. It was the beginning of his own "anti-Nazi activities"--which included working with pro-Communist organizations against the Nazis. That came back to haunt him during the McCarthy "Red Scare" era in the 1950s, when he was classified by the FBI as "prematurely antifascist" which was "proof" of his Communist sympathies, resulting in his being blacklisted in Hollywood.
- Children: daughter Gwyn, son David.
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