William A. Wellman
Gender: Male
Born: 29th February 1896
Died: 9th December 1975
Nationality: United States of America
Movies: A Star Is Born, Across the Wide Missouri, Battleground, Beau Geste, Beggars of Life, Blood Alley, Buffalo Bill, Central Airport, Chinatown Nights, College Coach, Dangerous Paradise, Darby's Rangers, Female, Frisco Jenny, Gallant Journey, Good-bye, My Lady, Heroes for Sale, Island in the Sky, It's a Big Country, Ladies of the Mob, Lady of Burlesque, LaFayette Escadrille, Light's Diamond Jubilee, Lilly Turner, Looking for Trouble, Love Is a Racket, Magic Town, Men with Wings, Midnight Mary, My Man and I, Night Nurse, Nothing Sacred, Other Men's Women, Reaching for the Sun, Ring of Fear, Roxie Hart, Safe in Hell, Small Town Girl, So Big!, Stingaree, Tarzan Escapes, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Boob, The Call of the Wild, The Conquerors, The Great Man's Lady, The Happy Years, The Hatchet Man, The High and the Mighty, The Iron Curtain, The Legion of the Condemned, The Light that Failed, The Next Voice You Hear, The Ox-Bow Incident, The President Vanishes, The Public Enemy, The Purchase Price, The Robin Hood of El Dorado, The Star Witness, The Star Witness, The Story of G.I. Joe, This Man's Navy, Thunder Birds, Track of the Cat, Viva Villa!, Westward the Women, Wild Boys of the Road, Wings, Woman Trap, Yellow Sky, You Never Know Women
William Augustus Wellman (February 29, 1896 – December 9, 1975) was an American film director. Although Wellman began his film career as an actor, he worked on over 80 films, as director, producer and consultant but most often as a director, notable for his work in crime, adventure and action genre films, often focusing on aviation themes, a particular passion. He also directed several well regarded satirical comedies.
Wellman directed the 1927 film Wings, which became the first film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture at the 1st Academy Awards ceremony.
Wellman's father, Arthur Gouverneur Wellman, was a New England Brahmin of English-Welsh-Scottish and Irish descent. William was a great-great-great-great-great-grandson of Puritan Thomas Wellman who immigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony about 1640. William was a great-great-great grandson of Francis Lewis of New York, one of the signatories to the Declaration of Independence. His much beloved mother was an Irish immigrant named Cecilia McCarthy.
Wellman was expelled from Newton High School in Newton Highlands, Massachusetts, for dropping a stink bomb on the principal's head. Ironically, his mother was a probation officer
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