George Breakston

{{Short description|French-American actor film director (1920–1973)}}

{{Infobox person

| name = George Breakston

| image = George Breakston in I Killed That Man.jpg

| image_size =

| caption = Breakston in I Killed That Man (1941)

| birth_name = George Paul Breakston

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1920|01|22|mf=yes}}

| birth_place = Paris, France

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1973|05|21|1920|01|22|mf=yes}}

| death_place = Paris, France

| occupation = {{hlist|Film director|actor|producer}}

| years_active = 1935–1966

}}

George Paul Breakston (January 22, 1920 – May 21, 1973) was a French-American actor, producer and film director,{{cite web|title=George Breakston|url=http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b9f27af8a|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161225215305/http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b9f27af8a|url-status=dead|archive-date=December 25, 2016|publisher=British Film Institute|access-date=September 21, 2016}} active in Hollywood from his days as a child actor in Andy Hardy films in the 1930s (where he played the character Beezy{{Cite web|url=https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/21596%7C58293/George-Breakston/|title=Overview for George Breakston|website=Turner Classic Movies}}), to a period as an independent producer/director in the 1950s.

Biography

Breakston was the son of French-born Jacqueline DuVal.. Oakland Tribune Oakland, California 01 Sep 1935, Sun Page 77 He first entered the entertainment world by working in radio as a child actor from 1930. Hs came to the notice of Hollywood and appeared in a variety of films.Obituary Variety 30 May 1973 He made his stage debut in A Midsummer Night's Dream and made his motion picture debut in It Happened One Night (1934).

During World War II he was commissioned in the US Army Signal Corps through Officers Candidate School{{cite web|title=World War II Signal OCS|url=http://www.armysignalocs.com/ww2/42_09.html|publisher=Army Signal OCS|access-date=September 21, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161225220649/http://www.armysignalocs.com/ww2/42_09.html|archive-date=December 25, 2016|url-status=dead}} then served in the Pacific War as a photographer. When the war ended Breakston remained in Japan.{{Citation needed |date=September 2022}}

He reentered the civilian film world by co-writing, producing, directing and starring in Urubu: The Vulture People filmed in location in the Mato Grosso, Brazil. He followed it up with the documentary African Stampede filmed in the Belgian Congo and Kenya where he would later make his home.

Returning to Japan, Breakston co-produced and wrote Tokyo File 212 a 1951 American film credited as Hollywood's first feature film totally filmed in Japan.{{cite book|last=Edwards|first=Paul M.|title=A Guide to Films on the Korean War|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1U9yAAAAMAAJ|year=1997|publisher=Greenwood Press|isbn=978-0-313-30316-6|page=103}} He followed it up by filming and directing Oriental Evil (1951) and Geisha Girl (1952) in Japan. He had planned a film, which according to Los Angeles Times had interested Errol Flynn.{{cite news|last1=Schallert|first1=Edwin|title=Flynn, Marley Named for New Nippon Venture|work=Los Angeles Times|date=October 12, 1950|location=Los Angeles, California|page=B13}}

Breakston moved to Kenya filming several safari adventure feature films The Scarlet Spear, Golden Ivory, Escape in the Sun, and Woman and the Hunter. Many of these featured John Bentley who starred in a television series produced by Breakston and filmed in Kenya, African Patrol. Breakston also filmed another series in Kenya Adventures of a Jungle Boy (1957) and planned a third Trader Horn.{{cite magazine|magazine=Billboard|title=Assoc. British Buys 'African'|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OiEEAAAAMBAJ|date=3 February 1958|publisher=Nielsen Business Media, Inc.|page=9|issn=0006-2510}}

Breakston joined the horror bandwagon by making The Manster in 1959{{cite web | url=https://eiga.com/movie/61813/ | title=双頭の殺人鬼 : 作品情報 }} back in Japan, then made several films in Yugoslavia.

He died in Paris on May 21, 1973.

Selected filmography

It Happened One Night (1934, actor) - Boy Bus Passenger (uncredited)
No Greater Glory (1934, actor) - Nemecsek
A Successful Failure (1934, actor) - Tommy Cushing
Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch (1934, actor) - Jimmy Wiggs
Great Expectations (1934, actor) - Pip, as Child
Life Returns (1935, actor) - Danny Kendrick
The Dark Angel (1935, actor) - Joe Gallop
The Return of Peter Grimm (1935, actor) - William Van Dam
Boulder Dam (1936, actor) - Stan Vangarick
Small Town Girl (1936, actor) - Little Jimmy (uncredited)
Second Wife (1936, actor) - Jerry Stephenson
Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938, actor) - 'Beezy'
Jesse James (1939, actor) - Farmer Boy
Boy Slaves (1939, actor) - Harvey (uncredited)
Andy Hardy Gets Spring Fever (1939, actor) - 'Beezy'
Judge Hardy and Son (1939, actor) - 'Beezy' Anderson
Swanee River (1939, actor) - Ambrose
The Grapes of Wrath (1940, actor) - Boy (uncredited)
Andy Hardy Meets Debutante (1940, actor) - 'Beezy'
Andy Hardy's Private Secretary (1941, actor) - Beezy
Life Begins for Andy Hardy (1941, actor) - Beezy, the Milkman (uncredited)
I Killed That Man (1941, actor) - Tommy
The Courtship of Andy Hardy (1942, actor) - 'Beezy'
Men of San Quentin (1942, actor) - Louie Howard
Urubu: The Vulture People (1948, actor, producer and director) - George
Jungle Stampede (1950, actor, producer and director) - George Breakston (final film role)
Tokyo File 212 (1951, producer)
Oriental Evil (1951, producer and director)
Geisha Girl (1952, producer and director)
Golden Ivory (aka "The White Huntress"; 1954, producer and director)
The Scarlet Spear (1954, director)
Escape in the Sun (1956, producer and director)
Woman and the Hunter (1957, producer and director)
The Manster (1961, producer and director)Galbraith IV, Stuart (1996). The Japanese Filmography: 1900 through 1994. McFarland. {{ISBN|0-7864-0032-3}}.
Shadow of Treason (1964, producer and director){{cite web|title=Press Book|url=http://www.nyu.edu/projects/wke/press/shadowoftreason/shadowoftreason.pdf|publisher=New York University|access-date=September 21, 2016}}
The Boy Cried Murder (1966, director)