About Rouben Mamoulian
Rouben Zachary Mamoulian (October 8, 1897 – December 4, 1987) was an Armenian-American film and theater director. Mamoulian's oeuvre includes sixteen films (four of which are musicals) and seventeen Broadway productions, six of which are musicals. He was responsible for the acclaimed original stagings of Oklahoma! (1943) and Carousel (1945), as well as the first production of George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess (1935). His output in the early film sound era demonstrated his talent for deploying cinematic innovations that were startling in their day. He restored mobility to the camera, and developed his own signature use of montage, close-ups, split-screens and dissolves. Mamoulian's films garnered more in the way of critical acclaim than box office receipts: only six of his films earned a profit at their initial release: City Streets (1931), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), Love Me Tonight (1932), Queen Christina (1934), The Mark of Zorro (1940) and Blood and Sand (1941). Mamoulian was also the first to stage such notable Broadway works as Oklahoma! (1943), Carousel (1945), and Lost in the Stars (1949). Mamoulian directed Applause, his first feature film in 1929, which was one of the early efforts in "talkies". He directed the first three-strip Technicolor film Becky Sharp (1935), based on Thackeray's Vanity Fair as well as the 1937 musical High, Wide and Handsome.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.