Gregory La Cava

Gregory La Cava (March 10, 1892 – March 1, 1952) was an American film director of Italian descent best known for his films of the 1930s, including My Man Godfrey and Stage Door, which earned him nominations for Academy Award for Best Director. Career La Cava was born in Towanda, Pennsylvania. His father was a shoemaker, and the family moved to Rochester, New York. La Cava reported for the Rochester Evening News and studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. He was a member of the Art Students' League. Animator Around 1913, he started doing odd jobs at the studio of Raoul Barré. By 1915, he was an animator on the Animated Grouch Chasers series. Towards the end of 1915, William Randolph Hearst decided to create an animation studio to promote the comic strips printed in his newspapers. He called the new company International Film Service, and he hired La Cava to run it (for double what he was making with Barré). La Cava's first employee was his co-worker at the Barré Studio, Frank Moser. Another was his fellow student in Chicago, Grim Natwick (later to achieve fame at Disney). As he developed more and more of Hearst's comics into cartoon series, he came to put semi-independent units in charge of each, leading to the growth of individual styles.