Samuel Grosvenor Wood

 Samuel Grosvenor Wood (July 10, 1883 – September 22, 1949)

Wood was best known for directing such Hollywood hits as A Night at the Opera, A Day at the Races, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, and The Pride of the Yankees. He was also involved in a few acting and writing projects. He began his career as an actor and worked for Cecil B. De Mille as an assistant in 1915. A solo director by 1919, Wood worked throughout the 1920s directing some of Paramount Pictures's biggest stars, among them Gloria Swanson and Wallace Reid. He joined Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1927, where he spent most of his career. Wood directed Ginger Rogers through her Oscar-winning performance in Kitty Foyle (1940). He himself was nominated for Best Director, one of his three career nominations in the category. Wood continued to have a large number of box office hits in his career, right up to and including his last film, the gritty Western Ambush (1950), although he died before the film was released. Wood was married to Clara Louise Roush on August 25, 1908 and until his death in 1949. One of Wood's daughters, born Gloria Wood, was film and television actress K.T. Stevens. Another daughter was also an actress, Jeane Wood who married Joe Sawyer. Wood died from a heart attack, in Hollywood, at the age of 66. He is buried at Forest Lawn-Glendale.