Mitchel Leisen Biography
Leisen Mitchell was born in Menominee, Michigan, in 1898. After completing his studies at the Art Institute of Chicago and Washington University in St. Louis, where he graduated in architecture, he began working in the world of cinema as a set and costume designer for important silent film directors. Subsequently, he became art director for Cecil B. DeMille's great masterpieces, including "The King of Kings".
The collaboration with DeMille allowed Leisen to obtain a contract with Paramount Publix Corporation. After an experience as assistant director to Stuart Walker, in 1933 he obtained his first directorship with "Cradle Song". In 1940, he directed "Remember the Night," a sentimental comedy written by Preston Sturges. In "Arise, My Love", Leisen directed again with the collaboration of Wilder and Brackett, creating a film emblematic of the contamination of genres, between war films and sentimental drama.
Leisen's other works include "Take a Letter, Darling" in 1942, which tells the story of a manager who falls in love with her factotum secretary. In 1946, Leisen directed "To Each His Own," in which a mother, played by Olivia de Havilland, is forced to give up her son for adoption after the child's father dies in the war. In 1951, Leisen won the Bronze Bear prize at the Berlin Film Festival with the comedy "The Mating Season".
After a brief television experience, Leisen's career, characterized by brilliant films that investigated the complexity and psychological nuances of characters, ended in the second half of the 1950s.
