50 Fun Facts About Frank Capra

On which Mediterranean island was Frank Capra born in 1897?

He was born Francesco Rosario Capra in Bisacquino, near Palermo, the youngest of seven children.

What does the surname Capra mean in Italian?

Biographer Joseph McBride notes 'capricious' derives from it, fitting Capra's emotionalism and obstinacy.

How did the Capra family travel to America in 1903?

Capra called the 13-day crossing one of the worst experiences of his life.

Capra worked his way through which university, graduating in chemical engineering in 1918?

He played banjo in nightclubs, waited tables and cleaned engines at a power plant to pay his way.

Which famous aviator was one of Capra's classmates at Manual Arts High School?

Singer Lawrence Tibbett was another classmate; Capra sold newspapers after school for ten years.

What did Capra teach to artillerymen as a second lieutenant during the First World War?

He caught Spanish flu, was discharged, and became a citizen in 1920 as Frank Russell Capra.

How much did Walter Montague pay Capra to direct his first one-reeler, Fultah Fisher's Boarding House?

He made it in two days with amateurs for $1,700 and it sold to Pathé for $3,500.

Capra wrote gags for which slapstick producer's studio, in 1918 and again in 1924?

He also wrote for Hal Roach's Our Gang series.

Capra directed three successful features in 1926-27 for which baby-faced silent comedian?

Langdon followed Arthur Ripley's advice, started directing himself, and his career collapsed.

Which studio boss rehired Capra in 1928 and gave him top billing over his films, a first in the industry?

Columbia was then a Poverty Row studio; Capra directed 20 films for it and his salary rose from $1,000 a film to $25,000 a year.

Why did Capra adapt to sound film more easily than most directors?

He called hearing Al Jolson sing in The Jazz Singer 'a once-in-a-lifetime experience'.

Which screenwriter, Fay Wray's husband, formed a famed writer-director team with Capra?

Riskin wrote the wisecracking dialogue for It Happened One Night among many others.

It Happened One Night (1934) was the first film to achieve what at the Oscars?

Only two films have matched the 'Big Five' since: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and The Silence of the Lambs.

Who starred opposite Claudette Colbert as the roguish reporter in It Happened One Night?

An urban legend says undershirt sales fell after Gable undressed on screen without one.

Capra's 1934 screwball classic was based on which 1933 short story, also its shooting title?

Samuel Hopkins Adams wrote it; the film is one of the earliest road movies.

Which cartoon character may have been partly inspired by It Happened One Night?

Friz Freleng, who worked on the film, helped develop the rabbit six years later.

How many Best Director Oscars did Capra win?

For It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and You Can't Take It with You, from six nominations.

Which 1936 Capra film features a tuba-playing greeting-card poet who inherits a fortune?

Jean Arthur had her first featured role; the film won Capra his second directing Oscar.

Capra's 1938 Best Picture winner You Can't Take It with You came from a play by which duo?

It brought Capra his third Best Director Oscar in five years.

Which actor played the naive senator Jefferson Smith in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington?

The story was loosely based on Montana senator Burton K. Wheeler and the Teapot Dome investigation.

What tactic does Senator Smith use to hold the floor for hours in the film's climax?

Saunders, played by Jean Arthur, coaches him from the gallery.

Which US ambassador urged Columbia not to show Mr. Smith Goes to Washington in Europe?

He feared it would confirm impressions that America was 'full of graft, corruption and lawlessness'.

Of its eleven Oscar nominations, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington won only one - for what?

It was competing with Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz in a ten-nominee Best Picture field.

Capra quit Columbia in a rage after the studio vetoed his expensive Technicolor biopic of which composer?

Columbia later made it anyway as A Song to Remember (1945) with Charles Vidor directing.

Who starred as the drifter turned 'common man' in Capra's Meet John Doe (1941)?

So great was Capra's name that Warner dropped its own from the main title, opening simply with 'Presenting'.

Capra's 1937 film Lost Horizon, adapted from James Hilton's novel, is set in which hidden paradise?

The plane crashes deep in the Himalayas of Tibet.

Which actor starred in Capra's 1944 black comedy Arsenic and Old Lace?

On Broadway, Boris Karloff had played Jonathan Brewster, a character said to 'look like Boris Karloff'.

Within four days of Pearl Harbor, Capra received a commission in the US Army at what rank?

At 44 he did not have to enlist, but wanted to prove his patriotism to his adopted land.

Under which Army Chief of Staff did Capra work directly to make the Why We Fight films?

Marshall bypassed the Signal Corps, wanting the 'nursery' next to his own office.

How many episodes made up the Why We Fight series?

From Prelude to War (1942) to War Comes to America (1945).

Which first Why We Fight film won the 1942 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature?

FDR said 'I want every American to see this motion picture' and Fox released it nationally.

Who created the animated charts for the Why We Fight films?

Alfred Newman and Dimitri Tiomkin were among the composers.

Which two decorations did the Why We Fight series earn Capra in 1943 and 1945?

He regarded these films as his most important work.

After the war Capra founded the independent Liberty Films with which two directors?

It was the first company of directors since United Artists in 1919; only two films were completed.

It's a Wonderful Life is based on which self-published short story?

Philip Van Doren Stern wrote it in 1939 and printed it as a booklet in 1943; it loosely echoes A Christmas Carol.

What is the name of George Bailey's guardian angel in It's a Wonderful Life?

He shows George what Bedford Falls would be like if he had never been born.

Why did It's a Wonderful Life become a television Christmas staple from the mid-1970s?

A clerical error at NTA meant the copyright was never renewed, so stations could air it free.

Which actress was borrowed from MGM to play Mary in It's a Wonderful Life?

Capra had considered de Havilland, Martha Scott, Ann Dvorak and Ginger Rogers first.

RKO's Russell Shearman made a new 'chemical snow' for the film from soap flakes, sugar, water and what?

Earlier films had used painted cornflakes, which were too noisy for dialogue scenes.

Capra's only film for MGM, State of the Union (1948), starred which famous acting couple?

Capra called it his 'most perfect film in handling people and ideas'; few agree today.

In the 1950s Capra produced four colour science specials, starting with Our Mr. Sun, for which sponsor?

They were classroom favourites for about thirty years.

Capra's final film, Pocketful of Miracles (1961), remade which of his own 1933 movies?

It starred Glenn Ford and Bette Davis.

Capra abandoned which space-rescue novel adaptation in the mid-1960s over its $3 million budget?

John Sturges finally made it in 1969 with $8 million.

What was Capra's 1971 autobiography called?

It refers to the billing Harry Cohn had given him at Columbia.

What did the American Film Institute give Capra in 1982, in a tribute hosted by his favourite star?

He received the National Medal of Arts in 1986.

Where did Capra die in 1991, aged 94?

He had suffered a series of strokes from 1985 and died of a heart attack in his sleep.

Which stance describes Capra, who criticised FDR and opposed government intervention in the Depression?

Ironically the FBI's Los Angeles office regarded him with some suspicion in 1947.

In which Sicilian village near Palermo was Frank Capra born in 1897?

He was the youngest of seven children of a fruit grower, Salvatore Capra, and his wife Rosaria.

How many terms did Capra serve as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences?

He was also three times president of the Directors Guild of America, which he helped found, pushing for directors' artistic control.

Which actress did Capra marry in 1923 and divorce in 1928?

Her father was a principal investor in Paul Gerson Pictures; Capra later married Lucille Warner in 1932 and had four children.