Director, producer, and author Frank Capra was born in Sicily and immigrated to the US at the age of five years old. After earning a degree at California Institute of Technology in 1918, he spent the last year of WWI teaching mathematics in the US Army. After a short period of working as a book salesman, he persuaded a stage actor to hire him as the director a short film titled The Ballad of Fisher's Boarding House. With this hands on experience as his only credit he took a job with a San Francisco film studio, where he worked his way through the organization from film cutter to director. His experiences there and as a gag-writer for the "Our Gang" film series gave him the skills to be hired by The Keystone Company. At Keystone Capra directed notable comedian Harry Langdon in some of his most successful films, but Capra was fired when the two argued.
With a couple more missteps along the way, Capra found his way to Columbia Pictures and his work there would help transform the struggling organization to a major player in the industry. Here Capra began to find his voice and his fascination with stories that focused on the struggles of the average person, who is fighting against big business and big money. Capra won his first Academy Award in 1933 with Lady for a Day, which would be followed by one of his successful periods in film making. Throughout the next several years Capra would make the standout films It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Lost Horizon, and You Can't Take It With You. Capra earned more Academy Awards for his work, a top salary in the industry, a cover on Time Magazine, and unprecedented freedom from interference with Columbia Pictures. During this time Capra lived his philosophy that the director should be responsible for every aspect of his projects, with producorial control. Capra's independant spirit was reflected in his characters, who faced difficult odds and would reject interference from selfish or controlling outside forces. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is an excellent example of Capra's values, style and themes and won eleven Academy Awards.
Capra served in the Signal Corp during WWII and for the war effort created Why We Fight, a series of documentaries encouraging Americans to support the war and to bolster morale. Only two were released theatrically during the war and Prelude to War shared the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1942. For his work, Capra was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, which is the highest award possible for a non-combatant.
In his autobiography, Name Above the Title: An Autobiography, Capra expresses how shocking it was to return to Hollywood after the war. Although he had been in service for only four years, he had lost momentum in the fast-moving industry and younger filmmakers were pushing to take his place. He formed Liberty Films to continue to be able to work under the idea of "one man, one film" and have creative control of his work. It's a Wonderful Life was the company's first picture and the resulting poor box office receipts forced the sale of Liberty Films to Paramount Pictures.
During the late 1940s and into the 1950s Capra's career stalled, which he attributed subtle blacklisting to the themes of his films during the 1930s. Largely his films during this period were not huge draws at the box office, which may have also had an effect. Notable works include State of the Union (1948), starring Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, and Hole in the Head (1959), starring Frank Sinatra. Because he did not want work in the post-studio landscape of Hollywood, Capra chose to retire after his last film in 1971.