Fred M. Wilcox

Fred McLeod Wilcox was born in Tazewell, VA, on December 22, 1906, one of six children born to James Wilcox, a Kentucky optometrist and drugstore owner, who was married six times (twice to one woman). His six children were from his first wife.Wilcox's six siblings (his father adopted his niece after the death of his sister in 1912) included actress 'Ruth Selwyn' (qv) (born Ruth Wilcox), who was married to producer / director / writer / playwright 'Edgar Selwyn' (qv), one of the founders of Goldwyn Pictures, and former showgirl Pansy Wilcox Schenck ('Mrs. Nicholas M. Schenck' (qv)), who was married to Loew's Inc. President Nicholas M. Schenck, one of the pioneers of the film industry. Pansy Schenck was the mother-in-law of actor 'Helmut Dantine' (qv), with whom Wilcox worked on a film in India in 1962.A graduate of the University of Kentucky, Wilcox began his film-industry career at MGM in its New York publicity department. He became an assistant to 'King Vidor' (qv) in 1929, and worked on the great director's masterpiece, _Hallelujah (1929)_ (qv). Subsequently he worked as a director shooting screen tests of new talent, then served an apprenticeship as an assistant director on three of his brother-in-law 'Edgar Selwyn' (qv)'s pictures. He also was an assistant- and second-unit director on two more films before moving to the short subjects unit in 1938.After working his way up through the MGM shorts department, he got his shot as a feature director in 1943 with _Lassie Come Home (1943)_ (qv), a classic family film that was enshrined on the National Film Preservation Board's National Film Registry in 1993. He also helmed the two sequels, _Courage of Lassie (1946)_ (qv) and _Hills of Home (1948)_ (qv). He had a sure hand with child actors, directing 'Margaret O'Brien' (qv) in one of her most well-received pictures, _The Secret Garden (1949)_ (qv). After directing some pictures for the studio's "B" unit, he made one more memorable film--the classic sci-fi epic _Forbidden Planet (1956)_ (qv)--before leaving MGM in 1957 to become an independent producer/director. However, he only made one more film, a miscegenation tale called _I Passed for White (1960)_ (qv), which he directed, produced and co-wrote. It starred 'James Franciscus' (qv) and is most notable as the first American film for which five-time Oscar winner 'John Williams' (qv) wrote the score.Fred Wilcox died on September 23, 1964, in Beverly Hills, CA, survived by his son, Ron.::Jon C. Hopwood