George Cukor’s advices, or “suggestions” as he liked to put it, to actors were treasured and memorized to their last, smallest detail.
“I learned more about acting from one sentence of George Cukor than from all my years of acting lessons,” said Joan Fontaine, who had a supporting but significant role in the 1939 The Women, which featured Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford and Rosalind Russell in the leads.
Cukor told her: “Think and feel the emotions of your part in every scene, and the rest will take care of itself.”
It was Cukor who recommended to Hitchcock that he cast Joan Fontaine in his 1940 thriller, Rebecca, which went on to win Best Picture and earn Fontaine her first Best Actress nomination.
Fontaine would win the Oscar at her second nomination, also for a Hitchcock thriller, Suspicion, opposite Cary Grant (who shamefully was NOT even nominated).
