THIS WONDERFUL LIFE BACKSTAGE GUIDE 11 ABOUT FRANK CAPRA (edited from Biography.com and Wikipedia.org) Francesco Rosario Capra was born on May 18, 1897, in Sicily, Italy. He moved to the United States with his family and six siblings in 1903. The family settled in an Italian community in Los Angeles. Capra worked his way through high school and college at the California Institute of Technology, where he studied chemical engineering. Capra enlisted in the United States Army during World War I. His father died shortly thereafter. After contracting the Spanish flu, Capra returned home to California and attained his American citizenship under the name Frank Russell Capra. He spent the next few years without regular employment, before finding his way into the film industry. Capra, who had no directing experience, talked his way into directing several comedies put out by San Francisco studios. He got in on the ground floor of Columbia Pictures, helping to establish the studio and move it out of the silent film era. The 1930s saw Capra's first national success. He became one of the country's most influential directors with films such as “It Happened One Night” (1934), “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town” (1936), and “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” (1939). Many of Capra's films told rags-to-riches stories, often with a moral message and a patriotic bent. He continued his streak of hit films in the 1940s, directing movies like “Arsenic and Old Lace” (1944) and “It's a Wonderful Life” (1946). Capra also directed a series of informational films entitled “Why We Fight” for enlisted men during World War II. Capra's career declined after World War II, as public tastes and the mechanics of the film industry changed. He retired from Hollywood filmmaking in 1952. Returning to the subject of science, he directed and produced educational films under the auspices of his alma mater, Caltech. He died in La Quinta, California on September 3, 1991. Despite falling out of fashion during the director's lifetime, the films of Frank Capra have been deeply influential over the past several decades. Many are considered classics and are frequently screened in theaters and on television. Capra was nominated for six Academy Awards and won three. His films collectively garnered 53 Academy Award nominations between 1933 and 1961, including 11 nominations for “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”, 7 nominations for “You Can’t Take It With You”, and 5 nominations for “It’s a Wonderful Life”. Frank Capra married twice and had four children. One of his sons, Frank Capra Jr., and grandson Frank Capra III have both made their careers in the film industry. Frank Capra and Jimmy Stewart on the set of “It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946) Frank Capra on set