born May 18, 1897, near Palermo, Sicily, Italy

died September 3, 1991, La Quinta, California, U.S.

Given an uncommon amount of freedom (which he might not have had at a larger studio), Capra followed his “one man, one film” theory, feeling that as a director, he was responsible for every aspect of his films. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), the tale of an idealistic young senator (memorably portrayed by James Stewart (Stewart, James)) who battles corruption in Washington, D.C., has remained one of his most popular works. The mixture of patriotism, idealism, and sentimentality, found in this and many Capra films, was dubbed “Capra-corn” by the director himself. Leaving Columbia after Mr. Smith, Capra continued his examination of the American political system with Meet John Doe (1941), an independent feature starring Gary Cooper (Cooper, Gary) as an ex-baseball player who becomes a populist hero. Also in 1941 Capra directed a successful film version of the Broadway stage hit Arsenic and Old Lace; owing to the stipulations of the play's producers, the film was not released until 1944, but Capra chose to make it quickly before departing for army service so that his family could subsist on his salary during the war years. While a major in the army Signal Corps during the years 1942–45, Capra directed a series of well-regarded documentaries titled Why We Fight, which were commissioned by the U.S. government to increase American support for the war effort.

It's a Wonderful Life was Capra's final film of stature, although his last five pictures were respectable efforts. The Spencer Tracy (Tracy, Spencer)-Katharine Hepburn (Hepburn, Katharine) comedy State of the Union (1948) is a pleasant blend of domestic and political satire. His two middling Bing Crosby (Crosby, Bing) vehicles—Riding High (1950) and Here Comes the Groom (1951)—were reasonably successful. The changing tastes of the postwar years, however, rendered anachronistic Capra's brand of sentiment and gentle humour, and he spent much of the 1950s making science documentaries for younger television viewers. His final two films, A Hole in the Head (1959) with Frank Sinatra (Sinatra, Frank) and Pocketful of Miracles (1961) with Bette Davis (Davis, Bette), were good efforts, but Capra's approach seemed a bit formulaic by that time. He revealed his dissatisfaction with Hollywood in the poststudio system days in his autobiography, The Name Above the Title (1971), and chose to retire after Pocketful of Miracles rather than adapt his philosophy to a new system. He received a Life Achievement Award from the American Film Institute in 1982.

Charles J. Maland, Frank Capra (1994); Raymond Carney, American Vision: The Films of Frank Capra (1996); Joseph McBride, Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success (1993, reissued 2000).