Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume One, 1890-1945." Pages 1125-1130. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1987.
Directed 3 actors to Oscar nominations: Cornel Wilde (Best Actor, A Song to Remember (1945)), James Cagney (Best Actor, Love Me or Leave Me (1955)), and Vittorio De Sica (Best Supporting Actor, A Farewell to Arms (1957)).
Fought in the Hungarian army during World War I.
Member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1958.
The 2nd husband of Evelyn Keyes.
Two of Vidor's sons and one stepson were enormously successful in the restaurant business: Michael Vidor (mother actress Karen Morley) opened "L'Auberge," one of the first French restaurants in Portland, Oregon, while Brian Vidor (mother Warner Bros. heiress Doris Warner) runs "Typhoon," a fashionable restaurant at the Santa Monica airport in Los Angeles; Charles' stepson, Warner Leroy (mother Doris Warner, father director Mervyn LeRoy) owned New York's famous "Maxwell's Plum".
Vidor worked for many years at Columbia Pictures, although he did not get along particularly well with Harry Cohn, the studio owner. Cohn had a reputation as a crude and foul-mouthed man, in addition to being a vindictive one. Vidor tired of Cohn's constant swearing and profanity--much of it directed at him--and in 1946 he took Cohn to court in an attempt to get him to stop. He lost the case, and Cohn made his life a living hell until 1948, when Vidor bought out his contract for $75,000.
Vidor's stepson, Warner LeRoy, designed the Six Flags Great Adventure amusement park in Jackson, New Jersey.