Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume One, 1890-1945." Pages 535-542. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1987.
Brother of director Louis King
Directed 8 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Alice Brady, Jennifer Jones, Charles Bickford, Gladys Cooper, Anne Revere, Alexander Knox, Dean Jagger and Gregory Peck. Brady, Jones and Jagger won Oscar for their performances in one of King's movies.
Founder of the Inspiration Company along with Charles H. Duell and Richard Barthelmess.
He was the first owner of a Waco SRE Aristrocrat cabin biplane that was completed on July 2, 1940. The base price was $17,800, making it among the most expensive private aircraft of its time; only 29 SRE's and similar ARE's and HRE's were built before World War II ended production in 1942. An avid pilot, King scouted for shooting locations from the air and was a founder of the Civil Air Patrol during World War II and he undoubtedly used the SRE for those tasks. King's SRE was later owned by Fairchild Aerial Surveys, Inc., and a May 1954 photograph of it while owned by Fairchild appears on page 102 of the Summer 2005 issue of the Journal of the American Aviation Historical Society.
Henry King was one of the 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which awards the Oscars every year.
Henry King was one of the 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which awards the Oscars every year.
Henry King was one of the 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which awards the Oscars every year.
King and his brother, director Louis King, both worked at 20th Century-Fox at the same time in the 1940s. While Henry got large-scale, "important" pictures, Louis was usually given lower-budget outdoors pictures, mysteries or westerns. Henry's "prestige" picture, Wilson (1944), was a very expensive flop, though, while Louis' low-budget outdoors picture Smoky (1946) was one of Fox's biggest moneymakers that year. Shotly after "Smoky" was released, Henry stopped Louis on the lot one day and said, "I've just come from the accounting office and seen the figures. 'Smoky' has now earned what we lost on 'Wilson' ".
One of the 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).
Profiled in "American Classic Screen Interviews" (Scarecrow Press). [2010]
Was originally set to direct Way of a Gaucho (1952) with Tyrone Power in the leading role, but in May 1951 he requested a transfer to another picture and was replaced by Jacques Tourneur.