Rouben Zachary Mamoulian ( ; ; October 8, 1897 – December 4, 1987) was an American film and theatre director. Early life Mamoulian was born in Tiflis, Russian Empire, to a family of Armenian descent. His mother, Virginia (née Kalantarian), was a director of the Armenian theatre, and his father, Zachary Mamoulian, was a bank president. Mamoulian moved to England and started directing plays in London in 1922. He was brought to the United States the next year by Vladimir Rosing to teach at the Eastman School of Music and was involved in directing opera and theatre. In 1925, Mamoulian was head of the School of Drama, where Martha Graham was working at the time. Among other performances, together they produced a short, two-color film titled The Flute of Krishna, featuring Eastman students. Mamoulian left Eastman shortly after, and Graham chose to leave also, even though she was asked to stay. In 1930, Mamoulian became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Child star Jackie Cooper stated in his autobiography that Rouben Mamoulian was his uncle, and this fact helped establish Cooper's early movie career. Stage career Mamoulian began his Broadway director career with a production of DuBose Heyward's Porgy, which opened on October 10, 1927. He directed Wings Over Europe from late 1928 to 1929. He directed the revival of Porgy in 1929 along with George Gershwin's operatic treatment Porgy and Bess, which opened on October 10, 1935. Mamoulian was also the first to stage such notable Broadway works as Oklahoma! (1943), Carousel (1945), and Lost in the Stars (1949). Film career He directed his first feature film in 1929, Applause, which was one of the early sound films. It was a landmark film owing to Mamoulian's innovative use of camera movement and sound, and these qualities were carried to his other films released in the 1930s. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) is regularly considered the best version of Robert Louis Stevenson's tale; Queen Christina (1933) was the last film Greta Garbo made with John Gilbert; both benefit from being made before the "Hays Code" came into full force. The musical film Love Me Tonight was released in 1932. He directed the first three-strip Technicolor film Becky Sharp (1935), based on Thackeray's Vanity Fair, as well as the 1937 musical High, Wide, and Handsome. His next two films earned him wide admiration, The Mark of Zorro (1940) and