was MGM's top moneymaker that year. In 1955, Brooks was one of four American auteur filmmakers named as "rebels" by the French magazine Cahiers du Cinéma. Box-office success was what gave the writer/director more freedom at MGM, but Brooks also recognized that he would never have complete control of his films while under contract. He determined to avoid writing original screenplays and focused on adaptations of best-sellers or classic novels. He later noted that adapting a novel gave him a head start on developing the story structure required for a screenplay. He spent the rest of the decade at MGM, where his most notable film was an adaptation of Tennessee Williams's sexually charged play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958). A huge hit for MGM – it drew more money and a larger audience than any other film Brooks ever directed – the film was a high point in the career of Elizabeth Taylor and made a star of Paul Newman. It brought Brooks his first Oscar nomination for directing and the first Best Picture nomination in his directorial career. Independent writer-producer-director Brooks spent the last third of his film career working in relative independence. In 1958, he signed a non-exclusive, seven-year writer-director deal with Columbia Pictures that was to earn him over $1 million. He followed the success of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with an independent production for United Artists of Elmer Gantry (1960), based on the novel by Sinclair Lewis. The story of a phony preacher, played by Burt Lancaster, and a sincere revivalist, played by Jean Simmons, was edgy for the time. As it had for Blackboard Jungle and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, controversy accompanied the film's release and helped bring people to theaters. The movie received five Academy Award nominations, including one for best picture, and won Oscars for Lancaster as lead actor, for Shirley Jones as supporting actress, and for Brooks' script. Brooks adapted and directed another Tennessee Williams play, Sweet Bird of Youth (1962). Ed Begley won a Best Supporting Oscar for his role in the film. While popular and well-received critically, the MGM production did not duplicate the success of the previous Williams film. A dream project followed, an adaptation for Columbia Pictures of Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim (1965), but the lavish film proved to be a misfire at the box office and with most critics. Brooks had