In August 1949 Vidor was assigned the musical The Petty Girl (1950). He refused to do it, Columbia put him on suspension, and Vidor told Columbia that he considered his contract with them at an end. (He was replaced on The Petty Girl by Levin). In September Columbia sued Vidor to stop him walking out on the contract. In October 1949 Vidor bought himself out of his contract for $75,000 at $15,000 a year for five years. Louis B. Mayer had acted as intermediary "for the good of the industry". Vidor's career had two years to run, at $3,000 a week then $3,500 a week. MGM In December 1949 Vidor signed a contract with MGM to direct The Running of the Tide which was never made. Vidor was one of several directors on MGM's It's a Big Country (1951). Vidor went to Paramount with a project he had developed himself, Thunder in the East (filmed 1951, released 1952), which starred Alan Ladd. Sam Goldwyn used him on Hans Christian Andersen (1952) which was a huge success. After filming Vidor optioned the novel SPQR and announced he would film it independently but it was not made. At MGM Vidor did a musical with Elizabeth Taylor, Rhapsody (1954) and a biopic of Ruth Etting, Love Me or Leave Me (1955), a big success. Vidor directed Grace Kelly's last movie, The Swan (1956). In 1956 he announced he had formed his own company, Aurora, to make The Life of Nijinsky. Final years Vidor went into partnership with Frank Sinatra and Joe E. Lewis to make a biopic of the latter, The Joker Is Wild (1957). Sinatra and Vidor were going to reunite on Kings Go Forth but then David O. Selznick hired Vidor to make the troubled A Farewell to Arms (1957), replacing John Huston. Vidor's last film was an attempt to repeat the success of A Song to Remember, another biopic of a composer, in this case Liszt: Song Without End (1960) (originally titled A Magic Flame). He died of a heart attack three weeks into filming. Personal life He was married four times: Frances Varone 1927–1931 the actress Karen Morley 1932–1943 (separated 1940) the actress Evelyn Keyes 1944–1945 Doris Warner, daughter of Warner Bros. President Harry Warner, 1945–1959 (until his death) He had three sons – Quentin, Brian and Michael. Death Charles Vidor died at the age of 58 in Vienna,