{{Short description|French-American actor film director (1920–1973)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=September 2022}} {{Infobox person | name = George Breakston | image = George Breakston in I Killed That Man.jpg | image_size = | caption = Breakston in ''I Killed That Man'' (1941) | birth_name = George Paul Breakston | birth_date = {{Birth date|1920|01|22|mf=yes}} | birth_place = Paris, France | death_date = {{Death date and age|1973|05|21|1920|01|22|mf=yes}} | death_place = Paris, France | occupation = {{hlist|Film director|actor|producer}} | years_active = 1935–1966 }}
'''George Paul Breakston''' (January 22, 1920 – May 21, 1973) was a French-American actor, producer and film director,<ref name=":0">{{cite web|title=George Breakston|url=http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b9f27af8a|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161225215305/http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b9f27af8a|url-status=dead|archive-date=December 25, 2016|publisher=British Film Institute|access-date=September 21, 2016}}</ref> active in Hollywood from his days as a child actor in Andy Hardy films in the 1930s (where he played the character ''Beezy''<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/21596%7C58293/George-Breakston/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120621005123/http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/21596%7C58293/George-Breakston/|url-status=dead|archive-date=June 21, 2012|title=Overview for George Breakston|website=Turner Classic Movies}}</ref>), to a period as an independent producer/director in the 1950s.
==Biography== Breakston was the son of French-born Jacqueline DuVal.<ref>. Oakland Tribune Oakland, California 01 Sep 1935, Sun Page 77</ref> He first entered the entertainment world by working in radio as a child actor from 1930. Hs came to the notice of Hollywood and appeared in a variety of films.<ref>''Obituary'' ''Variety'' 30 May 1973</ref> He made his stage debut in ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' and made his motion picture debut in ''It Happened One Night'' (1934), where he plays a boy whose mother faints in a bus due to starvation.
Beginning in 1938, Breakston had a regular supporting role in MGM's popular Andy Hardy film series as ''Beezy'', one of the friends of Andy portrayed by Mickey Rooney.
During World War II he was commissioned in the US Army Signal Corps through Officers Candidate School<ref>{{cite web|title=World War II Signal OCS|url=http://www.armysignalocs.com/ww2/42_09.html|publisher=Army Signal OCS|access-date=September 21, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161225220649/http://www.armysignalocs.com/ww2/42_09.html|archive-date=December 25, 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref> then served in the Pacific War as a photographer. When the war ended Breakston remained in Japan.{{Citation needed |date=September 2022}}
He reentered the civilian film world by co-writing, producing, directing and starring in ''Urubu: The Vulture People'' filmed in location in the Mato Grosso, Brazil. He followed it up with the documentary ''African Stampede'' filmed in the Belgian Congo and Kenya where he would later make his home.
Returning to Japan, Breakston co-produced and wrote ''Tokyo File 212'' a 1951 American film credited as Hollywood's first feature film totally filmed in Japan.<ref name="Edwards1997">{{cite book|last=Edwards|first=Paul M.|title=A Guide to Films on the Korean War|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1U9yAAAAMAAJ|year=1997|publisher=Greenwood Press|isbn=978-0-313-30316-6|page=103}}</ref> He followed it up by filming and directing ''Oriental Evil'' (1951) and ''Geisha Girl'' (1952) in Japan. He had planned a film, which according to ''Los Angeles Times'' had interested Errol Flynn.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Schallert|first1=Edwin|title=Flynn, Marley Named for New Nippon Venture|work=Los Angeles Times|date=October 12, 1950|location=Los Angeles, California|page=B13}}</ref>
Breakston moved to Kenya filming several safari adventure feature films ''The Scarlet Spear'', ''Golden Ivory'', ''Escape in the Sun'', and ''Woman and the Hunter''. Many of these featured John Bentley who starred in a television series produced by Breakston and filmed in Kenya, ''African Patrol''. Breakston also filmed another series in Kenya ''Adventures of a Jungle Boy'' (1957) and planned a third ''Trader Horn''.<ref>{{cite magazine|magazine=Billboard|title=Assoc. British Buys 'African'|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OiEEAAAAMBAJ|date=3 February 1958|publisher=Nielsen Business Media, Inc.|page=9|issn=0006-2510}}</ref>
Breakston joined the horror bandwagon by making ''The Manster'' in 1959<ref>{{cite web | url=https://eiga.com/movie/61813/ | title=双頭の殺人鬼 : 作品情報 }}</ref> back in Japan, then made several films in Yugoslavia.
He died in Paris on May 21, 1973.<ref name=":0" />
==Selected filmography== {{div col|colwidth=30em}} * ''It Happened One Night'' (1934, actor) - Boy Bus Passenger (uncredited) * ''No Greater Glory'' (1934, actor) - Nemecsek * ''A Successful Failure'' (1934, actor) - Tommy Cushing * ''Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch'' (1934, actor) - Jimmy Wiggs * ''Great Expectations'' (1934, actor) - Pip, as Child * ''Life Returns'' (1935, actor) - Danny Kendrick * ''The Dark Angel'' (1935, actor) - Joe Gallop * ''The Return of Peter Grimm'' (1935, actor) - William Van Dam * ''Boulder Dam'' (1936, actor) - Stan Vangarick * ''Small Town Girl'' (1936, actor) - Little Jimmy (uncredited) * ''Second Wife'' (1936, actor) - Jerry Stephenson * ''Love Finds Andy Hardy'' (1938, actor) - 'Beezy' * ''Jesse James'' (1939, actor) - Farmer Boy * ''Boy Slaves'' (1939, actor) - Harvey (uncredited) * ''Andy Hardy Gets Spring Fever'' (1939, actor) - 'Beezy' * ''Judge Hardy and Son'' (1939, actor) - 'Beezy' Anderson * ''Swanee River'' (1939, actor) - Ambrose * ''The Grapes of Wrath'' (1940, actor) - Boy (uncredited) * ''Andy Hardy Meets Debutante'' (1940, actor) - 'Beezy' * ''Andy Hardy's Private Secretary'' (1941, actor) - Beezy * ''Life Begins for Andy Hardy'' (1941, actor) - Beezy, the Milkman (uncredited) * ''I Killed That Man'' (1941, actor) - Tommy * ''The Courtship of Andy Hardy'' (1942, actor) - 'Beezy' * ''Men of San Quentin'' (1942, actor) - Louie Howard * ''Urubu: The Vulture People'' (1948, actor, producer and director) - George * ''Jungle Stampede'' (1950, actor, producer and director) - George Breakston (final film role) * ''Tokyo File 212'' (1951, producer) * ''Oriental Evil'' (1951, producer and director) * ''Geisha Girl'' (1952, producer and director) * ''Golden Ivory'' (aka "The White Huntress"; 1954, producer and director) * ''The Scarlet Spear'' (1954, director) * ''Escape in the Sun'' (1956, producer and director) * ''Woman and the Hunter'' (1957, producer and director) * ''The Manster'' (1961, producer and director)<ref>Galbraith IV, Stuart (1996). The Japanese Filmography: 1900 through 1994. McFarland. {{ISBN|0-7864-0032-3}}.</ref> * ''Shadow of Treason'' (1964, producer and director)<ref>{{cite web|title=Press Book|url=http://www.nyu.edu/projects/wke/press/shadowoftreason/shadowoftreason.pdf|publisher=New York University|access-date=September 21, 2016}}</ref> * ''The Boy Cried Murder'' (1966, director) {{div col end}}
==References== <references/>
== Further reading == * Holmstrom, John (1996). ''The Moving Picture Boy: An International Encyclopaedia from 1895 to 1995'', Norwich, Michael Russell, p. 95-96. * Dye, David (1988). ''Child and Youth Actors: Filmography of Their Entire Careers, 1914-1985''. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 1988, p. 24-25. * Willson, Dixie (1935). ''Little Hollywood Stars''. Akron, OH, and New York: Saalfield Pub. Co, pp. 119–127.
==External links== {{Commons category}} * {{IMDb name|0106423}} {{George Breakston}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Breakston, George}} Category:1920 births Category:1973 deaths Category:20th-century American male actors Category:American expatriates in Japan Category:American expatriates in Kenya Category:Film directors from California Category:Film producers from California Category:American male child actors Category:French emigrants to the United States Category:French film directors Category:Male actors from Paris Category:French television show creators Category:American television show creators Category:United States Army personnel of World War II