Career
In 1912, Borzage found employment as an actor in Hollywood; he continued to work as an actor until 1917. His directorial debut came in 1915 with the film The Pitch o' Chance. Borzage was a successful director throughout the 1920s; he reached his peak in the late silent and early sound era. Absorbing visual influences from the German director F. W. Murnau, who was also resident at Fox at this time, he developed his own style of lushly visual romanticism in a hugely successful series of films starring Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell, including 7th Heaven (1927), for which he won the first Academy Award for Best Director, Street Angel (1928) and Lucky Star (1929). He won a second Oscar for 1931's Bad Girl.
He directed 14 films from 1917 to 1919 alone; his greatest success in the silent era was with Humoresque (1920), a box-office winner starring Vera Gordon.
Borzage's trademark was intense identification with the feelings of young lovers in the face of adversity, with love in his films triumphing over such trials as World War I (7th Heaven and A Farewell to Arms), disability (Lucky Star), the Depression (Man's Castle), a thinly disguised version of the Titanic disaster in History Is Made at Night, and the rise of Nazism, a theme which Borzage had virtually to himself among Hollywood filmmakers, including Little Man, What Now? (1933), Three Comrades (1938), and The Mortal Storm (1940).
His work took a spiritual turn in films such as Green Light (1937), Strange Cargo (1940) and The Big Fisherman (1959). Of his later work, only Moonrise (1948) has enjoyed much critical acclaim.
After 1948, his output was sporadic, but he directed three episodes of the Screen Directors Playhouse television series between 1955 and 1956.
In 1955 and 1957, Borzage was awarded The George Eastman Award, given by George Eastman House for distinguished contribution to the art of film.
For his contributions to the film industry, Borzage received a motion pictures star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. The star is located at 6300 Hollywood Boulevard.
He was the original director of Journey Beneath the Desert (1961), but was too unwell to continue, and Edgar G. Ulmer took over. Borzage was uncredited for the sequences he did direct.
While hospitalized in February 1962, he received the D. W. Griffith Award.
He was an officer and board member of the Directors Guild of America.
