Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter and photographer. His personal life was characterized by a long marriage, close family relationships, and a strong desire for privacy. After settling in the United Kingdom in the 1960s, he spent most of his life in England, where he lived and worked from his home estate. Known for his meticulous personality, Kubrick largely avoided publicity while maintaining a clear separation between his professional and private life until his death in 1999.
Marriages and family
Kubrick married his high-school sweetheart Toba Metz in May 1948, when he was nineteen years of age. They lived together in Greenwich Village and divorced three years later in 1951.
He met his second wife, the Austrian-born dancer and theatrical designer Ruth Sobotka, in 1952. They lived together in New York's East Village from 1952 until their marriage in January 1955. They moved to Hollywood six months afterwards, where she played a brief part as a ballet dancer in Kubrick's second film, Killer's Kiss (1955). The following year she was art director for his third film, The Killing (1956). They divorced in 1957.
During the production of Paths of Glory (1957) in Munich, Kubrick met and romanced young German actress Christiane Harlan, who played a small though memorable role. Kubrick married Harlan in 1958, and in 1959 they settled into a home in Beverly Hills, California with Harlan's daughter, Katharina, age six.LoBrutto, Vincent (1999). Stanley Kubrick: a Biography. Penguin Books. They also lived in New York, during which time Christiane studied art at the Art Students League of New York, later becoming an independent artist. Like Kubrick, she wanted "solace to think, study, and practice her craft," writes LoBrutto. They remained together 40 years, until his death in 1999. Besides his stepdaughter, they had two daughters together, Anya and Vivian. Christiane was niece of the Nazi-era film-maker Veit Harlan - notably of anti-semitic propaganda film Jud Süß - but though personally ashamed to come from a "family of murderers" (her words), Kubrick's Jewish family accepted her.
Shortly after his death, Christiane assembled a personal collection of never-before-seen photographs and commentary into a book, Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures. Included among the photos was only one of Kubrick's family together, taken in 1960.Kubrick, Christiane. Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures, Little, Brown (2002) p. 73 In 2010, she gave a videotaped interview with UK's Guardian, where she discussed his personality, his love of editing films, and some reasons why he chose to not make Aryan Papers.
Actor Jack Nicholson, who starred in The Shining (1980), observed that "Stanley was very much a family man."Harlan, Jan (producer/director), Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures, documentary film (2001) Similarly, Nicole Kidman, who starred in Eyes Wide Shut (1999), adds that Christiane "was the love of his life. He would talk about her, he adored her, something that people didn't know. His daughters adored them ... I would see that, and he would talk about them very proudly." The opinion was shared by Malcolm McDowell, who starred in A Clockwork Orange: "He was happily married. I remember his daughters, Vivian and Anya, running around the room. It was good to see such a close-knit family."Ciment, Michel. Kubrick: The Definitive Edition, Faber and Faber, Inc. (1980; 1999) p. 36, cover
Settling in the United Kingdom
Kubrick moved to the United Kingdom to make Lolita because of easier financing via the Eady Levy, since at least 85% of the film was shot in the UK, and freedom from censorship and interference from Hollywood studios.
There he set up his life so that family and business were combined.Howard 2000, p. 16. Christiane Kubrick told the London Times how rough New York had become, with children having to be escorted to school by police, people being rude, and smashed glass all over the street. Although he thrived on the manic energy of New York, Kubrick soon adapted to the more genteel atmosphere of Britain.
When he hired Peter Sellers to star in his next film, Dr. Strangelove, Sellers was unable to leave the UK."An Interview with Stanley Kubrick (1969)" Kubrick made Britain his permanent home thereafter, although "he never considered himself an expatriate American," wrote biographer Alexander Walker.Walker, Alexander. Stanley Kubrick, Director: A Visual Analysis, Conundrum Ltd. (1999) He also shunned the Hollywood system and its publicity machine,Hare 2008, p. 166. resulting in little media coverage of him as a personality.For example, the BBC obituary of him at . See also Walker, 2000, p.360
In 1965 the Kubricks moved to Abbots Mead, Barnet Lane, just south of the Elstree/Borehamwood studio complex. This was a turn of the 19th century house, sold to him by Simon Cowell's father, Eric. Kubrick worked almost exclusively from this home for 14 years where, with some exceptions, he researched, invented special effects techniques, adapted NASA f0.7 ultra-low light lenses for specially modified cameras, pre-produced, edited, post-produced, advertised, distributed and carefully managed all aspects of four of his films: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1965 to 1968), A Clockwork Orange (1969 to 1971), Barry Lyndon (1972 to 1975) and most of The Shining (1976 to 1980 - finished the year after he left for Childwickbury Green).
In 1978, Kubrick moved into Childwickbury Manor in Hertfordshire, UK, a mainly 18th century building about north of London and a 10-minute drive from his previous home at Abbotts Mead. After finishing The Shining he went on to make Full Metal Jacket and lastly Eyes Wide Shut. He is interred on its grounds together with his eldest daughter Anya Kubrick.
LoBrutto notes that living in the United Kingdom brought peace to the Kubrick family. After moving to Britain, recalls Christiane, one of the first British radio shows they heard was on gardening. The area's many landscaped parks, gardens and animals was an enormous contrast to New York. "It's very pleasant," said Kubrick, "very peaceful, very civilized here. London is in the best sense the way New York was" in the early 1900s.
His friend, screenwriter Michael Herr, points out that he did not live in Britain because he disliked America:
Kubrick's home in the English countryside, a half-hour drive from London, gave him "energy, inspiration, and confidence," states Walker. It provided him with a "favorable psychological climate in which to function," with more privacy and time for reflection. Kubrick's close friend, Julian Senior, who was vice president for Warner Brothers' London office, compared Kubrick's lifestyle to "a medieval craftsman whose home was his workshop." He did manage to stay up on current affairs, and read The New York Times daily, notes Jan Harlan, adding that Kubrick remained a "New Yorker" at heart his entire life."An hour about the life and work of filmmaker Stanley Kubrick" , Video interview with Charlie Rose, Christiane Kubrick, Martin Scorsese and Jan Harlan. June 15, 2001
Home and workplace
His new home, originally a large country mansion once owned by a wealthy racehorse owner, became a workplace for Kubrick and Christiane. One of the large ballroom-size rooms became her painting studio. Kubrick converted the stables into extra production rooms besides ones within the home that he used for editing and storage. Christiane called their home "a perfect family factory."
A film trailer was kept in the driveway, and she took care of keeping visiting crew, staff, and actors, ensuring they were well fed and cared for. They both made special effort to keep their home warm and friendly, yet they shared a need for privacy. She adds, "When Stanley is relaxed he plays chess and likes to be very quiet ... Stanley is so gentle, such a shy and sensitive person." At home, children and animals would frequently come in and out of the room as he worked on a script or met with an actor. Kubrick's many dogs and cats, toward which he showed an extraordinary affection, were often brought onto film sets or editing rooms.Baxter 1999, p. 31.
Diane Johnson, co-screenwriter of The Shining, notes that he enjoyed sharing his work with his family: "They all worked together, creating art and film on the kitchen table, so to speak ... Stanley was in no way an isolated individual, and never excluded his family from what he was doing."
Kubrick rarely left England during the remaining 40 years before he died. "He lived a simple (outer) life, and a largely devotional one," writes Herr, who describes his home and workplace:
Although Kubrick once held a pilot's license, some have claimed that he later developed a fear of flying and refused to take airplane trips.Rhodes 2008, p. 17. Matthew Modine, star of Full Metal Jacket, stated that the stories about his fear of flying were "fabricated," and that "he wasn't afraid to fly." He simply preferred spending most of his time in England, where his films were produced and where he lived."'Full Metal Jacket' at 25: Matthew Modine tries to answer, 'What was Stanley like?'" Entertainment Weekly, Aug. 7, 2012
Emilio D'Alessandro, a former race-car driver, was his personal assistant at his home workplace for over 30 years, handling much of the day-to-day chores such as driving actors to and from his home. In his 2012 book, Stanley Kubrick & Me, he describes his personal experiences, saying that Kubrick wasn't simply his "employer but his university," and that he was, "really like a father."Book trailer for Stanley Kubrick & Me Kubrick kept in close contact with business associates in the U.S. and elsewhere, mostly by telephone, calling associates at all hours for conversations that lasted from under a minute to many hours. Many of Kubrick's admirers and friends spoke of these telephone conversations with great affection and nostalgia after his death. Kubrick also frequently invited people to his house, ranging from actors to close friends, admired film directors, writers, and intellectuals. He rarely took vacations, even after completing a major film, and would simply begin preparing for his next one by catching up on seeing movies that had come out during the last year and searching through books and magazines for his next project idea.
Kubrick was an early user of desktop computers and had five that he worked with at home. LoBrutto describes Kubrick's home office:
Screenwriter Michael Herr remembers working with him on Full Metal Jacket, in what he describes as Kubrick's home "War Room" which was a large space "crammed with desks and computers and filing cabinets" and "long trestle tables littered" with sketches and idea papers and photos of "streets, pagodas, prostitutes, shrines, and signs."
Personal characteristics
His appearance was not well known in his later years, to the extent that a British man named Alan Conway successfully impersonated Kubrick locally for a number of years.Anthony 1999. Online at: The counterfeit Kubrick Biographer Vincent LoBrutto notes that his privacy led to spurious stories about his reclusiveness, "producing a mythology more than a man," similar to those about Greta Garbo, Howard Hughes, and J. D. Salinger.
Michael Herr, Kubrick's co-screenwriter on Full Metal Jacket, who knew him well, considers his "reclusiveness" to be myth: "[H]e was in fact a complete failure as a recluse, unless you believe that a recluse is simply someone who seldom leaves his house. Stanley saw a lot of people ... he was one of the most gregarious men I ever knew, and it didn't change anything that most of this conviviality went on over the phone." He hated being photographed, notes Herr, although he let a few people, including his daughter, Vivian, take a few candids when working. Matthew Modine, who became close friends with Kubrick while working in Full Metal Jacket, describes how others saw him: