Andre DeToth
Endre Antal Miksa DeToth, better known as Andre de Toth (born Endre Antal Mihály Tóth; May 15, 1913 – October 27, 2002), was a Hungarian-American film director, born and raised in Makó, Austria-Hungary. He directed the 3D film "House of Wax", despite being unable to see in 3D himself, having lost an eye at an early age. Upon naturalization as a United States citizen in 1945, he took Endre Antal Miksa de Toth as his legal name. Early life. Born in 1913 as Sasvári farkasfalvi tóthfalusi Tóth Endre Antal Mihály, de Toth earned a degree in law  from the Royal Hungarian Pázmány Péter Science's University in Budapest in the early 1930s. He garnered acclaim for plays written as a college student, acquiring the mentorship of Ferenc Molnár and becoming part of the theater scene in Budapest. Career. De Toth segued from there to the film industry and worked as a writer, assistant director, editor and sometime actor. In 1939 he directed five films just before World War II began in Europe. Several of these films received significant release in the Hungarian communities in the United States. He went to England, spent several years as an assistant  to fellow Hungarian émigré Alexander Korda, and eventually moved to Los Angeles in 1942. Based on his Hungarian films, the production work for Korda and writing he had done on American projects during earlier stints in Los Angeles, he received an oral contract as a director at Columbia Pictures from which he ultimately extricated himself by litigation. He preferred working as an independent and had no "A" budgets early in his career. Thus, he had to supplement his directing income with writing assignments, often uncredited. Introduced to Westerns by John Ford, he worked mostly in that genre throughout the 1950s , often bringing elements of noir style into those films. In 1951, he received an Oscar nomination for Best Writing (with co-writer William Bowers) for the story filmed as "The Gunfighter". While largely remembered as the director of the earliest and most successful 3D film, "House of Wax", de Toth also directed the noir films "Pitfall" (1948) and "Crime Wave" (1954). Personal life. De Toth lost sight in one eye and wore a black eyepatch; as a 1994 report in "The Independent" noted, this led to an almost deadly incident:The piratical black patch De Toth sports over his left  eye almost cost him his life. Scouting for locations in Egypt shortly after the Yom Kippur war of 1973, De Toth was kidnapped, pistol-whipped and interrogated by a group of vengeful young men who had mistaken him for Moyshe Dayan. He only escaped with his life after a quick examination of his groin bore out De Toth's claim that far from being an Israeli commander, he was not even Jewish. During his seven marriages, de Toth became father and stepfather of 19 children, including editor Nicolas de Toth. He was married to Veronica Lake from 1944 until their  divorce in 1952. They had a son, Andre Anthony Michael de Toth III (born October 25, 1945) and a daughter, Diana DeToth (born 1948). In 1953 he married the actress Mary Lou Holloway (née Stratton). At the time of his death in 2002, de Toth was married to his seventh wife, Ann Green. Memoir. In 1996, he published his memoir, "Fragments – Portraits from the Inside" (London: Faber and Faber, 1994; ). Death. On October 27, 2002, de Toth died from an aneurysm, aged 89. He was interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park cemetery in the Hollywood Hills.