Nicholas Ray

Biography

Nicholas Ray was born Raymond Nicholas Kienzle, Jr. in 1911, in small-town Galesville, Wisconsin, to Lena (Toppen) and Raymond Joseph Kienzle, a contractor and builder. He was of German and Norwegian descent. Ray's early experience with film came with some radio broadcasting in high school. He left the University of Chicago after a year, but made such an impression on his professor and writer Thorton Wilder that he was recommended for a scholarship with Frank Lloyd Wright, where he learned the importance of space and geography, not to mention his later love for CinemaScope. When political differences came between the seasoned architect and his young protégé, Ray left for New York and became immersed in the radical theater. He joined the Theater of Action and later the Group Theater, which is where he met his good friend Elia Kazan. Times were tough and money was tight, but Ray loved the bohemian lifestyle of the close-knit group and enjoyed one of the happiest times of his life. Anybody who met him always noted his intellect and amazing energy. During this period he, along with his fellow Theater Group members, was also active in Socialist/Communist movement (which curiously went unnoticed during the Red Scare). In January 1937, Ray was put in charge of local theater activities by the Department of Agriculture's Resettlement Administration and moved to Washington with his wife Jean Evans, who was pregnant with his first child, Anthony. He also, along with Alan Lomax, traveled around the south and recorded folk musicians for the Library of Congress. The collaboration proved worthy, and in the early 40s Lomax and Ray were hired by CBS to produce a regular evening slot, headed by Woody Guthrie. In between this time Ray divorced his wife. Ray soon met John Houseman, who…