Bretaigne Windust
| Bretaigne Windust | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Ernest Bretaigne Windust January 20, 1906 Paris, France |
| Died | March 19, 1960 (aged 54) New York City, New York |
| Occupation | Director |
| Years active | 1928–1960 |
Ernest Bretaigne Windust (January 20, 1906 – March 19, 1960) was a US-based French-born theater, film, and television director.
He was born in Paris, the son of English violin virtuoso Ernest Joseph Windust and singer Elizabeth Amory Day from New York City. The family escaped to London during World War I, and it was there that he developed an interest in theater. They returned to Paris following the war, but Windust's parents divorced in 1920, and he and his mother moved to the United States. He attended Columbia University and then Princeton, where he became a member and later president of the Theatre Intime players.
Planning to become an actor, Windust co-founded with Charles Leatherbee the University Players in 1928 on Cape Cod in Falmouth, Massachusetts. The company lasted five years and included later luminaries Joshua Logan, Henry Fonda, James Stewart, Margaret Sullavan, Mildred Natwick, Eleanor Phelps, Barbara O'Neil, Myron McCormick, Kent Smith, and Aleta Freel. Windust directed more often than he acted. Though he began his association with the Theatre Guild in Manhattan as an assistant stage manager in 1929, he maintained his position as a director of the University Players in the off-season when they performed on Cape Cod through the summer of 1932. Indeed, he quit the Theatre Guild briefly during the winter season of 1931-32 to direct the University Players through its 18-week winter season in Baltimore.
Windust's first major credit as a professional theatre director was the 1932 West End production of Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude. He directed Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne in The Taming of the Shrew and Amphitryon 38 (which he translated from the original French) and appeared with them in Idiot's Delight, his last work as an actor.
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