Editing George Cukor (section)

==Personal life==
[[File:George Cukor Allan Warren.jpg|thumb|Cukor at home in 1973]]
It was an [[open secret]] in Hollywood that Cukor was gay, at a time when society was against it, although he was discreet about his sexual orientation and "never carried it as a pin on his lapel", as producer [[Joseph L. Mankiewicz]] put it.<ref>McGilligan, p. 113.</ref> He was a celebrated ''bon vivant'' whose luxurious home was the site of weekly Sunday afternoon parties attended by closeted celebrities and the attractive young men they met in bars and gyms and brought with them.<ref>McGilligan, pp. 186–87.</ref> At least once, in the midst of his reign at MGM, he was arrested on vice charges, but studio executives managed to get the charges dropped and all records of it expunged, and the incident was never publicized by the press.<ref>McGilligan, p. 133.</ref> In the late 1950s, Cukor became involved with a considerably younger man named George Towers. He financed his education at the [[California State University, Los Angeles|Los Angeles State College of Applied Arts and Sciences]] and the University of Southern California, from which Towers graduated with a law degree in 1967.<ref>McGilligan, pp. 277–78.</ref> That fall Towers married a woman, and his relationship with Cukor evolved into one of father and son, and for the remainder of Cukor's life the two remained very close.<ref>McGilligan, pp. 307, 347–48.</ref>

By the mid-1930s, Cukor was not only established as a prominent director, but also socially as an unofficial head of Hollywood's gay subculture. His home, redecorated in 1935 by gay actor-turned-interior designer [[William Haines]] with gardens designed by [[Florence Yoch and Lucile Council]], was the scene of many gatherings for the industry's homosexuals. The close-knit group reputedly included Haines and his partner [[Jimmie Shields]], writer [[W. Somerset Maugham]], director [[James Vincent (director)|James Vincent]], screenwriter [[Rowland Leigh]], costume designers [[Orry-Kelly]] and Robert Le Maire, and actors [[John Darrow]], [[Anderson Lawler]], [[Grady Sutton]], Robert Seiter, and Tom Douglas. Frank Horn, secretary to Cary Grant, was also a frequent guest.<ref>Mann, William J.; ''Wisecracker: The Life and Times of William Haines, Hollywood's first Openly Gay Star''; New York: Viking, 1998; pp. 253, 255, 256.</ref>

Cukor's friends were of paramount importance to him and he kept his home filled with their photographs. Regular attendees at his soirées included Katharine Hepburn and [[Spencer Tracy]], [[Joan Crawford]] and [[Douglas Fairbanks Jr.]], [[Lauren Bacall]] and [[Humphrey Bogart]], [[Claudette Colbert]], [[Marlene Dietrich]], [[Laurence Olivier]] and [[Vivien Leigh]], actor [[Richard Cromwell (actor)|Richard Cromwell]], [[Stanley Holloway]], [[Judy Garland]], [[Gene Tierney]], [[Noël Coward]], [[Cole Porter]], director [[James Whale]], costume designer [[Edith Head]], and [[Norma Shearer]], especially after the death of her first husband [[Irving Thalberg]]. He often entertained literary figures like [[Sinclair Lewis]], [[Theodore Dreiser]], [[Hugh Walpole]], [[Aldous Huxley]], and [[Ferenc Molnár]].<ref>McGilligan, pp. 124–25.</ref><ref name=Walpole>{{cite book|last=Hart-Davis|first=Rupert|title=Hugh Walpole|year=1985|publisher=Hamish Hamilton|isbn=0-241-11406-3|pages=349, 360, 365, 369}}</ref>

[[Frances Goldwyn]], second wife and widow of studio mogul [[Sam Goldwyn]], long considered Cukor to be the love of her life, but their relationship remained [[Platonic love|platonic]]. According to biographer [[A. Scott Berg]], Frances even arranged for Cukor's burial to be adjacent to her own plot at [[Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery]].<ref name=Berg>{{cite book|last=Berg|first=A. Scott|title=Goldwyn: A Biography|year=1989|publisher=Riverhead Books|location=New York, NY|isbn=9780394510590|pages=[https://archive.org/details/goldwynbiography00berg/page/135 135–139, etc]|url=https://archive.org/details/goldwynbiography00berg/page/135}}</ref>

The PBS series ''[[American Masters]]'' produced a comprehensive documentary about his life and work titled ''On Cukor'' directed by Robert Trachtenberg in 2000.