Wissenswertes

Before becoming a director, Wood had worked on pipelines for an oil company.

The Wood sisters Natalie Wood, Lana Wood and Olga Wood were named after him.

Former real estate broker.

Directed 11 actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Robert Donat, Greer Garson, Martha Scott, Ginger Rogers, Charles Coburn, Gary Cooper, Teresa Wright, Katina Paxinou, Akim Tamiroff, Ingrid Bergman and Flora Robson. Donat, Paxinou and Rogers won Oscars for their performances in one of Wood's movies.

Late in his life, he served as the President of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, a right-wing political organization whose aim was to ferret out "subversives" in Hollywood. In this capacity, he provided key testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947, helping to fan fears of Communist influence in the U.S. film industry.

Appeared as actor in the early part of the century under the name Chad Applegate.

Father of actresses K.T. Stevens and Jeane Wood.

Ex-father-in-law of Hugh Marlowe and Joe Sawyer.

Is portrayed by John Getz in Trumbo (2015).

Directed eight Oscar Best Picture nominees: Die gute Erde (1937) (uncredited), Auf Wiedersehen, Mr. Chips (1939), Vom Winde verweht (1939) (uncredited), Unsere kleine Stadt (1940), Fräulein Kitty (1940), Kings Row (1942), Der große Wurf (1942) and Wem die Stunde schlägt (1943).

In his book about writer Dalton Trumbo, who worked with Wood on the film Kitty Foyle, author Bruce Cook claims that Wood was a member of the Knights of the White Camelia, a Klan-like organization, Hollywood chapter.

Along with Ernst Lubitsch, Jack Conway, Michael Curtiz, Victor Fleming, John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Francis Ford Coppola, Herbert Ross and Steven Soderbergh, he is one of ten directors to have more than one film nominated for Best Picture in the same year and the only one to achieve this feat twice. Fräulein Kitty (1940) and Unsere kleine Stadt (1940) were both so nominated at the 13th Academy Awards in 1941 while Kings Row (1942) and Der große Wurf (1942) were both so nominated at the 15th Academy Awards in 1943.

He has directed three films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant": Skandal in der Oper (1935), Vom Winde verweht (1939) (uncredited), & Der große Wurf (1942).

Invited the first House Committee on Un-American Activities, under the chairmanship of Texas congressman Martin Dies, to come out to Hollywood to investigate Communist infiltration of the movie industry.