As legendary for the movies he directed as for his role in the real-life drama of the communist witch-hunts, Elia Kazan earned a storied place in Hollywood history. Born in 1909 in Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey), Kazan began his career in the 1940s on the New York stage, where he directed "A Streetcar Named Desire" (of which he would later make a film version).

He made his first picture, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, in 1945 and captured his first Oscar for Gentleman's Agreement in 1947; his second statuette came for directing Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront (1954). Other notable Kazan films include East of Eden (1955), starring James Dean, and Splendor in the Grass (1961), with Natalie Wood.

After the McCarthy hearings of 1952, he was widely vilified for giving up the names of eight fellow Communist Party members. He was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Academy Award in 1999.