He later spent three years in the Army Signal Corps making training films and teaching combat motion picture photography.
His transition to film began when he started writing and directing technical documentaries for the Hughes Tool Co. He studied math, geophysics and other sciences for a year at Caltech - his father’s alma mater - before transferring to Pomona College, where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in geology in 1955. Movies were not on his agenda after graduating from high school, however. “That,” Capra recalled, “was when I realized my father could make magic.” There, spread out before them in 90-degree summer heat, was the town of Bedford Falls - 75 stores and buildings over four acres and all covered with artificial snow. “She didn’t want us to become studio brats.”īut in July 1946, Capra, along with his brother and sister, were driven to a studio ranch in the San Fernando Valley, where their father was filming “It’s a Wonderful Life,” which became a Christmas classic. “My mother was very dead-set against us visiting the sets,” he told the Star-News of Wilmington in 2006. It wasn’t until he was 12, however, that he got to see his father at work. Smith Goes to Washington,” young Capra could expect stars such as Clark Gable and Jimmy Stewart to drop by for dinner. With a father who directed film classics such as “It Happened One Night” and “Mr. Because of those efforts, North Carolina is enjoying a robust economic boost due to the film activity in the state.”īorn in Los Angeles on March 20, 1934, he was one of Frank and Lucille Capra’s three children. And when people came here to work, he was out there roaming the lot.”ĭescribing Capra as “very giving,” Vassar said that “he was a great teacher and taught film studies here at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.”Ĭooney said Capra also was “a tireless advocate to get the legislation passed through the state to attract filmmakers to film in North Carolina. And not just the people who ran it he knew the producers, the directors, the directors of photography. “He knew his way in and out of the film industry he knew the culture and he knew the people. Bill Vassar, the studio’s executive vice president, said Thursday that Capra “was our ambassador to Hollywood.”
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