Victor Fleming Victor Fleming Victor Lonzo Fleming (February 23, 1889 – January 6, 1949) was an American film director, cinematographer, and producer. His most popular films were "The Wizard of Oz" (1939), and "Gone with the Wind" (1939), for which he won an Academy Award for Best Director. Fleming has those same two films listed in the top 10 of the American Film Institute's 2007 AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies list. Victor Fleming was born at the Banbury Ranch near what is now La Cañada Flintridge, California, the son of Eva (née Hartman) and William Richard Lonzo Fleming. He served in the photographic
Gone with the Wind (film) in London, opening in April 1940 and playing for four years. By the time MGM withdrew it from circulation at the end of 1943 its worldwide distribution had returned a gross rental (the studio's share of the box office gross) of $32 million, making it the most profitable film ever made up to that point. Even though it earned its investors roughly twice as much as the previous record-holder, "The Birth of a Nation", the box-office performances of the two films were likely much closer. The bulk of the earnings from "Gone with the Wind" came from its roadshow and