USPS Great Film Directors - John Ford

USPS on 23 May 2012 issued a First Day Cover stamp commemorating John Ford. It was one of four in their Great Film Directors series. This 45¢ stamp was designed by Avery Dennison. A Photogravure printing method was used render 6,250,000 copies of this multicoloured stamps. Postmark cancellation originated from Silver Spring, Maryland.

In his 50-year career, John Ford (1894-1973) directed over 130 films between 1917 and 1970 (although most of his silent films are now lost), and received six Academy Awards including a record four wins for Best Director for The Informer (1935), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), How Green Was My Valley (1941), and The Quiet Man (1952). Ford’s first major success, The Iron Horse (1924), was one of the top-grossing films of the decade. 

Ford is renowned for his Westerns, such as Stagecoach (1939), My Darling Clementine (1946), Fort Apache (1948), The Searchers (1956), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962); though he worked in many other genres, including comedies, period dramas, and documentaries. He made frequent use of location shooting and wide shots, in which his characters were framed against a vast, harsh, and rugged natural terrain. He is credited with launching the careers of some of Hollywood's biggest stars during the 1930s, '40s, and '50s, including John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Maureen O'Hara and James Stewart.

During WWII, he served in the U.S. Navy producing documentaries, and was injured at the Battle of Midway. Ford won a record four Academy Awards, received the American Film Institute’s first Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Source: Mystic Stamps and Wikipedia