1930–1939

At the age of 17, Hal Roach Studios employed him as an assistant cameraman filming Rex the Wonder Horse in Utah.^[3]: 10:00 Stevens helped grant Stan Laurel a film career, as the studio had trouble getting the comedian's blue eyes to register on film, but Stevens made a successful test of him using panchromatic film.^{[3]: 11:00–12:00} He worked as director of photography and a gag writer on 35 Laurel and Hardy short films, such as Bacon Grabbers (1929) and Night Owls (1930); according to Stevens he learned from this experience that comedy could be "graceful and human".^[3]: 12:00 In 1928, he met Yvonne Howell in Oliver Hardy's home; they were married on January 1, 1930.^[4] In the early 1930s, Stevens began to disagree with Roach's studio, wanting to flesh out characters rather than just make slapstick comedy. This led to a suspension and his departure from the studio.^[3]: 14:00 In 1933, he directed his first feature film, The Cohens and Kellys in Trouble, for Universal Pictures.

In 1934, Stevens was hired by RKO Pictures, and he directed the slapstick film Kentucky Kernels, starring Wheeler and Woolsey. His big break came when he directed Katharine Hepburn the next year in Alice Adams; according to Hepburn, Stevens felt that she got him the job.^{[3]: 15:00, 30:00} He would subsequently make seven films for the studio in five years.^[3]: 15:00 In the late 1930s, he directed Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers together in the musical Swing Time and separately in A Damsel in Distress and Vivacious Lady, respectively. In 1939, Stevens directed Cary Grant in the large-scale Gunga Din, costing over $1 million as RKO's most expensive film to date; though the studio feared its ballooning budget, it ended up a profitable success.^{[3]: 23:00, 27:00}

1940–1949

In 1940, he directed Carole Lombard in Vigil in the Night. In 1942, he reunited with Hepburn at her behest to film Woman of the Year.^[3]: 30:00 Stevens served as president of the Screen Directors Guild (SDG) from 1941 to 1943.^[5] He directed the romantic comedy The More the Merrier starring Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea and Charles Coburn for which he received an Academy Award for Best Director nomination losing to Michael Curtiz for Casablanca. After seeing the Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will (1935), he was provoked to join the Allied forces in World War II.^[5]

He joined the U.S. Army Signal Corps and headed a film unit from 1943 to 1946, under General Dwight D. Eisenhower.^[6][7] His unit shot footage—including the only color film of the war in Europe (which remained archived for decades)—documenting the Normandy landings (D-Day),^[3]: 47:00 the liberation of Paris,^[3]: 51:00 the meeting of American and Soviet forces at the Elbe River, and the Allied discovery of both the Duben labor camp and Dachau concentration camp.^{[6][3]: 57:00} Stevens helped prepare the Duben and Dachau footage and other material for presentation during the Nuremberg Trials;^[8] this was released as the hour-long Nazi Concentration Camps (1945).^[9] In 2008, Stevens's footage was entered into the U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as an "essential visual record" of the war.^[6][10] In 1946, Stevens resumed his duties as president of the SDG, remaining so until 1948.^[5][2] As a result of his experiences during the war, his films became more dramatic.^[3]: 59:00 The drama I Remember Mama (1948) was only partly comedic.

1950–1975

In 1950, during the McCarthyist scare and related Hollywood blacklist, Stevens defended Joseph L. Mankiewicz from Cecil B. DeMille's attempt to recall him as president of the SDG.^[11][5] Stevens went on to direct and earn two Academy Awards for Best Director for A Place in the Sun (1951) starring Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor, the epic Western drama Giant (1956) Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson and James Dean. For those films he also earned nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Director.

Stevens also directed the Western Shane (1953) starring Alan Ladd and Jean Arthur, the biographical Holocaust drama The Diary of Anne Frank (1959), and his biblical epic of Jesus, The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965). In 1960 he earned the Directors Guild of America Lifetime Achievement Award. That same year he earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He ended his directing career with the 1970 romantic comedy-drama The Only Game in Town with Warren Beatty and Elizabeth Taylor. That year, he was head of the jury at the 20th Berlin International Film Festival, which ended in scandal.^[12][13] In 1973, he was a member of the jury at the 8th Moscow International Film Festival.^[14]

Short films

Feature films