If we were going to make a list of the greatest directors in film history, some of the names that would be mentioned might be Ford, Kurosawa, Hitchcock, Hawks and others.

[caption id="attachment_176" align="alignleft" width="231" caption="Victor Fleming with Vivien Leigh"]<img class="size-medium wp-image-176" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/gone-with-the-wnd-231x300.jpg" alt="Victor Fleming with Vivien Leigh" width="231" height="300" />[/caption]

A name that wouldn't make some of those short lists would be Victor Fleming, but the California native -- he was born in La Canada in 1889 -- had the honor of directing maybe the two most beloved movies in history.

Fleming directed "The Wizard of Oz" and "Gone With the Wind," which were both released in 1939, a year many people still consider the best in the history of Hollywood. Ironically, he wasn't the initial director on either. It was in GWTW that it caused the most furor. The original director was George Cukor, who was considered a "women's director." Producer David O. Selznick was reportedly unhappy with the pace of Cukor's work, and replaced him with Fleming.

Ironically, Cukor might have made that short list at the beginning, directing movies like "The Philadelphia Story" and "Adam's Rib."

Fleming not only didn't make a lot of films after GWTW, he didn't even live that long. He died in 1949 and the age of 59.

So in some ways, he is almost a forgotten footnote.

But just think about it. Within the space of a year or so, he directed two movies that quite possibly are what Hollywood was all about -- "The Wizard of Oz" and "Gone With the Wind."

Not a bad legacy at all.