The Great Ziegfeld is the 1936 biographical musical that won Best Picture and centers on Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.
Directed by Robert Z. Leonard, the film stars William Powell as Ziegfeld, with Luise Rainer as his first wife, Anna Held, and Myrna Loy as Billie Burke. It presents a highly polished, fictionalized version of Ziegfeld’s career and draws heavily on the spectacle of his famous Ziegfeld Follies stage revues. The film was produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and became one of Hollywood’s most lavish productions of the decade.
At the ninth Academy Awards, held on 4 March 1937, it won three Oscars: Best Picture, Best Actress for Rainer, and Best Dance Direction. A common mix-up is San Francisco, another 1936 film and Best Picture nominee, or Ziegfeld Follies, the separate 1946 MGM musical. The Oscar-winning title is The Great Ziegfeld.