Andre Roosevelt

Biography

Andre Roosevelt was an entrepreneur and filmmaker who tried to develop the tourist industry in Bali in the 1920s in order to preserve the native culture by turning the island into a national park. As part of his aspirations, he wrote the screenplay for the 1932 film "Goona-Goona, An Authentic Melodrama" (aka Kriss (1931)) that, upon being released in America in 1932, created a Bali craze. Andre was the first cousin, once-removed, of US President Theodore Roosevelt; his father Cornelius was related to Teddy. After marrying a French actress, Cornelius was living in Paris when Andre was born in 1879. He was first involved with the movies in 1917, when he served as a production manager on director Wesley Ruggles's WWI propaganda picture For France (1917) for Vitagraph Films. "Goona Goona" was made with Armand Denis, a Belgian documentary filmmaker. The two began shooting footage of Bali on a trip there in 1928. The film combined documentary footage with a fictional romantic story about the love between a native prince and a servant.