The UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television (UCLA TFT) began at UCLA as the Theater Arts Department in 1947. Film producer Kenneth Macgowan (Little Women, 1933; Becky Sharp, 1935) was its first chair. One of his initial hires was William Melnitz, a German theater director émigré who had worked with the legendary Max Reinhardt, and who became the department's chair in 1953. In 1960 the department became part of the UCLA College of Fine Arts; Melnitz was its founding dean.