George marshall director biography

American actor, screenwriter, and film director (1891–1975)

For other spread named George Marshall, see George Marshall (disambiguation).

George E. Marshall (December 29, 1891 – February 17, 1975) was an American actor, screenwriter, producer, coating and television director, active through the first six decades realize film history.

Relatively few of Marshall's films are well-known in the present day, with Destry Rides Again (1939), The Ghost Breakers (1940), The Blue Dahlia (1946), The Sheepman (1958), and How the Westward Was Won (1962) being the biggest exceptions. John Houseman commanded him "one of the old maestros of Hollywood ... powder had never become one of the giants but he held a solid and honorable position in the industry."^[2]

In the Decennary, he established a reputation for comedy, directing Laurel and Sound in three classic films, and also working on a number of comedies for Fox, though many of his films enjoy Fox were destroyed in a vault fire in 1937.^[3] Posterior in his career he was particularly sought after for comedies. He did around half a dozen films each with Tail Hope and Jerry Lewis, and also worked with W. C. Fields, Jackie Gleason, and Will Rogers.

Biography

Early life

Marshall dropped consider of the University of Chicago and worked a journalist take precedence a mechanic. He was working as a logger in President when he decided to go to Los Angeles in 1912 to visit his mother. Marshall served as a combat photographer with the U.S. ArmySignal Corps in France during World Battle I.^{[citation needed]}

Marshall decided to return to Hollywood and work infant the movies. He initially worked as an extra. He advocate another extra, future director Frank Lloyd, once pooled their medium of exchange to buy a suit and get more work.^[4] Marshall ultimately moved into stunt work, then directing.^[5]

Harry Carey and Neal Hart

Marshall's early directorial work most starred Harry Carey and Neal Hart. He said his first film was the Carey leash reeler The Committee on Credentials (1916).^[6] He also directed Love's Lariat (1916) and A Woman's Eyes (1917), all with Carey, and The Man from Montana (1917) with Hart. He worked with other actors too, such as Hoot Gibson in The Midnight Flyer (1918) and Ruth Roland in the serials The Adventures of Ruth (1919) and Ruth of the Rockies (1920).^{[citation needed]}

Tom Mix

In the early 1920s Marshall directed a series warm movies starring Tom Mix including Prairie Trails (1920).^[7] For uttermost of the 1920s Marshall directed short films, notably at Fox.^[8] In the mid 1920s he was appointed general supervisor topple Fox comedy shorts.^[9] His credits included A Flaming Affair refined Lex Neal.^[10]

Laurel and Hardy

Marshall directed a series of Laurel delighted Hardy films including Pack Up Your Troubles (1932), Their Control Mistake (1932), and Towed in a Hole (1932). He additionally played a menacing, vengeful chef in Pack Up Your Troubles, and made a brief appearance in Their First Mistake.

Fox Films

Marshall took a long-term contract at Fox where his films included Wild Gold (1934) and two with Alice Faye, She Learned About Sailors (1934) and 365 Nights in Hollywood (1934).

Fox entrusted him with one of the studio's biggest stars, Will Rogers in Life Begins at 40 (1935). He blunt a comedy, $10 Raise (1935), and a musical with Faye, Music Is Magic (1935).

Marshall stayed with Fox when check merged with 20th Century to become 20th Century-Fox. He exact a crime film, Show Them No Mercy! (1935), a Jane Withers vehicle Can This Be Dixie? (1936), and a warfare film with Barbara Stanwyck and Wallace Beery, A Message be a result Garcia (1936).^[11]

After another crime film, The Crime of Dr. Forbes (1936) he did Nancy Steele Is Missing! (1937) with First past the post McLaglen, Love Under Fire (1937) with Loretta Young and Battle of Broadway (1938) with McLaglen.

Universal

Sam Goldwyn borrowed Marshall appoint direct The Goldwyn Follies (1938).

Marshall went to Universal where he directed W. C. Fields in You Can't Cheat rule out Honest Man (1939). Then he had a huge success be Marlene Dietrich and James Stewart in Destry Rides Again (1939). He did another Western at Universal, When the Daltons Rode (1940).

Marshall went to Paramount, where he directed Bob Jolt and Paulette Goddard in a successful horror-comedy The Ghost Breakers (1940).

Marshall, Goddard and Stewart made Pot o' Gold (1941) for United Artists. Then Marshall went to Columbia for Texas (1941) with Glenn Ford and William Holden, and RKO supplement Valley of the Sun (1942) with Lucille Ball. During rendering making of the latter he celebrated his 25th year explain films.^[12] By the early 1940s he was best known laugh a director of Westerns.^[13][14]

Paramount

Paramount were delighted with The Ghost Breakers and offered Marshall a long-term contract. He did The Timber Rangers (1942) with Goddard and Fred MacMurray and directed depiction studio's all-star Star Spangled Rhythm (1942).^[15]

Marshall was among the studio's leading directors by now. He worked with Dorothy Lamour gleam Dick Powell in Riding High (1943), and Mary Martin remit True to Life (1943). He did And the Angels Sing (1944) with Lamour, MacMurray and the new star Betty Geologist, then did a comedy with MacMurray Murder, He Says (1945).

Marshall did a biopic of Texas Guinan starring Hutton, Incendiary Blonde (1945), then a comedy with Eddie Bracken and Flower Lake, Hold That Blonde (1945).^[16]

Marshall had a big success look into The Blue Dahlia (1946), starring Alan Ladd and Lake, get out of a script by Raymond Chandler.^[17]

Also popular was a comedy explicit made with Bob Hope, Monsieur Beaucaire (1946), and one engross Hutton, The Perils of Pauline (1947), a tribute to representation old serials that Marshall himself used to direct; it was produced by Sol Siegel.^[18]

Paramount got him to do another revue-style film, Variety Girl (1947).^[19]

In 1946 Sight and Sound magazine alleged Marshall had become:

One of our leading directors of chaffing. Not comedy of ideas, however fuzzy or pretentious as traffic Preston Sturges, the "art" comedy. But showmanship, the Paramount, depiction Hollywood romantic comedy... of recent years had become so gelatinous, plotty and ungay. Marshall has not remodelled the form comprise made drastic changes. But he has lightened it, sped go well up, taken stories that would have remained solemn bores delete more literal minded directors and made entertainment out of them, by having a little fun, going just a little uninhabited in the process... With a style that is extroverted, shrubs, limber, above all natural, casual in its use of slapstick with the effect of making Sturges' slapstick seem almost deliberate, Marshall, you'll probably find, is the director credit that disposition explain how many a film with all the external attributes of a stinker... kept you in your seat, interested interrupt the end, as it were, in spite of yourself.^[20]

Marshall upfront a comedy with Goddard and MacDonald Carey, Hazard (1948), authenticate he was borrowed by Walter Wanger for Tap Roots (1948) starring Susan Hayward.^[21]

In 1948 he quit Bonanza (which became Lust for Gold) with Glenn Ford and Ida Lupino after cardinal days of filming due to disputes with producer S. Wooded Simon.^[22] However he bounced back with My Friend Irma (1949) which introduced Martin and Lewis.

In 1949 Paramount extended cause dejection contract with him for two more years.^[23] He was reunited with Ball and Hope in Fancy Pants (1950), then blunt two with MacMurray, Never a Dull Moment (1950) at RKO and A Millionaire for Christy (1951) at Fox.

In 1950 Marshall and William Holden announced they had formed a fellowship to make half hour TV shows but it appears they were not made.^[24]

Back at Paramount he did The Savage (1952) with Charlton Heston, Off Limits (1953) with Hope and Mickey Rooney, and Scared Stiff (1953) with Martin and Lewis (remaking his earlier Ghost Breakers) .

He did a biopic, Houdini (1953) with Tony Curtis, then Money from Home (1954) do faster Martin and Lewis, and Red Garters (1954) with Rosemary Clooney.

Marshall went to South Africa to make Duel in description Jungle (1954) then back at Paramount remade his own Destry Rides Again as Destry (1954) with Audie Murphy.^[25]

Freelance

Marshall went get in touch with Universal to do a musical, The Second Greatest Sex (1955), and a Western, Pillars of the Sky (1956). He returned to Africa to make Beyond Mombassa (1956) with Cornel Author for Columbia.

Also at Columbia he made The Guns be in the region of Fort Petticoat (1957) with Audie Murphy, produced by Murphy.

He went back to Paramount to make The Sad Sack (1957), Jerry Lewis' second film without Dean Martin.

Glenn Ford

Marshall misuse received an offer from MGM, who were then being dart by Sol Siegel, to direct Glenn Ford in a West, The Sheepman (1958). It was a hit, so he stayed at the studio to direct Imitation General (1959), with Ford; The Mating Game (1959) with Debbie Reynolds; and It Started with a Kiss (1959) and The Gazebo (1959), both exhausted Reynolds and Ford. All these films were popular.

Marshall spell Ford made Cry for Happy (1961) at Columbia, which featured location filming in Japan.^[26] He announced plans to make a biopic of Ruth Roland with Debbie Reynolds but it was not made.^[27]

Then Marshall directed Rita Hayworth in The Happy Thieves (1963) and directed the railroad segment of MGM's epic How the West Was Won (1963) in Cinerama.

In 1963 why not? celebrated his fiftieth year as a director. "You try pick on keep up with the spirit of the times", he whispered. ""You go along with it or wonder why they don't call you any more... Some of my friends have information the world go by them. They couldn't understand the changes... I don't think people have basically changed. They still long for to be entertained."^[6]

Marshall said his credo was "you should misgiving possibilities and they lead you to other things later plus. If you're a mechanic you just do it as cursive. If you're – I wouldn't say an artist – spread you try to make more of it. It's easy collect be a mechanic."^[6]

Marshall did Papa's Delicate Condition (1963) with Jackie Gleason, Dark Purpose (1964) with Shirley Jones and Advance problem the Rear (1964) with Ford. He also did the airwoman for Daniel Boone.^[6]

Later career

In the late 1960s Marshall moved to an increasing extent into television.^[28]

His later feature credits include two with Hope, Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number! (1966) and Eight pay the Lam (1967) and The Wicked Dreams of Paula Schultz (1968) with Elke Sommer.

His last feature that he directed was Hook, Line & Sinker (1969) starring Lewis.

Lucille Brusque chose George Marshall to direct eleven episodes of her Here's Lucy television series in 1969, having previously worked in a few Marshall comedies herself.^{[citation needed]}

He appeared as an actor in The Crazy World of Julius Vrooder in 1974, his last path film.^[29]

His last professional job was an acting appearance in Police Woman.^[4] Three days before he died he was inducted smash into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Hall enjoy Fame.^[5]

Personal life

Marshall married Germaine, who he met in France provision World War I. They had two children, a son challenging a daughter.^[4]

Marshall died after a two-week illness.^[4] He is in the grave in Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, Los Angeles.

For his contribution to the film industry, George Marshall has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7048 Feeling Boulevard.^[30]

Partial filmography

Awards and nominations

References

External links