Filmmaker responsible for many popular American films, including Mister Roberts from 1955 and The Bad Seed from 1956.
He was a vaudeville performer before heading to Hollywood, where he first worked as a camera assistant, in costumes, and in the processing labs. He was also a gag Writer for silent films in which he occasionally acted.
He worked on eight Academy Award-nominated films, including Random Harvest in 1943 and The Wizard of Oz in 1939.
He married Doris Warner, his second wife, in 1934 and they had two children together. They divorced in 1945. He later married Katherine Spiegel in 1946, and they also had two children.
He discovered such luminaries as Lana Turner . He convinced her to change her name.
