Gordon Douglas

His westerns and crime dramas for Warners met with critical and financial success, and it was during this period that he made what is considered one of the classic sci-fi films of the era: Them! (1954).

Directed one Oscar nominated performance: Gig Young in Come Fill the Cup (1951).

He then went to Columbia for several years, but in 1950 he headed over to Warner Brothers, where he would stay for the next 15 years and where he would find his greatest successes.

Although he had his share of clunkers, and has at times expressed dissatisfaction with his career (he once said, "Don't try to watch all the films I've directed; it would turn you off movies forever"), he was responsible for some of the more enjoyable films of the 1950s and 1960s.

Douglas left Roach for RKO, for which he directed about a dozen films from 1942 to 1947, mostly routine programmers.

Starting out as a child actor, Gordon Douglas was eventually hired by Hal Roach as a gag writer. His first directorial assignments were for Roach's "Our Gang" series. Graduating to features, Douglas stayed with comedies, directing Oliver Hardy in Zenobia (1939) and both Hardy and Stan Laurel in Saps at Sea (1940).

Slid 15 feet from the top of the Old Woman's Shoe and tore ligaments in his left leg during the filming of March of the Wooden Soldiers (1934), on which he worked as an assistant director.