1. William Washington Beaudine was an American film director.
27 Facts About William Beaudine
2.
William Beaudine was one of Hollywood's most prolific directors, turning out a remarkable 179 feature-length films in a wide variety of genres.
3.
William Beaudine married Marguerite Fleischer in 1914 and they stayed married until his death.
4.
William Beaudine's sister was the mother of actor Bobby Anderson.
5.
William Beaudine's brother Harold William Beaudine was a director of short, action-filled comedies.
6.
In 1915, William Beaudine was hired as an actor and director by the Kalem Company.
7.
William Beaudine would continue to direct shorts exclusively until 1922, working with Bobby Vernon at the Al Christie studio and Snub Pollard at the Hal Roach studio.
8.
The 1959 book, Classics of the Silent Screen: A Pictorial Treasury, remarks on "what a really fine director William Beaudine was in the silent era, long before he became the principal director of the Bowery Boys 'B' comedies".
9.
William Beaudine began making feature-length films for then-struggling Warner Bros.
10.
William Beaudine directed silent films for Goldwyn Pictures, Metro Pictures, First National Pictures, and Sol Lesser's Principal Pictures.
11.
William Beaudine had at least 30 pictures to his credit before the sound era began.
12.
William Beaudine was one of a number of experienced directors who were brought to England from Hollywood in the 1930s to work on what were in all other respects very British productions.
13.
William Beaudine directed 11 features there from 1935 through 1937, including Boys Will Be Boys and Where There's a Will starring Will Hay, and the George Formby comedy Feather Your Nest.
14.
William Beaudine returned to America in 1937 and had trouble re-establishing himself at the major studios.
15.
Once widely known as an A-list director of important productions, William Beaudine had commanded a premium salary in the late 1920s that Hollywood producers of the late 1930s didn't want to match.
16.
William Beaudine had lost much of his personal fortune through no fault of his own.
17.
Beaudine knew that if he accepted this job, he would henceforth be associated with low-budget films and would never command his old salary again, but with his finances at a low ebb Beaudine accepted the assignment, under his "William X Crowley" alias.
18.
William Beaudine hired Beaudine to direct Misbehaving Husbands, noteworthy at the time as the comeback feature of silent-screen clown Harry Langdon.
19.
Langdon and William Beaudine received critical raves for their work: "Preview house rewarded them with practically solid laughter" ; "Easily [Langdon's] best performance in years".
20.
William Beaudine became a low-budget specialist, forsaking his artistic ambitions in favor of strictly commercial film fare, and recouping his financial losses through sheer volume of work.
21.
William Beaudine made dozens of comedies, thrillers and melodramas with such popular personalities as Bela Lugosi, Ralph Byrd, Edmund Lowe, Jean Parker, and The East Side Kids.
22.
William Beaudine became a fixture at the ambitious Monogram Pictures and directed fully half of the 48 comedy features starring The Bowery Boys.
23.
William Beaudine occasionally directed special-interest productions, like the 1945 crusade-for-sex-education feature Mom and Dad, produced by Kroger Babb, and the 1950 religious drama Again Pioneers, produced by the Protestant Film Commission.
24.
William Beaudine was often entrusted with series films, including the Torchy Blane, The East Side Kids, Jiggs and Maggie, The Shadow, Charlie Chan, and The Bowery Boys series.
25.
William Beaudine's efficiency was so well known that Walt Disney hired him to direct some of his television projects of the 1950s and had him direct a feature western, Ten Who Dared.
26.
William Beaudine became even busier in TV, directing Naked City, The Green Hornet, and dozens of Lassie episodes.
27.
William Beaudine died of uremic poisoning in 1970, aged 78, in California.