Happy Birthday. George Marshall! Born today in 1891 as George E. Marshall, this prolific American actor, screenwriter, producer, and film and television director was active through the first six decades of film history.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, Marshall, years later, dropped out of Chicago University in 1912.
Marshall was an unsettled young man, drifting from job to job. He was variously employed as a mechanic, newspaper reporter and lumberjack with a logging outfit in Washington state.
Marshall was a versatile American director who came to Hollywood to visit his mother in Los Angeles, California and "have a bit of fun".
Trying his luck in the emerging film industry, he got his start at Universal Studios and was put to work as an extra.
While there, it was his powerful, six-foot frame that served him well for doing stunt work in westerns. This earned him a dollar every time he fell off of a horse.
Marshall was first glimpsed on-screen in a bit as a laundry delivery man in Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle's 1916 American silent black and white comedy film 'The Waiters' Ball'.
However, the acting gig wasn't to Marshall's taste, though, and, within a year he moved on to writing and directing.
The majority of his early assignments were two-reel westerns and adventure serials, starring the popular American stage and film actress and film producer Ruth Roland.
A jack-of-all-trades, Marshall was later prone to remark that in those days he often needed to double as cameraman and editor as well, often cutting his film with a pair of scissors and splicing it with cement.
In the 1920s, Marshall worked with American film actor Tom Mix.
Marshall then became a comedy specialist for the 'King of Comedy', being Canadian-American film actor, director, and producer, and studio head, Mack Sennett, turning out as many as sixty-one or two-reelers per year.
At Fox Studios, Marshall served as supervising director on all of the studio's comedic output between 1925 and 1930.
At the beginning of the sound era, Marshall joined American film and television producer, director, actor and studio executive Hal Roach.
Marshall then directed comedies with American actress and businesswoman Thelma Todd (Strictly Unreliable (1932)).
This was also in directing two of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy's best shorts: 'Their First Mistake' (1932) and 'Towed in a Hole' (1932)).
Always adept at visual comedy, Marshall directed (and also turned up to good effect in a cameo as a hard-boiled army cop) in 'Pack Up Your Troubles' (1932).
However, economic conditions forced a downsizing at Roach, and Marshall returned to Fox Studios in 1934, staying there for four years.
Marshall also worked on a variety of comedies for Fox Studios, though many of his films at Fox Studios were destroyed in a vault fire in 1937.
He later worked at Universal Studios (1939-1940) and Paramount (1942-1950, and 1952-1954).
One of Marshall's biggest critical and financial successes was the film of which he is also best known for directing. This was the 1939 American black and white Western/comedy film 'Destry Rides Again'.
It had re-invigorated the career of Marlene Dietrich (Frenchy) and became Universal Studio's top box-office hit for the year, grossing $1.6 million against a budget of $700,000 or $765,000.
Set in the small town of Bottleneck, it is under the control of Kent (Brian Donlevy), a power-hungry boss who gets control over the local cattle ranchers by winning a rigged game of cards.
When the local sheriff questions the legitimacy of the game, Kent has him killed and names the town drunk, Washington Dimsdale (Charles Winninger), as sheriff.
What Kent doesn't know is that Dimsdale knows legendary lawman Tom Destry, who in turns sends his daring son, Thomas Jefferson "Tom" Destry Jr. (James Stewart) to Bottleneck to save the day.
Prior to 'Destry Rides Again', Marshall controlled the antics of W.C. Fields in 'You Can't Cheat an Honest Man' (1939), co-starring Edgar Bergen.
The film was also co-directed by American screenwriter, actor, writer, and director who would co-direct a W.C. Fields film the following year, being 'The Bank Dick' (1940).
One year later, there was also a fruitful association for Marshall with Bob Hope, beginning with 'The Ghost Breakers' (1940).
In the mid to late 1940s, Marshall had helped Betty Hutton on her way to stardom with the biopics 'Incendiary Blonde' (1945) and 'The Perils of Pauline' (1947).
Marshall had also directed Alan Ladd in the American noir/crime film 'The Blue Dahlia' (1946).
Freelancing over the next two decades, Marshall turned out three superior vehicles for Canadian-American actor Glenn Ford.
These were 'The Sheepman' (1958) and two comedies being 'The Gazebo' (1959) and 'Advance to the Rear' (1964).
Marshall was one of three directors (the other two were John Ford and Henry Hathaway ['Peter Ibbetson']) assigned individual segments of the blockbuster 'How the West Was Won' (1962).
Towards the end of his long career, Marshall helmed several episodes of the Daniel Boone (1964–1970) and Lucille Ball television series.
In 1969, Ball personally chose Marshall to direct eleven episodes of her American sitcom Here's Lucy (1968–1974).
While Marshall worked on almost all kinds of films imaginable, he started his career in the early silent period doing mostly Westerns, a genre he never completely abandoned.
Later in his career, he was particularly sought after for comedies. He did around half a dozen films each with Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis, and also worked with W.C. Fields, Jackie Gleason, Will Rogers and Laurel and Hardy.
While Marshall worked on almost every type of film imaginable, he started his career in the early silent period doing mostly Westerns, a genre he never completely abandoned.
For his contribution to the film industry, Marshall has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It is located at 7048 Hollywood Boulevard.
In 1996, 'Destry Rides Again' was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Romanian-born British-American actor and producer of theatre, film, and television John Houseman once called Marshall "one of the old maestros of Hollywood... he had never become one of the giants but he held a solid and honorable position in the industry."
With at least one hundred and eighty-five directing credits to his name (there may have been as many as four hundred, given his prolific output of shorts during the 1910s), Marshall retired from making films in 1972.
Three years later, he passed from a two-week illness in Los Angeles, California on February 17, 1975. Marshall was 83.
Throughout his career, Marshall had proved adept at most genres, with comedies, musicals, and westerns dominating his oeuvre.
Marshall had been active from 1915–1975.
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