Delmar "Del" Lord (October 7, 1894 â€" March 23, 1970) was a Canadian
film director and actor best known as a director of Three Stooges
films.Delmer Lord was born in the small town of Grimsby, Ontario,
Canada. Interested in the theatre, he traveled to New York City, then
when fellow Canadian Mack Sennett offered him a job at his new
Keystone Studios, Lord went on to work in Hollywood, California. There
he played the driver of the Keystone Cops police van, appearing in
many of the Kops' successful films.Given a chance to direct, Del Lord
became a specialist in automotive gags, rigging cars to explode,
crash, fall apart, or dangle in precarious positions. Lord was
responsible for a number of very successful comedies for Keystone and
directed two feature films for Universal Pictures. However, the Great
Depression plagued the film industry with budget cuts, and Sennett was
forced to close his studio in 1933. Hal Roach launched a brief series
of slapstick comedies with "The Taxi Boys" (Clyde Cook, Billy Gilbert,
Billy Bevan, and other expressive comedians), and these films required
outlandish visual gags and a fleet of crazy cars. Del Lord was the
ideal man to direct, and he worked on these comedies exclusively for a
year. After leaving Roach, Lord joined producer Phil Ryan's
short-comedy unit at Paramount Pictures. During the summer of 1934
Lord took a job selling used cars at a relative's automobile agency.
Producer Jules White, shopping for a Buick, encountered Lord at the
agency and hired him to work at Columbia Pictures.From 1935 to 1945,
Lord directed some of Columbia's fastest and funniest two-reelers and
is credited with developing the unique comic style of the Three
Stooges. In addition to more than three dozen Stooges films, on which
he collaborated first with Jules White and then Hugh McCollum, over
his career he directed or produced more than 200 motion pictures. Lord
was promoted to feature films in 1944 (he was replaced as a Stooge
director by Edward Bernds). Curiously, Lord's Columbia features are
action melodramas rather than slapstick comedies.
film director and actor best known as a director of Three Stooges
films.Delmer Lord was born in the small town of Grimsby, Ontario,
Canada. Interested in the theatre, he traveled to New York City, then
when fellow Canadian Mack Sennett offered him a job at his new
Keystone Studios, Lord went on to work in Hollywood, California. There
he played the driver of the Keystone Cops police van, appearing in
many of the Kops' successful films.Given a chance to direct, Del Lord
became a specialist in automotive gags, rigging cars to explode,
crash, fall apart, or dangle in precarious positions. Lord was
responsible for a number of very successful comedies for Keystone and
directed two feature films for Universal Pictures. However, the Great
Depression plagued the film industry with budget cuts, and Sennett was
forced to close his studio in 1933. Hal Roach launched a brief series
of slapstick comedies with "The Taxi Boys" (Clyde Cook, Billy Gilbert,
Billy Bevan, and other expressive comedians), and these films required
outlandish visual gags and a fleet of crazy cars. Del Lord was the
ideal man to direct, and he worked on these comedies exclusively for a
year. After leaving Roach, Lord joined producer Phil Ryan's
short-comedy unit at Paramount Pictures. During the summer of 1934
Lord took a job selling used cars at a relative's automobile agency.
Producer Jules White, shopping for a Buick, encountered Lord at the
agency and hired him to work at Columbia Pictures.From 1935 to 1945,
Lord directed some of Columbia's fastest and funniest two-reelers and
is credited with developing the unique comic style of the Three
Stooges. In addition to more than three dozen Stooges films, on which
he collaborated first with Jules White and then Hugh McCollum, over
his career he directed or produced more than 200 motion pictures. Lord
was promoted to feature films in 1944 (he was replaced as a Stooge
director by Edward Bernds). Curiously, Lord's Columbia features are
action melodramas rather than slapstick comedies.
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