Former University of Southern California law student, who joined MGM as script clerk and had the good fortune to marry the niece of Louis B. Mayer. After directing a series of short featurettes during the 1930s, he moved up to feature films (MGM contract, 1943-51 and 1954-58). Most were B-movies, but he occasionally handled such A-graders as
Our Vines Have Tender Grapes (1945) and
Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956). After leaving MGM, he made a trio of spaghetti westerns in Italy.