George Melford
George H. Melford (
February 19,
1877 â€"
April 25,
1961) was an
American stage and
film actor and
film director.
Born in
Rochester, New York, Melford graduated from
McGill University in
Montreal, Canada. He was an accomplished stage actor working in
Cincinnati, Ohio before joining the
Kalem Company motion picture business in
New York City in 1909. Hired by
Sidney Olcott for
character actor roles, in the fall of 1910 he was sent to work with a film crew on the
West Coast. In 1911, with
Robert Vignola, he co-directed
Ruth Roland in his first short film titled
"Arizona Bill" based on a script he had written. From there, Melford went on to direct another thirty films for Kalem Studios until 1915 when he was hired by
Jesse L. Lasky to direct feature-length films for his
Feature Play Company. That same year, Melford became one of the founding members of the
Motion Picture Directors Association.
In 1916, George Melford directed
"To Have and to Hold," a film based on the
Mary Johnston novel that had been the
bestselling novel in the United States for the year 1900. In 1921, he directed what is probably his most famous
silent film"The Sheik", starring
Rudolph Valentino .
Melford remained with Lasky's company for ten years then joined
Universal Studios where he directed his first
talkie in 1929. The following year, because he could speak the language, he co-directed four
Spanish language films including the 1931 acclaimed Spanish version of
DrĂ¡cula. Melford filmed it simultaneously with the English version on the same sets at night using a different cast and crew.
His last major work as a director came in 1937 when he and
Harry L. Fraser co-directed
Columbia Pictures' first
serial, a 15 episode, five hour long
adventure film titled
"Jungle Menace" and starring
Frank Buck. At age sixty, the
workaholic Melford needed to slow down and decided to give up the stressful job of directing to take on simple
character actor roles. However, in 1946 Harry L. Fraser convinced him to co-direct
"Jungle Terror," a feature-length
sequel to their successful
"Jungle Menace" serial.
George Melford married Louise Knauft Marsland around 1898. They had a son, Judson Calkins Melford born in 1900 in New York city. As a boy, Judson Melford appeared with his father in several films between 1911 and 1913. George Melford next marriage, which lasted two years, was to actress Diana Miller who died of
tuberculocous on December 19, 1927, at the age of 25.
Melford loved the film business, and although financially independent, he never stopped working. Having directed more than one hundred and thirty films, he continued to work in small character roles, notably making an appearance in the 1956 epic
The Ten Commandments. He appeared in his last film in 1960 at the age of eighty-three, passing away in Hollywood the following year of heart failure. He is interred in
Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery in
North Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.
Selected directorial works:Arizona Bill (1911)
The Boer War (1914)
Young Romance (1915)
To Have and to Hold (1916)
The Sea Wolf (1920)
Behold My Wife (1920)
The Sheik (1921)
Burning Sands (1922)
Going Crooked (1926)
La Voluntad del muerto (The Cat and the Canary) (1930)
DrĂ¡cula (1931)
The Viking (1931)
The Penal Code (1933)
Jungle Menace (serial) (1937)
Jungle Terror (1946)
