Career
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 numerous of the successful films.
Given a chance to direct, Del Lord was responsible for a number of very successful comedies for Keystone and directed two feature films for Universal Pictures. However, the Great Depression devastated the film industry and Sennett was forced to close his studio in 1933. Work was scarce and Del Lord had to take a job selling used cars until a friend at Columbia Pictures offered him work.
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. Del 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.
Lord worked briefly for Monogram Pictures in 1946, and returned to Columbia in 1948. In 1952, he directed Buster Keaton in an industrial featurette, A Paradise for Buster. Del Lord can be seen in an episode of TV's This Is Your Life, honoring Lord's old boss Mack Sennett.
Read more about this topic: Del Lord
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“The 19-year-old Diana ... decided to make her career that of wife. Today that can be a very, very iffy line of work.... And what sometimes happens to the women who pursue it is the best argument imaginable for teaching girls that they should always be able to take care of themselves.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“I began my editorial career with the presidency of Mr. Adams, and my principal object was to render his administration all the assistance in my power. I flattered myself with the hope of accompanying him through [his] voyage, and of partaking in a trifling degree, of the glory of the enterprise; but he suddenly tacked about, and I could follow him no longer. I therefore waited for the first opportunity to haul down my sails.”
—William Cobbett (1762–1835)
“From a hasty glance through the various tests I figure it out that I would be classified in Group B, indicating “Low Average Ability,” reserved usually for those just learning to speak the English Language and preparing for a career of holding a spike while another man hits it.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)