John M. Stahl

John M. Stahl
Still from theSowing the Wind with film producers William Nicholas Selig and Louis B. Mayer and director John M. Stahl examine the film from one "take"
Born	Jacob Morris Strelitsky January 21, 1886 Baku Azerbaijan
Died	January 12, 1950(1950-01-12) (aged 63) Hollywood, California, U.S.
Cause of death	heart attack
Nationality	United States
Occupation	Film director and producer

John Malcolm Stahl (January 21, 1886 – January 12, 1950) was an American film director and producer.

He was born Jacob Morris Strelitsky in Baku (Azerbaijan) to an eastern European Jewish family. When he was a child, his family left the Russian Empire and moved to the United States, settling in New York City. At a young age, Strelitsky began working in the city's growing motion picture industry and directed his first silent film short in 1914.

He took the name John Malcolm Stahl and in the early 1920s, signed on with Louis B. Mayer Pictures in Hollywood. In 1924 he was part of the Mayer team that founded MGM Studios. In 1927, Stahl was one of the thirty-six founding members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. With the industry's transition to talkies and feature-length films, Stahl successfully made the adjustment. From 1927 through 1930 Stahl was an executive at the short-lived independent studio Tiffany Pictures, and renamed the company "Tiffany-Stahl Productions".

For Universal Pictures, he directed the 1934 film Imitation of Life, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. The following year, he directed Magnificent Obsession, starring Irene Dunne and Robert Taylor.