Arthur Lubin
| Arthur Lubin | |
|---|---|
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| Born |
Arthur William Lubovsky July 25, 1898 Los Angeles, United States |
| Died | May 12, 1995 (aged 96) Glendale, California, United States |
| Occupation | Film director, writer |
Arthur Lubin (July 25, 1898 – May 12, 1995) was an American film director and producer who directed several Abbott & Costello films, Phantom of the Opera (1943), the Francis the Talking Mule series and created the TV series Mister Ed. A prominent director for Universal Pictures in the 1940s and 1950s, he is perhaps best known today as the man who gave Clint Eastwood his first contract in film.
Arthur William Lubovsky was born Arthur William Lubovsky in Los Angeles in 1898. His family moved to Jerome, Arizona when Arthur was five. He was interested in acting at an early age, appearing in local Sunday school productions, with the encouragement of his mother, who died when Lubin was six. His father remarried and the family moved from Jerome to San Diego when Lubin was eight. He managed the music and drama clubs at high school and joined the San Diego Stock Company at $12 a week; the director was John Griffith Wray and the actors including Harold Lloyd.
As a child he had worked as a water boy for touring theatre companies and volunteered for circuses. He attended Page Military Academy and Carnegie Tech, where he studied drama and made money by shifting scenery and props. On graduation from college in 1922 he decided to become an actor. He worked as a drama coach at Canadian Steel Mills before following one of his college drama teachers, B. Iden Payne, to New York.
In New York Lubin managed to get work on stage in such plays as The Red Poppy, Anything Might Happen and My Aunt from Ypsilanti. None of these plays were particularly successful so he moved to Hollywood, where he succeeded in getting roles in some films such as His People. He also acted in stage, notably at the Potboiler Act Theatre.
In 1925 the Los Angeles Times called him "one of this year's juvenile screen sensations." He began directing shows for the Hollywood Writers Club.
As an actor, he specialized in heavy melodrama, in sharp contrast with his later work as a film director.
He appeared in Lillion'. In 1925 he and some friends were charged with obscenity by the Los Angeles police for putting on a production of Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms. He later worked on Broadway.
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