Sam White | |
---|---|
Born |
Los Angeles, California |
October 16, 1906
Died | August 5, 2006 Encino, California |
(aged 99)
Occupation | Film producer, film director, actor |
Relatives |
Jack White (brother) Jules White (brother) Ben White (brother) |
Sam White was an American film producer, film director and actor.
White was born in Los Angeles on October 16, 1906 to parents who had immigrated from Austria and Hungary. In 1937, he married Claretta Ellis, a studio contract dancer. They were married for 65 years until her death in 2002.
For much of the 1930s, Sam White directed numerous musical sequences in films such as Roberta with Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers and Irene Dunne; Old Man Rhythm with Betty Grable and Buddy Rogers; Top of the Town with George Murphy; and Hooray for Love, with Ann Sothern.
During World War II, Sam made six training films for the U.S. Armed forces. Also in the 1940s, the feature films he produced and directed included Reveille with Beverly, starring Ann Miller (Frank Sinatra’s first film); People Are Funny, starring Jack Haley and Rudy Vallée; The Return of the Vampire, starring Bela Lugosi; The Girl in the Case, starring Edmund Lowe; After Midnight with Boston Blackie, starting Chester Morris; Louisiana Hayride, starring Judy Canova; and Tahiti Nights, starring Jinx Falkenberg for RKO, Columbia, Universal and Paramount Studios.