Roy Rowland(1910-1995)
- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Roy Rowland studied law at the University of Southern California, then
joined MGM as a script clerk. As if getting that job wasn't enough good
luck in the middle of the Depression, he also married the niece of MGM
chief Louis B. Mayer.
He sharpened his directing chops at MGM with a series of shorts starting in the 1930s, then moved up to features in 1943. He spent quite a bit of time at the studio, from 1943-51 and again from 1954-58. While not one of the studio's top-rank directors, he could be counted on to deliver sold "B" pictures--which, at MGM, were often better than most other studios' "A" pictures--and an occasional "A" production, in a variety of genres, including musicals (Viva Las Vegas (1956)) and dramas (Nos vignes ont de tendres grappes (1945)). He was also responsible for the tough, fast-paced Sur la trace du crime (1954), one of the few MGM films that could be considered "film noir".
The last film he made at MGM was a "B" western with Stewart Granger, Terreur dans la vallée (1957), after which he made an action picture for independent release based on a Mickey Spillane "Mike Hammer" novel starring Spillane himself (Solo pour une blonde (1963)), and then he traveled to Europe for a string of Italian-made westerns and costume dramas. His final film as director was a somewhat cheesy pirate movie (he was uncredited; his Italian co-director Sergio Bergonzelli got sole credit)) called Tonnerre sur l'océan indien (1966). He was associate producer on Nathan Juran's Italian-shot L'Ouest en feu (1969), after which he retired. He was the father of actor Steve Rowland.
Roy Rowland died in 1995, at age 84, in Orange, California..
He sharpened his directing chops at MGM with a series of shorts starting in the 1930s, then moved up to features in 1943. He spent quite a bit of time at the studio, from 1943-51 and again from 1954-58. While not one of the studio's top-rank directors, he could be counted on to deliver sold "B" pictures--which, at MGM, were often better than most other studios' "A" pictures--and an occasional "A" production, in a variety of genres, including musicals (Viva Las Vegas (1956)) and dramas (Nos vignes ont de tendres grappes (1945)). He was also responsible for the tough, fast-paced Sur la trace du crime (1954), one of the few MGM films that could be considered "film noir".
The last film he made at MGM was a "B" western with Stewart Granger, Terreur dans la vallée (1957), after which he made an action picture for independent release based on a Mickey Spillane "Mike Hammer" novel starring Spillane himself (Solo pour une blonde (1963)), and then he traveled to Europe for a string of Italian-made westerns and costume dramas. His final film as director was a somewhat cheesy pirate movie (he was uncredited; his Italian co-director Sergio Bergonzelli got sole credit)) called Tonnerre sur l'océan indien (1966). He was associate producer on Nathan Juran's Italian-shot L'Ouest en feu (1969), after which he retired. He was the father of actor Steve Rowland.
Roy Rowland died in 1995, at age 84, in Orange, California..
