Andrew Marton (born Endre Marton, 26 January 1904 Budapest, Hungary – 7 January 1992 Santa Monica, California) was a Hungarian-American film director, producer and editor. In his career he directed 39 films and television programs solo, and 16 as a second unit director, most notably the chariot race in Ben Hur.

Biography

After high-school graduation in 1922 he was taken by Alfréd Deésy to Vienna to work at Sascha-Film, mostly as an assistant editor. After a few months, he rose the attention of director Ernst Lubitsch, who convinced him to try his luck in Hollywood. Marton returned to Europe in 1927, and worked as the main editor of the Tobis company in Berlin, and later as an assistant director in Vienna. He directed his first feature film, Two O'Clock in the Morning in 1929 in Great Britain. Following his famed adventurous spirit, he joined a German expedition to Tibet in 1934, where he filmed his emblematic movie, Der Dämon des Himalaya. Marton cited the fact that he was Jewish as a reason that the film could not be released with his name as director, citing a conversation he had had with Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels.

After returning to Hungary, he directed his only Hungarian movie in 1935 in Budapest. Between 1936-1939 he worked with Alexander Korda in London. After the outbreak of World War II, he moved to the United States for good. During the 1940s and 1950s he worked mostly for MGM Studios. In 1954 he founded his own production company with Iván Törzs, Louis Meyer and László Benedek. He was active until the middle of the 1970s. On January 7, 1992 he died of pneumonia.

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