Arthur Lubin (July 25, 1898 – May 12, 1995) was an American film director and producer who directed several Abbott & Costello films and created the TV series Mr. Ed.

Biography

Arthur Lubin was born Arthur William Lubovsky in Los Angeles, California in 1898. He grew up in Jerome, Arizona, and attended Page Military Academy and Carnegie Tech. As a child he had worked as a water boy for touring theatre companies and volunteered for circuses; on graduation from college in 1922 he decided to become an actor.

Lubin began acting in stage plays (mostly in "Little Theatre") and movies, also 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. In 1925 he and some friends were charged with obscenity by the Los Angeles police for putting on a production of Eugene O'Neil's Desire Under the Elms. He later worked on Broadway.

In June 1932 he returned to Hollywood to work for William Le Baron. He began directing Little Theatre and films, working for low budget companies such as Monogram, Republic and Universal.

Lubin directed the first Abbott and Costello star vehicle, Buck Privates (1941). The movie was a big hit, earning $4 million - Lubin, who was paid $350 a week, was given a $5,000 bonus. He went on to direct the duo's next four movies, In the Navy (1941) (which earned him another $5,000 bonus), Hold That Ghost (1941), Keep 'Em Flying (1942) and Ride 'Em Cowboy (1942). All the films were successful - Variety magazine named Lubin the most commercially successful director in Hollywood in 1941 - but Lubin asked to work on other movies:


I asked to be released after the fifth picture because they came on the set late, they didn't know their lines, and I think they were beginning to get tired of one another. They were bored. and for the first time they were beginning to complain about the scripts. But it was five fabulous pictures with the boys. They were very good for me. They gave me a reputation. I learned everything about timing from them. And I think I was very good for them, in this respect: not their routines, but in trying to give them some class. Whenever they got crude or rude, I'd try to soften it. And I tried in all my set-ups to keep a balance of refinement against the earthiness of some of their routines.
Lubin's most successful film at the box office was probably Phantom of the Opera (1943). Another may be Rhubarb (1951) about a cat that inherits a baseball team by proxy.

Lubin also directed the "Francis the Talking Mule" series, for which he had a percentage of the profits. He brought the idea to TV as the series Mr. Ed. He was the first producer to give a contract to Clint Eastwood. Lubin also directed episodic TV shows like Bronco (1958), Maverick (1959), Bonanza (1960), Mister Ed (1961) and The Addams Family (1965). Lubin's last work was the TV series called Little Lulu (1978). A longtime friend of Mae West, he got her to appear on an episode of Mister Ed.

Lubin's career ended in the late 1970s, and he lived the rest of his life with his life partner Frank Burford and died at the Autumn Hills nursing home in Glendale, California of an unspecified cause on May 12, 1995 at age 96.

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