Tay Garnett

Biography: A writer and gagman for Hal Roach and Mack Sennett since the early '20s, Garnett became a writer/director in 1928 with Celebrity and The Spieler. Over the next three decades he made numerous workmanlike films in a range of genres, most notably Her Man, China Seas, Slave Ship, Stand-In, Bataan, The Cross of Lorraine, The Postman Always Rings Twice, and Cause for Alarm. By the late '50s he turned his attention to television, although he helmed occassional theatrical features into the early '70s.