Robert Stevenson (filmmaker)

Robert Edward Stevenson (31 March 1905 – 30 April 1986) was a British-American screenwriter and film director.

There he won the John Bernard Seely Prize for Aeronautics, and in 1927 graduated with a first-class MA (Cantab) degree in the Mechanical Sciences Tripos (engineering).

He was also president of the university's Liberal Club, editor of the student Granta magazine, and while conducting postgraduate research in psychology he was elected president of the prestigious Cambridge Union Society.

On leaving Cambridge, his parents gave him six weeks to find a job, and he gained employment as the assistant of Michael Balcon.

Stevenson started to write scripts, providing the story of Balaclava (1928).

He also worked on the scripts for Greek Street (1930), The Ringer (1931), Night in Montmartre (1931), The Calendar (1931), Michael and Mary (1931) with Edna Best and Herbert Marshall and Sunshine Susie (1931) with Jack Hulbert, Lord Babs (1932), The Faithful Heart (1932) with Best and Marshall, and Love on Wheels (1932) with Hulbert.

Stevenson's debut feature film as director was a Jack Hulbert–Cicely Courtneidge musical, Happy Ever After (1932), a co-production shot in Germany and produced by Eric Pommer.

He also wrote the British-German co productions F.P.1 (1933) and Early to Bed (1933).

Stevenson went on to write and direct Falling for You (1933) with Hulbert and Courtneidge, and did some uncredited direction on The Camels Are Coming (1934) with Hulbert.

He was a producer on Little Friend (1934).

Stevenson worked as writer on Thunder in the East (1934) and The Only Girl (1933) with Charles Boyer.

On that film he met Anna Lee, who became his wife in 1935.

Stevenson received acclaim for Tudor Rose (1936), a film of the Lady Jane Grey story which Stevenson wrote and directed.

He directed The Man Who Changed His Mind (1936) with Boris Karloff and Anna Lee, then another with Hulbert, Jack of All Trades (1936).

Stevenson wrote Windbag the Sailor (1936) for Will Hay and Paradise for Two (1937) for Hulbert.

After directing a number of British films, including King Solomon's Mines (1937), he was contracted by David O. Selznick and moved to Hollywood, but was loaned to other studios, directing Jane Eyre (1943).

Stevenson directed the action adventure movie King Solomon's Mines (1937) with Lee, Cedric Hardwicke and Paul Robeson.

He did a science fiction film with Lee, Non-Stop New York (1937).

Stevenson went to Gainbsorough to do Owd Bob (1938) with Will Fyffe, The Ware Case (1938) with Clive Brook, Young Man's Fancy (1939) with Lee, and Return to Yesterday (1940) with Brook and Lee.

He worked on the script for most of the latter films.

Stevenson received an offer to go to Hollywood to work for David O. Selznick along with Alfred Hitchcock.

Selznick only made films intermittently, but he regularly signed talent to long-term contracts and loaned them out to other studios.

He loaned Stevenson to RKO he directed Tom Brown's School Days (1940).

He went to Universal to direct a new version of Back Street (1941) with Charles Boyer then went back to RKO for Joan of Paris (1942) with Michèle Morgan, a big hit.

Stevenson wrote and directed an adaptation of Jane Eyre (1943) for Selznick starring Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine.

He was also one of several directors on Forever and a Day (1943).

Stevenson directed Hedy Lamarr in Dishonored Lady (1947) and Dick Powell in To the Ends of the Earth (1948).

He returned to RKO, now under the control of Howard Hughes, to make The Woman on Pier 13 (originally, I Married a Communist, 1949).

He directed 19 live-action films for The Walt Disney Company in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.

He followed it with Walk Softly, Stranger (1950) with Joseph Cotten, My Forbidden Past (1951) with Robert Mitchum and Ava Gardner, and The Las Vegas Story (1952) with Jane Russell and Victor Mature.

He also did some uncredited directing on Macao (1952).

Stevenson went into directing television and directed 6 episodes of the first season of Gunsmoke during which it first went to the top of the TV ratings.

Stevenson worked for the Disney Company in 1956 for six weeks and ending up making 19 films in 20 years.

His early credits were Johnny Tremain (1957), a story set in the American Revolution, and Old Yeller (1957), a boy and his dog tale.

Stevenson is best remembered for directing the Julie Andrews musical Mary Poppins (1964), for which Andrews won the Academy Award for Best Actress and Stevenson was nominated for Best Director.

His other Disney films include the first two Herbie films, The Love Bug (1968) and Herbie Rides Again (1974), as well as Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971).

Three of his films featured English actor David Tomlinson.

Having attended Shrewsbury School, Stevenson won a scholarship to study at St John's College, Cambridge.

He directed over 100 TV episodes in five years including: The Ford Television Theatre, Your Jeweler's Showcase, Footlights Theater, Jane Wyman Presents The Fireside Theatre, Cavalcade of America, Schlitz Playhouse, The Star and the Story, Star Stage, The 20th Century-Fox Hour, The Joseph Cotten Show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Christophers.

In 2019, Old Yeller was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".