Del Lord

Del Lord (7 October 1894–23 March 1970) was a Canadian-American film director and producer best known for directing several Three Stooges comedies.

Famous fellow Canadian producer Mack Sennett called him the best director he ever employed. Aficionados generally concur that the two-reelers directed by Del Lord are among the finest the Stooges ever made. As their screenwriter Elwood Ullman told film critic Leonard Maltin, "Del was a godsend. His flair for comedy made my scripts seem that much better."

Del Lord was born as Delbert Lord on October 7, 1894, in Grimsby, Ontario, Canada.

He later moved to New York City to pursue a career in theater, and eventually to Los Angeles, California.

Lord first applied for work as an extra at Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios, as a teenager. With a background involving race cars, he was given a job as a stunt driver/stuntman. He made his debut in 1918 with the comedies Her Blighted Love(*starring Charles Murray and Wayland Trask) and Hide and Seek, Detectives(starring Ben Turpin and Heinie Conklin.)

With the success of his action sequences, Lord was promoted to directing full-time. He made his directorial debut in 1920 with a Fox Film comedy Pals and Petticoats, starring Harry McCoy and Olive Dale.

In 1923, he directed for Mack Sennett a comedy titled Down to the Sea in Shoes, with Billy Bevan and Sunshine Hart. His association with Sennett continued for the next ten years and he directed several titles for his production company. One of these two-reel farces, Wandering Willies (1926), starred Billy Bevan, Andy Clyde and a latter-day version of the Keystone Cops. The film contains an extended sequence that epitomizes the frantic comedy chases of the silent era. It also has some glaring continuity errors, which Sennett chose to ignore. He wanted his films to be funny and was confident in Lord's abilities to deliver. Lord was one of Sennett's highest paid employees.

Sennett, unfortunately, went bankrupt by 1933 (side effects of the Great Depression) and Lord had to be let go. Unable to find other work within the film industry, Lord took a job selling used cars. Luckily, Lord was rescued by then head of Columbia Pictures' short-subject division Jules White who was looking for a director for his Three Stooges series. From 1935 to 1945, Lord directed some of Columbia's fastest and funniest two-reelers and is credited with developing the unique comic style of the Three Stooges. In addition to more than three dozen Stooges films, on which he collaborated first with Jules White and then Hugh McCollum, over his career he directed or produced more than 200 motion pictures. 

In 1944, he was promoted to feature films (Edward Bernds replaced him as a Stooge director ). He left Columbia in 1949, saying that he was going to specialize in feature films.

Lord retired from the film business in 1952. His final project was a 39-minute short comedy Paradise for Buster, starring Harold Goodwin and his old friend Buster Keaton.

In 1954, Lord appeared in an episode of Ralph Edwards' biographical television show This Is Your Life, honoring Lord's former boss Mack Sennett. Several of Sennett and Ford's associates were seen in the episode, including Andy Clyde, Chester Conklin, Heinie Conklin, and Dell Henderson.

Lord married his wife Mildred (nee Ladd) Lord (1897–1953) in 1914.

Ford died on March 23, 1970, in Calabasas, California, at the age of 75. His remains were interred at Olivewood Cemetery in Riverside, California.

• The New York-based rock and roll band The Del-Lords is named after him. The band was founded in 1982 by The Dictators' guitarist Scott Kempner.
• In James Frawley's Three Stooges biographical drama The Three Stooges(2000), Lord was portrayed by Geoff Bartlett and Jules White was played by Lewis Fitz-Gerald.

• Lizzies of the Field (1924)
• Topsy and Eva (1927)
• Lost at the Front (1927)
• Barnum Was Right (1929)
• The Loud Mouth (1932)
• Oh, My Nerves (1935)
• Three Stooges shorts (1935–1948, more than three dozen films)
• Trapped by Television (1936)
• Vengeance (1937)
• Kansas City Kitty (1944)
• Let's Go Steady (1945)
• I Love a Bandleader (1945)
• Rough, Tough and Ready (1945)
• Singin' in the Corn (1946)
• In Fast Company (1946)
• It's Great to Be Young (1946)