Christian Nyby (September 1, 1913 – September 17, 1993) was an American television and film director and editor. As an editor, he had seventeen feature film credits from 1943 to 1952, including The Big Sleep (1946) and Red River (1948). From 1953 to 1975 he was a prolific director of episodes in many television series, including Gunsmoke and Wagon Train. As a feature film director, he is likely best known for The Thing from Another World (1951).[4][5]
Career
Born in Los Angeles, and of Danish ancestry, he started his career as a film editor in the 1940s. He edited four films directed by Howard Hawks (To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), Red River (1948), and The Big Sky (1952)).[6] Nyby was nominated for the Academy Award for Red River. He had begun his career in the carpentry division at the studios, worked his way up to editor, then received his first directing credit on Hawks' 1951 production of The Thing from Another World (or The Thing as it is more commonly known), which was an instant success.
The most influential film that Nyby directed is The Thing from Another World (1951), which continues to attract viewers and critical attention more than 70 years after its release, and which was selected in 2001 for preservation in the US National Film Registry.[7] Nyby's credit as the director has been challenged by some critics; Howard Hawks, the film's producer, was on the set for most of the filming, and is noted as one of the greatest film directors. Nyby said about the controversy in 1982:
Did Hawks direct it? That's one of the most inane and ridiculous questions I've ever heard, and people keep asking. That it was Hawks' style. Of course it was. This is a man I studied and wanted to be like. You would certainly emulate and copy the master you're sitting under, which I did. Anyway, if you're taking painting lessons from Rembrandt, you don't take the brush out of the master's hands.[8]
Nyby was the father of Christian I. Nyby II, a prolific television director in his own right, and Kirkland Royal Nyby, who while studying law appeared in a few TV acting roles in the early 1970s as Kirk Nyby,[9] before embarking on a legal career in California, finishing as Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner.[10]
Gentry, Ric (Fall 2005). "Christian Nyby: An Interview". Post Script. 25 (1): 3–21. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015. Retrieved March 7, 2014. Transcript of a February 4, 1991 interview with Nyby by Ric Gentry.
