Lloyd Francis Bacon (December 4, 1889 – November 15, 1955) was an American screen, stage, and vaudeville actor and film director.[2] As a director, he made films in virtually all genres, including westerns, musicals, comedies, gangster films, and crime dramas. He was one of the directors at Warner Bros. in the 1930s who helped give that studio its reputation for gritty, fast-paced "torn from the headlines" action films. And, in directing Warner Bros.' 42nd Street, he joined the movie's song-and-dance-number director, Busby Berkeley, in contributing to "an instant and enduring classic [that] transformed the musical genre".[3]
Early life
Lloyd Bacon was born on December 4, 1889, in San Jose, California, the son of actor/playwright Frank Bacon[2] - the co-author and star of the long-running Broadway show Lightnin' (1918) - and Jennie Weidman. Lloyd Bacon was not, contrary to some accounts, related to actor Irving Bacon, although he did direct him in a number of his films. Bacon attended Santa Clara University, and would later include highlights from the Bronco Football program in the end of his famous film, Knute Rockne, All American. When America entered the First World War in 1917, Bacon enlisted in the United States Navy, and was assigned to the photographic department.[4] Many of his later films as a director harked back fondly to his time in the Navy.[4]
^Brent E. Walker, Mack Sennett's Fun Factory: A History and Filmography of His Studio and His Keystone and Mack Sennett Comedies, with Biographies of Players and Personnel, Bacon entry.
