Andrew Victor McLaglen (July 28, 1920 – August 30, 2014) was a British-born American film and television director, known for Westerns and adventure films, often starring John Wayne or James Stewart. According to one obituary "His career in many ways mirrored that of Ted Post, another inexhaustible director of series television and undemanding movies: reliable rather than stylish, both were nimble soldiers of fortune renowned for bringing work in on time and on budget... Like the best journeymen, he took us on some heroic, enjoyable excursions. " Early life and career McLaglen was born in London, the son of British-American actor Victor McLaglen and his wife, Enid Lamont, who moved to Hollywood in the early 1920s, shortly after his birth. He was from a film family that included eight uncles and an aunt, and he grew up on movie sets with his parents as well as John Wayne and John Ford. He attended Black Fox Military and The Carl Curtis School then the Cates School in Santa Barbara and the University of Virginia. During World War Two McLaglen was ruled 4F due to his height and went to work at Lockheed for four years. Assistant director When the war ended he wrote to Republic Pictures asking for a job and was made an assistant on Love, Honor and Goodbye (1945). He worked for two years as a general clerk at Republic on movies such as Dakota (1945) then became a second assistant director. He was an assistant on two Budd Boetticher films, Killer Shark (1950) and Bullfighter and the Lady (1951); on the latter he was promoted to first assistant director. He was 2nd AD on John Ford's The Quiet Man (1952) with his father, and 1st AD on Wild Stallion (1952), Here Come the Marines (1952), Big Jim McLain (1952) with John Wayne, Hellgate (1952), Kansas Pacific (1953), and Fort Vengeance (1953). He was assistant director on a series of films for John Wayne's company Batjac: Plunder of the Sun (1953), Island in the Sky (1954), The High and the Mighty (1954), Track of the Cat (1954) and Blood Alley (1954). Director Debut features After several more assistant director jobs, McLaglen directed his first film, Man in the Vault (1956), written by Burt Kennedy. It was followed by Gun the Man Down (1956), a western B movie with James Arness, whom McLaglen got to know making Big Jim McLain;