Charles Lamont (May 5, 1895 – September 11, 1993) was a prolific filmmaker, directing over 200 titles and producing and writing many others. He directed several Abbott and Costello comedies and many Ma and Pa Kettle films. Biography A California native, Lamont was born in San Francisco. Lamont came from a family of actors, being the fourth generation to be an actor. He appeared onstage while a teenager and started appearing in films from 1919. He worked as a prop man before becoming assistant director. Lamont started directing comedy shorts in 1922, including for Mack Sennett and Al Christie. Some of Lamont's earliest directorial jobs were silent short-subject comedies for Educational Pictures. One of the studio's popular series was Juvenile Comedies, featuring the child actor Malcolm "Big Boy" Sebastian. Lamont directed some of these films, as well as some of the competing "Buster Brown" comedies for Universal Pictures release. Both Educational and Universal figured prominently in Lamont's career. In 1932 Educational assigned Lamont to the "Baby Burlesk” a series, featuring four-year-old Shirley Temple. He along with his co-conspirators at Educational Pictures were responsible and helped set horrifying ways performers were treated in film before the invention of the Hays Code. By 1934 Lamont was Educational's top director, and he collaborated with Buster Keaton on most of Keaton's 16 Educational shorts. After Educational shut down its Hollywood studio, Lamont was hired by Columbia Pictures to work with such stars as Charley Chase and The Three Stooges, but his stay was short ("I had an intense hatred for [Columbia president] Harry Cohn," said Lamont to authors Ted Okuda and Edward Watz). Lamont then freelanced at various studios (and produced a few features himself) before joining Universal Pictures in 1942. Lamont always had a tremendous rapport with juvenile performers, and Universal entrusted him with a series of musical-comedy vehicles for the studio's teenage singing star Gloria Jean. Lamont emphasized the comic elements of the films, with Donald O'Connor and Peggy Ryan contributing their talents, and the teen musicals were very popular with wartime audiences. Lamont directed a couple of 1945 films starring Yvonne de Carlo and Rod Cameron, Salome Where She Danced and Frontier Gal, which were not well known in the US but were popular with some French critics. Lamont's experience with limited budgets served him well at Universal, and soon he was promoted to the studio's more important productions. By 1950