Edward Laemmle

Biography

Edward Laemmle started his film-industry career at Universal Pictures in 1915 when Carl Laemmle--his uncle and also the founder and owner of the studio--asked him to leave his college electrical engineering studies and join him at his recently purchased 230-acre location on Lankersheim Blvd. in the San Fernando Valley. Edward started as an assistant director, mainly under John Ford. In 1917 he was dispatched to head an expedition as producer and make a film of the natives in Siam, Java and New Guinea. On this venture his sailing ship became shipwrecked in New Guinea in territory inhabited by the Kia Kia tribe, who were cannibals. The expedition spent nearly two years there, getting some remarkable footage. The resulting film, Shipwrecked Among Cannibals (1920), was the first to gross $1,000,000 for Universal. Laemmle directed approximately 50 films. He had numerous assistants who later became renowned directors, William Wyler being one of the more famous.