George Archainbaud

Biography

French-born (Paris) George Archainbaud got his start in show business as an actor and stage manager in France. Emigrating to the US in 1915, he got work as an assistant director to fellow French expatriate Emile Chautard at William A. Brady's World Film Co. in Fort Lee, NJ. His directorial debut came in 1917 with As Man Made Her (1917). Archainbaud turned into a prolific director in both films and television, turning out more than 100 features over the next 35 years and numerous TV series episodes. Although a good amount of his feature-film output was fairly routine, there was some first-rate work scattered among them, such as The Lost Squadron (1932), a gritty and dark tale of a group of former World War I aviators who find work as stunt fliers in war movies. It was a critical and financial success, earning accolades from critics for its exciting flying sequences. The genre most associated with Archainbaud, however, is westerns. In the 1940s he turned out some fast-paced, exciting westerns, such as The Kansan (1943) and several entries in the Hopalong Cassidy series. When cowboy star Gene Autry went to television to star in his own series, he brought Archainbaud along with him and he became the principal director on the show and other Autry-produced series, such as Buffalo Bill, Jr. (1955), Annie Oakley (1954) and The Adventures of Champion (1955). He died of a heart attack in Beverly Hills, CA, in 1959.