Tay Garnett

Biography

Following his service as a naval aviator in WW I, Tay Garnett entered films in 1920 as a screenwriter. After a stint as a gag writer for Mack Sennett and Hal Roach he joined Pathe, then the distributor for both competing comedy producers, and in 1928 began directing for that company. Garnett garnered some attention in the early 1930s with such films as One Way Passage (1932) and Her Man (1930), but his best work came in the mid-'30s and early 1940s with such films as China Seas (1935), Slave Ship (1937) and Seven Sinners (1940). His best known film would have to the John Garfield/Lana Turner vehicle The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), although his version of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949) was a well-deserved critical and commercial success as well. Garnett journeyed to England in the early 1950s for several films, but upon his return made only a few pictures before jumping enthusiastically into television. He resurfaced on the big screen in the early 1970s to shoot a pair of minor outdoor epics in Alaska, then retired. He died of leukemia in 1977.