Lloyd Francis Bacon was a screen, stage, and vaudeville

Vaudeville

Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

 actor and film director

Film director

A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

.

Life

Bacon was born in San Jose California, the son of actor Frank Bacon, later the co-author and star of the long running Broadway show 'Lightnin' (1918), and Jennie (Weidman) Bacon. He was not related to actor Irving Bacon whom he directed in a number of his films. Bacon attended Santa Clara University

Santa Clara University

Santa Clara University is a private, not-for-profit, Jesuit-affiliated university located in Santa Clara, California, United States. Chartered by the state of California and accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, it operates in collaboration with the Society of Jesus , whose...

, and would later include highlights from the Bronco Football program in the end of his famous film, Knute Rockne, All American.

Bacon started in films with Charlie Chaplin

Charlie Chaplin

Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...

 and Bronco Billy Anderson and appeared in more than 40 total. As an actor he is best known for supporting Chaplin in such films as 1915's The Tramp

The Tramp

The Tramp, also known as The Little Tramp was Charlie Chaplin's most memorable on-screen character, a recognized icon of world cinema most dominant during the silent film era....

, The Champion

The Champion (film)

The Champion is a comedy film released in 1915 by Essanay Studios, starring Charlie Chaplin alongside Edna Purviance and Leo White. Essanay co-owner and star, Broncho Billy Anderson can be seen as an enthusiastic audience member in the boxing match scene....

and 1917's Easy Street

Easy Street (film)

Easy Street is a 1917 short comedy film by Charlie Chaplin.In the film, the police are failing to maintain law and order and so it is Chaplin, as the Little Tramp character, who steps forward to rid the street of bullies, help the poor, save women from madmen and generally keep the peace.-Plot:As...

.

He also directed over a hundred films between 1920 and 1955. He is best known as director of such classics as 1933's 42nd Street

42nd Street (film)

-Cast:*Warner Baxter as Julian Marsh, director*Bebe Daniels as Dorothy Brock, star*George Brent as Pat Denning, Dorothy's old vaudeville partner*Ruby Keeler as Peggy Sawyer, the newcomer*Guy Kibbee as Abner Dillon, the show's backer...

, 1937's Ever Since Eve from a screenplay by the playwright Lawrence Riley

Lawrence Riley

Lawrence Riley was a successful American playwright and screenwriter. He gained fame in 1934 as the author of the Broadway hit Personal Appearance, which was turned by Mae West into the classic film Go West, Young Man , starring herself.-Biography:Riley was a Princeton University alumnus and a...

 et al., 1938's A Slight Case of Murder

A Slight Case of Murder

A Slight Case of Murder is a 1938 comedy film directed by Lloyd Bacon. The film is based on a play by Damon Runyon and Howard Lindsay. The offbeat comedy stars Edward G...

with Edward G. Robinson

Edward G. Robinson

Edward G. Robinson was a Romanian-born American actor. A popular star during Hollywood's Golden Age, he is best remembered for his roles as gangsters, such as Rico in his star-making film Little Caesar and as Rocco in Key Largo...

, 1939's Invisible Stripes

Invisible Stripes

Invisible Stripes is a 1939 Warner Bros. crime film about a gangster unable to go straight after returning home from prison. The movie was directed by Lloyd Bacon and also features William Holden and Humphrey Bogart. The screenplay by Warren Duff was based on the novel of the same name by Warden...

with George Raft

George Raft

George Raft was an American film actor and dancer identified with portrayals of gangsters in crime melodramas of the 1930s and 1940s...

 and Humphrey Bogart

Humphrey Bogart

Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....

, 1939's The Oklahoma Kid

The Oklahoma Kid

The Oklahoma Kid is a 1939 western film starring James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart. The movie was directed for Warner Bros. by Lloyd Bacon. Cagney plays an adventurous gunslinger in a broad-brimmed cowboy hat while Bogart portrays his black-clad and viciously villainous nemesis...

with James Cagney

James Cagney

James Francis Cagney, Jr. was an American actor, first on stage, then in film, where he had his greatest impact. Although he won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of performances, he is best remembered for playing "tough guys." In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him eighth...

 and Humphrey Bogart

Humphrey Bogart

Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....

, 1940's Knute Rockne, All American

Knute Rockne, All American

Knute Rockne, All American is a 1940 biographical film which tells the story of Knute Rockne, Notre Dame football coach. It stars Pat O'Brien, Ronald Reagan, Gale Page, Donald Crisp, Albert Bassermann, Owen Davis, Jr., Nick Lukats, Kane Richmond, William Marshall and William Byrne. It also...

with Pat O'Brien

Pat O'Brien (actor)

Pat O’Brien was an American film actor with more than one hundred screen credits.-Early life:O’Brien was born William Joseph Patrick O’Brien to an Irish-American Catholic family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He served as an altar boy at Gesu Church while growing up near 13th and Clybourn streets...

 and Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

 (as "the Gipper"), 1943's Action in the North Atlantic

Action in the North Atlantic

Action in the North Atlantic is a 1943 war film directed by Lloyd Bacon, featuring Humphrey Bogart and Raymond Massey as sailors in the U.S. Merchant Marine in World War II.-Plot:...

, and 1944's The Fighting Sullivans

The Fighting Sullivans

The Fighting Sullivans, originally released as The Sullivans, is a 1944 American biographical war film directed by Lloyd Bacon and written by Edward Doherty, Mary C. McCall Jr. and Jules Schermer...

with Anne Baxter

Anne Baxter

Anne Baxter was an American actress known for her performances in films such as The Magnificent Ambersons , The Razor's Edge , All About Eve and The Ten Commandments .-Early life:...

 and Thomas Mitchell

Thomas Mitchell (actor)

Thomas Mitchell was an American actor, playwright and screenwriter. Among his most famous roles in a long career are those of Gerald O'Hara, the father of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind, the drunken Doc Boone in John Ford's Stagecoach, and Uncle Billy in It's a Wonderful Life...

. He also directed Wake Up and Dream

Wake Up and Dream (film)

Wake Up and Dream is a Technicolor film unrelated to the 1930s musical of the same name. It was directed by Lloyd Bacon and written by Elick Moll based on the novel by Robert Nathan...

(1946).

At the time of his death, he was survived by numerous ex-wives, and a son (Frank, b.1937-d.2009) and a daughter (Betsey).

External links