Sam Taylor

A scriptwriter and director who began his career in the silent era, Sam Taylor's first directorial effort was in 1922 with the romance "The Mohican's Daughter," after having begun to write scripts for Vitagraph a few years earlier. His first collaboration with Harold Lloyd was on the 1923 classic "Safety Last!," a film he directed and co-wrote. The film features a now famous part of cinematic history--a scene with Lloyd's bank clerk hanging precariously from the hands of a large clock many stories above a city street. The pair teamed up again for 1924's "Girl Shy" and 1925's "The Freshman," featuring Lloyd as an over-eager collegiate. Taylor's association with starlet Mary Pickford began in 1927 on "My Best Girl," a romantic comedy. He worked with Pickford again on the drama "Coquette" and in 1929 he became part of the sound era with the adaptation "The Taming of the Shrew," starring Pickford and her then-husband Douglas Fairbanks. The film contained the now infamous credit "By William Shakespeare, with additional dialogue by Sam Taylor." He would work with Pickford once more, on the 1931 musical "Kiki" before reuniting with Lloyd on the 1934 comedy"The Cat's-Paw." His final directorial effort came in 1944 and allowed him to work with screen legends Laurel and Hardy, on the romp "Nothing But Trouble ."