Biography

November 26, 1888 · Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA

November 26, 1978 · Lake Elsinore, California, USA (undisclosed)

Ford Ingalsbe Beebe

His second wife, Kitty Delevanti, is the daughter of actor Cyril Delevanti.

American second-feature director and occasional producer. Began as a scenario writer in 1916. In the course of a half-century-long career he turned out scores of low-budget westerns, melodramas and serials, including the classic Buck Rogers (1939) and Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940). Until 1934 he worked primarily for independent producers and Poverty Row companies like Mascot. After a brief spell at Columbia, he spent the better part of his career at Universal (1936-45) and Monogram (1947-52), where he directed various installments of the "Bomba the Jungle Boy" series.

His The Phantom Creeps (1939) was constantly referenced in riffs on Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1988).

Had one son, Ford Beebe Jr., and four daughters by his first wife Frances Caroline Willey, whom he married in 1912; and one son, Michael, by his second wife Kitty Delevanti, whom he married in 1933.

[on J.P. McGowan] He was the toughest man, physically, I have ever known . . . He wrote his own scripts, directed them and played the character lead in most of them. Then when he washed up for the day and the rest went home, he'd go in the cutting room and cut and title until 2 or 3 a.m., then go in the office and sleep on the floor 'til the janitor woke him up, go home, have breakfast and be back on the stage before the cast showed up. This was not something he did once in a while. It was the way he worked all the time.