Fred de Cordova

Frederick Timmins de Cordova (October 27, 1910 – September 15, 2001) was an American stage, motion picture and television director and producer. He is best known for his work on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Early life De Cordova was born in New York City, New York, the son of Margaret (née Timmins) and George de Cordova, who worked in the theatre business. George de Cordova was from a Jamaican Sephardic Jewish family related to Julian de Cordova, founder of the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, and Waco, Texas, founder Jacob de Cordova. In his 1988 autobiography, de Cordova described his parents as con artists who, during his early years, lived well and skipped town without paying their bills. In 1931, he received an undergraduate degree in liberal arts from Northwestern University. Career De Cordova's first theater credit was as a performer in Elmer, the Great (1928). After his graduation from Harvard Law School in 1933, he gained employment in the Shubert Theater organization and directed stage shows for the next ten years. He was variously a performer, stage manager, stage director, and finally, dialogue director, the last in Ziegfeld Follies of 1943. He was a dialogue director in five films, including To Have and Have Not (1944). His first film directing job was Too Young to Know (1945) for Warner Brothers. He directed 23 movies. One of the better known was Bedtime for Bonzo (1951) starring future President Ronald Reagan and a chimpanzee. He also directed Rock Hudson, Errol Flynn, Tony Curtis, Audie Murphy, Yvonne de Carlo, Bob Hope, and Humphrey Bogart. Much of his career was at Universal Studios, where he was known for turning out entertaining pictures quickly, even with difficult actors, and on a low budget. His last film was Frankie and Johnny (1966) with Elvis Presley.