Roy Rowland (1910-95) started as a script clerk at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, undertaking a variety of other roles before marrying into the Mayer family in 1927. He directed many short films during the 1930s, including for the Pete Smith series. One of his shorts with Robert Benchley, How to Sleep (1937), won an Academy Award.
Rowland’s first feature film as a director was A Stranger in Town (1943), and he went on to direct around thirty more. Notable amongst these were Our Vines Have Tender Grapes (1945) and the cult picture The 5000 Fingers of Dr T (1953), co-written by Dr Seuss.
Rowland directed 39 episodes of the television series The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp in the late fifties, and worked on a few international co-productions at the close of his career.
Roy Rowland was one of the several directors who contributed to MGM’s Hollywood Party, and afterwards he directed five more of the studio#-’s musicals: Two Weeks with Love, Excuse My Dust, Hit the Deck, Meet Me in Las Vegas and Seven Hills of Rome.
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