Robert Francis McGowan (July 11 1882 - January 27 1955) was an American film director and producer, best known as the senior director of the Our Gang short subjects film series from 1922 until 1933.
Before moving to Los Angeles, California, McGowan was a firefighter in his native Denver, Colorado. An on-the-job accident during a fire rescue mission left him with a permanent limp.
McGowan moved to California in the 1910s and made the acquaintance of Hal Roach, an aspiring film producer who opened his own studio in 1914. By 1920, McGowan wasa director att he Roach studio, and in 1921 began work on the first entries in the Our Gang series.
The Our Gang series was at its most popular and successful under McGowan's direction; when he became ill in the late-1920s and had to turn over the director's chair to nephew Robert A. McGowan (Anthony Mack) for two years, the series faltered. McGowan was a natural with kids, and knew how to explain scnees and comic business to his young charges to illicit convicing performances out of them. His favorite Our Gang kids were Allen "Farina" Hoskins, Mary Kornman, Matthew "Stymie" Beard, and George "Spanky" McFarland, whom McGowan declared a "natural". McGowan's daughter Jerry was an actress and dancer herself; she would often sit in on Our Gang story meetings and appears onscreen in Shivering Shakespeare (1930), directed by her cousin Anthony Mack.
McGowan left Our Gang in 1933, after no longer able to bear the strain of dealing with stage mothers and the other hassles of directing child stars. He moved over to Paramount, returning for one last Our Gang short (Divot Diggers) in 1936 , and retired from directing in the 1940s. He died in Santa Monica, California on January 27 1955 at the age of 72.
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