Edward Sedgwick

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Edward Sedgwick (November 7, 1892 in Galveston, Texas – d. March 7, 1953 in North Hollywood, California) was a movie director, writer, actor and producer.

Son of Edward Sedgwick, Sr. and Josephine Walker, both stage actors, young Edward Sedgewick joined his show business family as one of the Five Sedgwicks, a vaudeville act. The two other family members were Edward's twin sisters Eileen and Josie Sedgwick, who both later pursued successful silent-movie acting careers. Sedgwick broke into films as a comedian in 1915, frequently cast as a zany baseball player. He then became a serial director six years later in 1921, and moved on to the Tom Mix western unit. Sedgwick's love of baseball came in handy for the ballpark sequences of Mix's Stepping Out, Buck Jones’ Hit and Run, William Haines’ Slide, Kelly, Slide, Buster Keaton’s The Cameraman and Robert Young’s Death on the Diamond.

Sedgwick then signed with MGM in the late 1920s. There, he found a kindred spirit in fellow baseball buff Buster Keaton. Soon after, Sedgwick directed all of Keaton’s MGM features, both sound and silent, that includes The Cameraman, Spite Marriage, Free and Easy, Dough Boys, Parlor, Bedroom and Bath, Speak Easily, Sidewalks of New York and What, Now Beer?. However, Buster Keaton, best known for known flinching a single emotion in his movies, they all contained some of his worst moments on screen. In the mid-1930s, Sedgwick became a brief a producer/director at Hal Roach Studios. There, he made Mister Cinderella and Pick a Star, both starring Jack Haley. The film featured a guest appearance by Laurel & Hardy, who in 1943 reteamed with Sedgwick for the MGM feature Aim Raid Wardens. Considered a relic of a bygone era by the 1940s, Sedgwick sat out for the rest of his MGM contract.

In 1948, Keaton, employed as a gagman for Red Skelton, had suggested that Sedgwick would be an ideal director for the upcoming A Southern Yankee. But, Sedgwick was not up to the challenge: though he receives solo directorial credit on Southern Yankee, S. Sylvan Simon directed the film in its entirety. Sedgewick's final film was Universal's Ma and Pa Kettle Back on the Farm.