Hamilton MacFadden

Hamilton MacFadden (April 26, 1901 – January 1, 1977) was an American actor, screenwriter, and film director born in Boston, Massachusetts. His father, Rev. Robert A. MacFadden, died in 1909, leaving his mother, Edith Hamilton MacFadden, to raise four children on her own. She later made history in 1928 as the first woman to file papers to run for governor of Massachusetts.

MacFadden graduated from Harvard University in 1925. His Broadway performing career preceded his degree, with stage appearances in 1923 and 1924 in the plays Beggar on Horseback and Floriani's Wife. Following graduation, he took on a producing role, organizing the American Theatre Company, which staged productions over a ten-week run in the Boston area. That venture was financially supported by writer Michael Strange, who made her professional stage debut through those productions. MacFadden also served as director of the Community Arts Association in Santa Barbara, California, and the Theatre Guild School of Acting in New York. Among the Broadway productions he produced were Gods of the Lightning and La Gringa.

His work in theater gave way to a career in Hollywood filmmaking during the late 1920s and early 1930s. MacFadden became a contract director at Fox in the early 1930s, where he directed a substantial body of work including several entries in the Charlie Chan film series, among them Charlie Chan Carries On (1931), The Black Camel (1931), and Charlie Chan's Greatest Case (1933). Other films he directed at Fox included Harmony at Home (1930), Crazy That Way (1930), Riders of the Purple Sage (1931), As Husbands Go (1934), and Stand Up and Cheer! (1934). His contract with Fox ended following the studio's 1934 merger with Twentieth Century Pictures. He subsequently directed additional films including Sea Racketeers (1937), The Legion of Missing Men (1937), Escape by Night (1937), It Can't Last Forever (1937), and Inside the Law (1942), while also taking on small supporting acting roles in films. Later in his career, MacFadden served as associate chief of the United States Department of State's international motion picture division.

MacFadden married actress Violet Dunn on March 30, 1929, in New York City; she was granted a divorce on September 20, 1933. He married actress Ruth Channing on September 29, 1934, in Santa Barbara, California, and the two divorced in 1949. On October 29, 1949, he married actress Vada Roberts Ward in Fairfield, Connecticut.