William Keighley

William Jackson Keighley (August 4, 1889 – June 24, 1984) was an American stage actor and film director born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He pursued formal dramatic training at the Ludlum School of Dramatic Art and also studied at the Alliance française in Paris.

Keighley began his acting career at the age of 23 and established himself on Broadway during the 1910s and 1920s, both as a performer and a director. His Broadway appearances spanned from 1915 to 1922 and included productions of Romeo and Juliet, King Richard II, Inside the Lines, Just Suppose, and Listening In.

The arrival of talking pictures drew Keighley to Hollywood, where he eventually signed with Warner Bros. and transitioned into film directing. He served as the original director on The Adventures of Robin Hood, the production starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, though he was ultimately replaced by Michael Curtiz. During World War II, Keighley took on a supervisory role overseeing the First Motion Picture Unit of the United States Army Air Forces.

During his Hollywood years, colleague David Lewis described Keighley as a suave and pleasant man with intellectual inclinations, and noted that he was known around the studio as "the grocery man" owing to his ownership of several markets.

Keighley retired in 1953 at the age of 64 and relocated to Paris alongside his wife, Genevieve Tobin, where he took up photography. He died of a stroke in New York City on June 24, 1984.