Jean Yarbrough est un réalisateur, scénariste, producteur et acteur américain né le 22 août 1901 à Marianna, Arkansas (États-Unis), mort le 2 août 1975.

Biographie

He was born in Marianna, the seat of Lee County in southeastern Arkansas. After attending the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, he entered the film business in 1922, first as a propman, but he steadily rose in the ranks to assistant director. Beginning with 1936, he was a bona fide director, first doing comedy and musical shorts for RKO, but in 1938 he graduated to directing features, his first being Rebellious Daughters for the low-budget Progressive Pictures. His greatest success came in the 1940s, when he directed films that are even today fondly remembered such as The Devil Bat, King of the Zombies, She-Wolf of London, and a number of Abbott and Costello and Bowery Boys comedies. In the 1950s, when the traditional B-movie was on the decline, he had few problems switching to television and directed episodes for many series throughout the 1950s and 1960s, and had a two-year stint including producing and directing The Abbott and Costello Show. He directed some episodes of The Silent Service and Navy Log, two 1950s military dramas based on true stories of the United States Navy. He also subsequently directed episodes of Walter Brennan's western series, The Guns of Will Sonnett.

Yarbrough's last theatrical film was 1967's Hillbillys in a Haunted House, a poor mixture of low comedy, horror and country music and a sad swan song to his career.