Background
Fred Niblo was born on 6 January 1874 in York, Nebraska, United States.
Fred Niblo was born on 6 January 1874 in York, Nebraska, United States.
Until 1917, Niblo had had a varied career as an actor, first in vaudeville, then touring, and finally on Broadway. Within a year Niblo was directing for luce. He continued to act, on and off, and appeared in two films in 1922 with his wife, both directed by Victor Schertzinger—The Bootlegger's Daughter and Scandalous Tongues—and as late as 1932, plaved in Two White Arms. Niblo's first films, made for Ince, were not distinguished, but he was hired by Douglas Fairbanks to direct The Mark of Zorro and The Three Musketeers. He directed Valentino in Blood and Sand for Famous Players and then went to work for Louis B. Mayer on romantic melodramas: Thy Name Is Woman. starring Ramon Novarro and Barbara La Marr.
Mayer carried Niblo with him on the merger that made MGM, and Niblo directed his wife and Novarro in The Red Lily. By then. Ben-Hur seemed likely to prove the first and last great disaster of the new company. When the idea to replace George Walsh with Novarro was accepted, it was a short step to drop the original director, Charles Brabin, and hope that Niblo might recollect Nobile. So it was that Niblo was the director of Hollvwood’s greatest epic. But he w'as the choice ol Thalberg and Mayer and, as with Joseph Manldewicz years later on Cleopatra. Niblo’s task was contradictory: to spend money to save money. Ben-Hur is a film of many talents and trades, spectacular but inflated, needing the dynamic eve of a King Vidor.
While Ben-Hur was being edited, Niblo took over from Stiller on the Garbo project, The Temptress, and then directed Norma Tahnadge as Camille. He remained a leading director for only a short time, despite the initial praise for Ben-Hur Sound appears to have probed the cavities in his style.
Thus, he made some key silent films after sound had become a possibility. He directed Lillian Gish in The Enemy. Ronald Colman and Vilma Banky in Two Lovers, and Garbo again in The Mysterious Lady. But by 1930 he left MGM, made a few films at RKO, and went to Britain for two pictures before retiring. A few years before his death he took up acting again.
He married the actress Enid Bennett, who worked for Thomas luce.