Richard Rosson: Movies & Filmography

Richard Rosson was born on April 4, 1893 in New York City, New York, United States, into a family that would become deeply embedded in early Hollywood. He was the younger brother of director Arthur Rosson, the elder sister Helene Rosnan who pursued acting, and the younger brother Harold Rosson, a celebrated cinematographer who later won the first Academy Award for color cinematography. Rosson entered the motion‑picture industry at a remarkably young age, beginning his career in 1911 as an actor during the silent era. Over the next two decades he appeared in nearly one hundred silent pictures, ranging from drama to comedy, with notable appearances in Richelieu (1914), The Haunted House (1917) and Peggy Does Her Darndest (1919). His prolific screen presence earned him a reputation as a versatile and reliable performer, and his experience on set laid the groundwork for his later work behind the camera. By the early 1920s Rosson had already begun experimenting with directing, co‑directing Her Father's Keeper in 1917 alongside his brother Arthur, a collaboration that hinted at his future ambitions in the director’s chair.

Rosson’s first major solo directing effort came in 1926 with the silent comedy Fine Manners, originally helmed by Lewis Milestone for Famous Players‑Lasky/Paramount Pictures. After an on‑set dispute with star Gloria Swanson caused Milestone to walk off, Rosson stepped in to complete the picture, drawing on skills he had honed while serving as an assistant director to Allan Dwan. The film’s success secured him a long‑term contract with the studio and launched a second phase of his career. Throughout the 1930s he directed a variety of genre pictures, most famously handling the iconic logging sequences in Come and Get It (1936) and contributing to the retakes of Scarface (1932). His life took a dramatic turn in 1939 when he and his wife, actress Vera Sisson, were arrested by the Gestapo in Vienna on espionage charges, spending 34 days in solitary confinement before being released. Rosson’s career was tragically cut short when he died by suicide on May 31, 1953, at his home in Pacific Palisades, California; a year later his widow Vera also took her own life. His legacy endures through the extensive body of work he left both in front of and behind the camera, marking him as a notable figure of early American cinema.