William Jackson Keighley (
August 4 1889,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania -
June 24 1984,
New York, New York) was an American stage actor and
Hollywood film director.
After graduating from the Ludlum School of Dramatic Art, Keighley began acting at the age of 23. By the 1910s and 1920s, he was acting and directing on
Broadway. With the advent of talking pictures, he relocated to
Hollywood. He eventually signed with
Warner Bros., where he proved adept at directing in a wide variety of genres. He was the initial director of
The Adventures of Robin Hood, starring
Errol Flynn, but was replaced by
Michael Curtiz. During
World War II, he supervised the U.S. Army Signal Corp's motion picture unit. He retired in 1953 and moved to
Paris with his actress wife
Genevieve Tobin.