D. Ross Lederman

David Ross Lederman (December 12, 1894 – August 24, 1972) was an American film director noted for his Western/action/adventure films of the 1930s and 1940s.

Starting out as an extra in Mack Sennett's Keystone Cops series, D. Ross Lederman worked his way through the ranks of film production, and first made his mark as a second-unit director. He directed several B-Western serials in the early 1930s, for instance on films such as Two-Fisted Law and Texas Cyclone both 1932, in which he worked with actors Tim McCoy and the young John Wayne. Becoming a full feature director in the late 1930s, he specialized in action films and especially westerns, continuing to produce films with Tim McCoy at Columbia Pictures.

Style

By most accounts Lederman was regarded as a somewhat brusque man with an aversion to retakes and prima donna behavior and he conflicted with McCoy on more than one occasion. Lederman was renowned for his strict filming regime and to produce films before time and under budget which could only have helped to ensure his consistent employment as a director, but was often criticised by critics in that several of his films looked rushed.

In the 1950s Lederman, like many of his "B" picture colleagues, concentrated on series television, and directed most notably many episodes of Annie Oakley (1954), Buffalo Bill Jr, and Range Rider, amongst others, retiring in the early sixties.

He was married from the mid 1940s through the mid 1950s to June Lederman and stepfather to her son, Rusty, born about 1943. Lederman died in 1972.

Filmography

Films

External links

• D. Ross Lederman at Internet Movie Database