Kenneth Webb (director)


Kenneth Seymour Webb was an American film director, screenwriter, and composer noted for directing a number of films in the early age of the American film industry. He helped write the Gay Divorce along with Samuel Hoffenstein.

Selected songs

  • "You and Me and You"

    Career

Webb, beginning around 1910, became a sketch writer and director for vaudeville stage. In 1913, he began writing scenarios for the Vitagraph Company. From 1918 to 1919, he was a writer and director for Vitagraph. From 1919 to 1938, Webb was a writer and director, first with the Famous Players Film Company, then with Whitman Bennett and Associated First National Theatres, Inc., then Fox Film Corporation, then Whitman Bennett and United Artists, then Burr & Company, then Pathe, then Lee de Forest,, Tiffany Pictures, and then FitzPatrick Pictures. Webb wrote for legitimate stage since 1924. Since 1933, Webb was a radio writer and producer with Batten Barton Durstine & Osborn, Inc., and since 1953, was its Western editor.
From 1943 to 1943, Webb was a lecturer at New York University of radio writing and production.

Partial filmography

As director

  1. Marie, Ltd.
  2. Will You Be Staying for Supper?
  3. Sinners
  4. The Stolen Kiss
  5. The Master Mind
  6. The Devil's Garden
  7. The Truth About Husbands
  8. The Fear Market

    Realart Pictures Corporation
  9. The Great Adventure

    Whitman Bennett

    Associated [First National Pictures, Inc.]
  10. Jim the Penman
  11. Salvation Nell
  12. Fair Lady
  13. How Women Love
  14. The Daring Years
  15. The [Beautiful City (1925 film)|The Beautiful City]
  16. Just Suppose

Education

Webb attended The Collegiate School on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He went on to study at Columbia University, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1906.

Professional and fraternal associations

Kenneth Webb was one of children born to the marriage of William Edward Webb and Juliette Seymour Bell. Kenneth Webb married, on September 20, 1920, silent film actress Lorraine Frost in Manhattan, New York. His brother, Roy Webb, also composer and film director, was one of his chief collaborators.