Jack Arnold

Jack Arnold (born John Arnold Waks; October 14, 1916 – March 17, 1992) was an American actor and film and television director, best known as one of the leading filmmakers of 1950s science fiction films. His most notable films are It Came from Outer Space (1953), Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), Tarantula (1955), and The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957). Early years Jack Arnold was born in New Haven, Connecticut, to Russian immigrants. As a child he read a lot of science fiction, which laid the foundations for his genre films of the 1950s. He hoped to become a professional actor and in his late teens he enrolled in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, where his classmates included Hume Cronyn, Betty Field and Garson Kanin. After graduating he worked as a vaudeville dancer and, in 1935, began getting roles in Broadway plays. He was acting in My Sister Eileen when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and he immediately enlisted as a cadet for pilot training. While Arnold intended to become a pilot, a shortage of planes meant he was temporarily placed in the Signal Corps, where he took a crash course in cinematography. He then became a cameraman and learned the techniques of filmmaking by assisting Robert Flaherty on various military films. After eight months with Flaherty he became a pilot in the Air Corps. While stationed at Truax Airfield at New Rochelle, New York, he met Betty, who would later become his wife.