Charles "Chuck" Riesner

Bio: Already boasting experience as a prizefighter, vaudevillian, and legitimate stage entertainer, 29-year-old Chuck Reisner inaugurated his screen career as a comic and gag writer at Mack Sennett's Keystone Studio. At First National from 1918 through 1923, Reisner was a close associate of Charlie Chaplin, laboring as an assistant director and supporting player in such… More Bio: Already boasting experience as a prizefighter, vaudevillian, and legitimate stage entertainer, 29-year-old Chuck Reisner inaugurated his screen career as a comic and gag writer at Mack Sennett's Keystone Studio. At First National from 1918 through 1923, Reisner was a close associate of Charlie Chaplin, laboring as an assistant director and supporting player in such Chaplin films as The Kid (1921) and The Pilgrim (1923). Reisner's first feature film directorial credit was The Man in the Box (1925), starring Chaplin's brother, Sydney Chaplin. An A-to-Z comedy specialist, Reisner directed such top laughgetters as Buster Keaton in Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928), Laurel and Hardy in Hollywood Revue of 1929, Jack Benny in It's in the Air (1935), Ed Wynn in The Chief (1933), the Marx Brothers in The Big Store (1941), and Abbott and Costello in Lost in a Harem (1944). He was also principal director for MGM's popular Marie Dressler/Polly Moran vehicles of the early '30s. Reisner's last theatrical feature was the Joan Davis slapstickfest The Travelling Saleswoman (1950); thereafter, he concentrated on television work. Charles Reisner was the father of actor/writer/director Dean Reisner, who was active at his father's "home" studio of MGM in the 1960s. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi