Robert A. McGowan

Born in Denver, McGowan is best known as a junior director for the Our Gang short subjects film series from 1926 to 1930, and as the co-writer of the series during the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer period from 1938 to 1944. McGowan was named for his uncle, Our Gang senior director Robert F. McGowan. Since both Robert McGowans worked on the series, Robert Anthony McGowan was usually credited as Anthony Mack.

While McGowan directed a number of Our Gang entries in the late-1920s, his work is considered lesser than that of his uncle. He appears on-screen in the 1932 short Free Wheeling, in which he is socked by a boxing glove attached to the kids' makeshift taxi.

McGowan married Madeline Rosselle, the daughter of a choreographer, and had two children. McGowan's personal memorabilia was destroyed.

His career came to an end during the Communist "witch hunt" era of the late-1940s, during which he was blacklisted for associating with blacklisted screenwriters. He died in Los Angeles, California on June 20, 1955, five months after his uncle, at the age of 54, on the day of the longest solar eclipse in that century.

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