Bernard Kowalski (sometimes credited as Bernard L. Kowalski) was a director who specialized in Westerns, actioners, and suspense vehicles. Born Bernard Louis Kowalski in Brownsville, Texas, in 1929, he later moved to Hollywood, where his father became an assistant director and production manager in films. Kowalski himself entered pictures while still a child, as an extra in Warner Bros. films. In his twenties, he cut his teeth working behind the camera in small-screen productions and established himself as a director on half-hour dramas. In 1958, amid a busy output on Western series such as Broken Arrow and Boots and Saddles, he broke into feature films by way of producers Roger Corman and Gene Corman, who engaged him to direct the low-budget exploitation films Hot Car Girl, Night of the Blood Beast, and later Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959). But Kowalski spent most of his subsequent career in television, where his prodigious list of credits included episodes of M Squad, The Rifleman, Perry Mason, The Virginian, The Untouchables, Rawhide, and The Wild Wild West, as well as various made-for-television features. Kowalski remained busy in television right into the 1990s, on series such as Columbo, Knight Rider, Airwolf, and Jake and the Fatman. He died in 2007 at age 78.
by Bruce Eder
biography
