William A. Berke on AllMovie

A graduate of Los Angeles Polytechnic High School, William A. Berke entered the burgeoning film industry as an office boy for L-KO comedies and later functioned as assistant to the cameraman then cameraman for the same company. He continued his career behind the camera with Pathé, Fox, Paramount, and, finally, FBO, a purveyor of inexpensive Westerns. An eye infection summarily ended Berke's aspirations as a cinematographer, however, and instead he became an assistant to C.C. Burr, the producer of the popular Torchy comedies. In the 1930s, Berke became one of the most prolific producer-directors of low-budget Westerns, directing under such pseudonyms as Lester Williams and William Hall, before signing on as an associate producer with newcomer Republic Pictures in 1937. He remained with the San Fernando Valley B-Western factory until 1941, then functioned as producer-director at Columbia Pictures. After a short stint directing training films for the Signal Corps., Berke returned to mainstream movie-making as a producer and/or director on a host of low-budget ventures for Monogram and its successor, Allied Artists, taking time out to produce the 1949 television series The Goldbergs. More television would follow -- including directorial duties on the Gene Autry and Annie Oakley shows -- but Berke's forte would become cheap jungle melodramas, a trait he shared with the even more notorious "Jungle Sam" Sam Katzman. His son, Lester William Berke, also entered the film industry, mostly as a writer.