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A veteran low-budget producer, William Steiner founded the Yankee Film Company in 1910 and later headed the Serial Film Company whose initial release, the 1916 chapterplay The Yellow Menace he directed himself. In 1917, Steiner formed the Jester Comedy Company in Jacksonville, FL, a purveyor of low-budget two-reelers featuring European comic Fernandez Perez and his wife Babette, aka "Tweedledum and Tweedledee." Like most low-budget producers, Steiner turned to outdoor melodramas in the 1920s and 1930s, churning out Westerns at an alarming rate, most featuring lower-echelon cowboys such as Neal Hart, Pete Morrison, Leo Maloney, Jack Perrin, and Tom Tyler. Steiner's namesake son became a noted cinematographer.