Bert Spurlin (assistant director)

Bert Spurlin (July 15, 1899 – April 23, 1957) was an American film and television crew member who worked in Hollywood, first as a property man and later as an assistant director. IMDb gives his birthplace as Kentucky and his place of death as Los Angeles, and it also lists him under the name Albert Spurlin.^[1]

Property man

IMDb's earliest credit for him is uncredited props work on Dinner at Eight (1933).^[1][2] A syndicated Hollywood column by Robbin Coons, printed in the Daily Alaska Empire in December 1936, described "property man Bert Spurlin" at work on director John Stahl's film about the Irish statesman Parnell. During a long House of Commons speech, Spurlin crouched out of camera range beneath a blackboard carrying the dialogue, and followed Clark Gable's lines with a cane, moving it from word to word as the actor spoke.^[3]

Assistant director

IMDb lists 22 credits for Spurlin as an assistant director, many of them uncredited on screen.^[1] TMDb lists him as assistant director on Northwest Passage (1940), Dr. Kildare's Victory, Fingers at the Window, Panama Hattie and Eyes in the Night (all 1942), Above Suspicion (1943) and The Americano (1955).^[2] IMDb adds Andy Hardy's Double Life (1942), An American Romance (1944), and Courage of Lassie, The Show-Off and No Leave, No Love (all 1946). He is credited on the last of these as Albert Spurlin. IMDb also lists Gunplay and Hot Lead (both 1951) and Ruby Gentry (1952), as well as second-unit assistant-director work on The Next Voice You Hear... (1950).^[1]

In the 1950s he moved into television. IMDb credits him as assistant director on 88 episodes of the comedy Our Miss Brooks between 1953 and 1956, 16 episodes of Willy (1954–1955) and one episode of The Lineup.^[1] The Classic TV Archive's episode guide to the second season of Our Miss Brooks (1953–54, Desilu/CBS) lists "Bert Spurlin" as assistant director, and once spells the name "Burt Spurlin".^[4]

Family and burial

A Find a Grave memorial for Elbert Loren Spurlin gives the same birth and death dates as IMDb. It records that he was born on July 15, 1899, in Depoy, Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, died on April 23, 1957, in Los Angeles County, and is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. The memorial does not mention film work, but the matching dates suggest that "Bert" was short for Elbert. It names his parents as David Andrew Spurlin (1872–1958) and Allie Jackson Eades Spurlin (1873–1952), and his spouse as Marjorie Florence Mills Spurlin (1910–1944).^[5]

See also Spurlins in film and television.