H.C. Potter was born in New York City, the grandson of the Right Rev.
Henry Codman Potter, Episcopal bishop of New York, and great-grandson of
Alonzo Potter. He attended
St. Marks School and graduated from Yale University in 1926, where he was a member of the
Yale Dramatic Association and
Scroll and Key. He attended the Yale School of Drama in the era of
George Pierce Baker, and with George Haight founded the Hampton Players, one of the early summer theaters in America, based in Southampton, Long Island from 1927 to 1933. With Haight as producer, he directed numerous Broadway productions, then moved to Hollywood, where he directed over 20 feature films, earning a reputation as a specialist in "gag" comedy. The films he directed include
Beloved Enemy (1936),
Wings Over Honolulu (1937),
Romance in the Dark,
The Cowboy and the Lady, and
The Shopworn Angel (1938),
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938),
The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle and
Blackmail (1939),
Congo Maisie and
Second Chorus (1940), ''
Hellzapoppin' (1941), Victory Through Air Power (documentary) and Mr. Lucky (1943), The Farmer's Daughter and A Likely Story (1947), You Gotta Stay Happy, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House and The Time of Your Life (1948), The Miniver Story (1950), Three for the Show (1955) and Top Secret Affair'' (1957). An avid private pilot, he served during World War II as superintendent of operations at
Falcon Field near Phoenix, Arizona, training
Royal Air Force pilots, and later as captain in the Air Transport Command, ferrying cargo in small planes to military bases throughout California. His postwar film career was impeded by a contract with
RKO, then controlled and virtually brought to a halt by the eccentric policies of its owner
Howard Hughes. In 1958, he retired from film work and moved to New York City, where he opened a stage production office with Richard Meyers, and pursued his hobby of training Labrador retrievers for field trials. On February 8, 1960, H.C. Potter's name was placed in the
Hollywood Walk of Fame. His star is located at 6633 Hollywood Blvd. Retirement afforded Potter the opportunity to indulge his passion for writing scholarly monographs about
Sherlock Holmes for
The Baker Street Journal. In 1971 he was awarded membership in
The Baker Street Irregulars, the New York-based organization that keeps green the memory of Sherlock Holmes. Potter was granted the investiture "The Final Problem". In addition, Potter twice won the Morley-Montgomery Award, one of the highest distinctions given by the BSI, for his articles "Reflections on Canonical Vehicles and Something of the Horse" (1971) and '"John H. Watson, Word Painter" (1976). Potter married Lucilla Annie Wylie in 1926. Their three sons were Daniel J. Potter, M.D., Robert A. Potter, Ph.D., and Earl Wylie Potter, Esq. H.C. Potter died in Southampton, New York on August 31, 1977. ==Selected filmography==