---
name: "Robert Stevenson"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/robert-stevenson"
roles: ["Director"]
born: "31 March 1905"
died: "30 April 1986"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 1
average_as: "director"
average_over: 1
updated: "2026-09-20T04:28:13.500530+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Robert Stevenson

Director. Born 31 March 1905 in Buxton, Derbyshire, England, UK. Died 30 April 1986.

## Details

- **Work:** Director
- **Born:** 31 March 1905, Buxton, Derbyshire, England, UK
- **Died:** 30 April 1986
- **Also known as:** Robert Edward Stevenson
- **Academy Awards:** 1 Oscar nomination
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Stevenson_(filmmaker), https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q725060, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0829038/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/5834

## Streaming the US now

- **Disney+:** [*Mary Poppins*](https://film.one/film/mary-poppins.md) (83)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Robert Stevenson

> Robert Stevenson directed nineteen live-action films for Disney, and one of them, *Mary Poppins* (1964), will outlive the rest by some distance. He was a reliable, unfussy craftsman who never seemed to mind that the wires showed, and once that was exactly right.

When Mary, Bert and the children jump into a chalk drawing in *Mary Poppins*, the actors stroll through a painted countryside among drawn farm animals and the join is plain to see. Stevenson does not hide it and does not apologise for it. That is his habit across twenty years at Disney: put real people next to something that is obviously not real, keep the camera steady and trust the audience to go along. Mostly they did.

He was not always a Disney man. He began as a screenwriter in Britain in the late 1920s and was directing by 1932, with *Tudor Rose* (1936) and *King Solomon's Mines* (1937) among nine British features before he left for Hollywood in 1939 under contract to David O. Selznick. Selznick loaned him out for *Jane Eyre* (1943), with Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine, an atmospheric picture nobody watching *The Love Bug* would guess was his. Then came wartime documentaries, post-war features and a long spell in television, including *Alfred Hitchcock Presents* and *Zorro*, before he joined Walt Disney Productions in 1956. He stayed until he retired in 1976.

The Disney films are the ones people remember, from *Old Yeller* (1957) through *The Love Bug* (1968) to *Bedknobs and Broomsticks* (1971), and they share a recipe: a children's book or story, often with a British flavour; a familiar face such as Dean Jones or David Tomlinson; and a set piece built from effects and animation. The complaint against the later ones is that the recipe hardened into a formula, and we would not argue. *Bedknobs and Broomsticks* takes the *Mary Poppins* mixture and Tomlinson and comes out pleasant, and gone by breakfast. The difference is Julie Andrews, the Sherman brothers' songs and a script that is quietly about a father.

Stevenson's own weaknesses are visible in *Mary Poppins* too. At 139 minutes it runs long, and past the hour he lines up set pieces and lets the story drift while Cotton Warburton lets *Step in Time* run on past its point. Fifteen minutes could go. But he also lets David Tomlinson's frightened banker be wrong for the better part of two hours before the film corrects him, and we found ourselves more moved by that stubborn, anxious man than by anything the chalk drawing did. Not many directors of children's films would have held that nerve, and Stevenson is not usually credited with nerve at all.

He said once that what he had in mind when directing was a happy audience, enjoying itself in a cinema. It is a modest ambition and he met it more often than most. Start with *Mary Poppins*. If the rest of the shelf feels like the same afternoon repeated, that is because it is.

## Biography

Robert Stevenson (31 March 1905 – 30 April 1986) was a British-American film director and screenwriter. Born in Buxton, Derbyshire, England, he studied at Cambridge University before beginning his career in the British film industry.

After directing several British features, including *King Solomon's Mines* (1937) and *Jane Eyre* (1943), he moved to Hollywood. From 1956 he directed 19 live-action films for Walt Disney Productions. He is best known for the musical *Mary Poppins* (1964), for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Director, as well as *The Love Bug* (1968), *Bedknobs and Broomsticks* (1971) and *Herbie Rides Again* (1974).

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, britannica.com, imdb.com.*

## On Fi1m (1)

- *Mary Poppins* (1964), Fi1m 83, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/mary-poppins.md)

## Complete filmography (78)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *The Shaggy D.A.* (1976), Director
- *One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing* (1975), Director
- *The Island at the Top of the World* (1974), Director
- *Herbie Rides Again* (1974), Director
- *Bedknobs and Broomsticks* (1971), Director
- *My Dog, the Thief* (1969), Director
- *The Love Bug* (1968), Director
- *Blackbeard's Ghost* (1968), Director
- *The Gnome-Mobile* (1967), Director
- *That Darn Cat!* (1965), Director
- *The Monkey's Uncle* (1965), Director
- *Mary Poppins* (1964), Director — Fi1m 83, [page](https://film.one/film/mary-poppins.md)
- *The Misadventures of Merlin Jones* (1964), Director
- *Son of Flubber* (1963), Director
- *In Search of the Castaways* (1962), Director
- *The Wonderful World of Disney* (1961), series, Director
- *The Absent-Minded Professor* (1961), Director
- *Kidnapped* (1960), Director, Writer
- *Darby O'Gill and the Little People* (1959), Director
- *I Captured the King of the Leprechauns* (1959), Director
- *Old Yeller* (1957), Director
- *The Best Doggoned Dog in the World* (1957), Director
- *Zorro* (1957), series, Director
- *Johnny Tremain* (1957), Director
- *The Liberty Story* (1957), Director
- *On Trial* (1956), series, Director
- *The Miracle on 34th Street* (1955), Director
- *The 20th Century Fox Hour* (1955), series, Director
- *Alfred Hitchcock Presents* (1955), series, Director
- *Gunsmoke* (1955), series, Director
- *The Star and the Story* (1955), series, Director
- *Atomic Energy as a Force for Good* (1955), Director
- *Heart of Gold* (1953), Director
- *General Electric Theater* (1953), series, Director
- *Cavalcade of America* (1952), series, Director
- *Four Star Playhouse* (1952), series, as Co-Pilot
- *Macao* (1952), Co-Director
- *The Las Vegas Story* (1952), Director
- *My Forbidden Past* (1951), Director
- *Walk Softly, Stranger* (1950), Director
- *The Woman on Pier 13* (1950), Director
- *To the Ends of the Earth* (1948), Director
- *Dishonored Lady* (1947), Director
- *Know Your Ally: Britain* (1944), Director
- *Jane Eyre* (1943), Director, Screenplay
- *Forever and a Day* (1943), Director
- *Joan of Paris* (1942), Director
- *Back Street* (1941), Director
- *The Case of the Frightened Lady* (1940), Screenplay
- *Tom Brown's School Days* (1940), Additional Dialogue, Director
- *Return to Yesterday* (1940), Screenplay, Director
- *Young Man's Fancy* (1939), Director
- *The Ware Case* (1938), Director, Scenario Writer
- *Owd Bob* (1938), Director
- *Paradise for Two* (1937), Writer
- *Non-Stop New York* (1937), Director
- *King Solomon's Mines* (1937), Director
- *Jack of All Trades* (1936), Director
- *Windbag the Sailor* (1936), Writer
- *The Man Who Changed His Mind* (1936), Director
- *Tudor Rose* (1936), Director, Writer
- *Little Friend* (1934), Associate Producer
- *The Camels Are Coming* (1934), Director
- *The Battle* (1934), Writer
- *Early to Bed* (1933), Supervising Producer, Dialogue
- *The Only Girl* (1933), Assistant Director
- *Falling for You* (1933), Director, Screenplay
- *Happy Ever After* (1932), Director
- *Love on Wheels* (1932), Screenplay
- *The Faithful Heart* (1932), Scenario Writer
- *Lord Babs* (1932), Writer
- *Sunshine Susie* (1931), Scenario Writer
- *Michael and Mary* (1931), Writer
- *A Night in Montmartre* (1931), Scenario Writer
- *The Ringer* (1931), Writer
- *Greek Street* (1930), Writer
- *Balaclava* (1928), Scenario Writer
- *Christopher Closeup*, series, Director

## Awards

### Academy Awards — 0 won, 1 nominated

- 1965: Best Director (nominated), for *Mary Poppins*

### Other awards — 1 won

- Disney Legends 2002: Disney Legends (won)

*From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.*

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/robert-stevenson