Christian Nyby

Career Nyby was born in Los Angeles to Danish immigrant parents: the motion picture coordinator Ib Hansen Nyby (1882–1959) and Inger Astrid Nyby (1885–1973). He started his career as a film editor in the 1940s. He edited four films directed by Howard Hawks: To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), Red River (1948), and The Big Sky (1952). Nyby was nominated for the Academy Award for Red River. He had begun his career in the carpentry division at the studios, worked his way up to editor, then received his first directing credit on Hawks' 1951 production of The Thing from Another World (or The Thing as it is more commonly known), which was an instant success.

Nyby went on to have a prolific television and movie directing career from the 1950s to the 1970s. Dick Vosburgh wrote in his obituary that "After editing Hawks's next film The Big Sky (1952), Nyby turned to television, directing Ann Sothern's sitcom Private Secretary, which ran for four years. He also directed episodes of The Twilight Zone, I Spy, Lassie, Gomer Pyle – USMC, Adam-12, Perry Mason, The Rockford Files, The Six Million Dollar Man, Ironside, and Kojak. He did especially impressive work on such western series as Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Wagon Train, Whispering Smith, and Rawhide." Nyby's credit as the director has been challenged by some critics; Howard Hawks, the film's producer, was on the set for most of the filming, and is noted as one of the greatest film directors. Nyby said about the controversy in 1982: Did Hawks direct it? That's one of the most inane and ridiculous questions I've ever heard, and people keep asking. That it was Hawks' style. Of course it was. This is a man I studied and wanted to be like. You would certainly emulate and copy the master you're sitting under, which I did. Anyway, if you're taking painting lessons from Rembrandt, you don't take the brush out of the master's hands. before embarking on a legal career in California, finishing as Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner.

Death Nyby died at age 80 in Temecula, California, on September 17, 1993.

Filmography as director The Thing from Another World (1951) Light's Diamond Jubilee (1954) Hell on Devil's Island (1957) Young Fury (1965) Operation C.I.A. (1965) Elfego Baca: Six Gun Law (1966) (feature film made from edited episodes of The Nine Lives of Elfego Baca) First to Fight (1967) Emergency! (1973)