[2][3] His title of Marquis was inherited from his paternal great grandfather J.B. de Fiennes, a Belgian nobleman and barrister[4] in service to King Leopold I of Belgium.

When his great grandfather failed in his commission to secure the Sandwich Islands (now Hawaii) for Belgium, the disgraced elder Marquis self-exiled to San Francisco in 1850.

[8] Hathaway left school in 1912 at the age of fourteen to become an assistant property master at Universal Pictures, and began playing adolescent roles in 1917.

[9] With the entry of the United States into World War I, Hathaway served as a gunnery instructor at Fort Winfield Scott in San Francisco for the duration of the conflict.

[11] In 1923, Hathaway began working in silent films as an assistant to directors such as Victor Fleming and Josef von Sternberg and made the transition to sound with them.

During the remainder of the 1920s, Hathaway continued as an assistant, helping direct actors such as Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, Adolphe Menjou, Fay Wray, Walter Huston, Clara Bow, and Noah Beery.

(1934) starring Richard Arlen and Ida Lupino, followed by a drama The Witching Hour (1934), and an early Shirley Temple film, Now and Forever (1934).

Encouraged by director Paul Bern, Hathaway traveled to India for nine months in the 1920s to collect documentary footage on Hindu religious pilgrimages.

[21] Hathaway worked for 20th Century Fox directing the studio's biggest male star, Tyrone Power, in Johnny Apollo (1940) and Brigham Young (1940).

Back at Fox he made Ten Gentlemen from West Point (1942), China Girl (1942), Wing and a Prayer (1944), Home in Indiana (1944) and Nob Hill (1945).

These included The House on 92nd Street (1945), for which he was nominated for a Best Director award by the New York Film Critics Circle, The Dark Corner (1946), 13 Rue Madeleine (1947), Kiss of Death (1947) and Call Northside 777 (1948), in which Hathaway presented one of the first on-screen uses of a Fax machine.

It was followed by Fourteen Hours (1951), a noir about a man going to commit suicide, You're in the Navy Now (1951), a military comedy with Cooper, and two with Power: Rawhide (1951), a Western, and Diplomatic Courier (1952).

Hathaway directed the film noir Niagara (1953) which was Marilyn Monroe's breakthrough role and White Witch Doctor (1953) with Susan Hayward and Robert Mitchum.

Hathaway was one of three directors on the Cinerama Western, How the West Was Won (1962), directing the bulk of the film, including the river, prairie and train robbery sequences.

He stepped in for George Seaton in directing some winter outdoor scenes for the all-star Airport (1970), which starred Burt Lancaster and Dean Martin.