[4] King began appearing in films in 1912, initially for the Lubin Manufacturing Company on the West Coast on $35 a week.

King recalled: The Balboa Company made pictures to be sold by the foot... [they] would shoot a great quantity of footage with some semblance of story in it and then tie it together with subtitles.

King directed some films with Mary Miles Minter: Powers That Prey (1918), Social Briars (1918), and Beauty and the Rogue (1918).

(1918), Up Romance Road (1918), Hobbs in a Hurry (1918), All the World to Nothing (1918), When a Man Rides Alone (1919), Where the West Begins (1919), Brass Buttons (1919), Some Liar (1919), A Sporting Chance (1919), This Hero Stuff (1919), and Six Feet Four (1919).

He did some films with HB Warner: A Fugitive from Matrimony (1919), Haunting Shadows (1919), The White Dove (1920), Uncharted Channels (1920), One Hour Before Dawn (1920), Dice of Destiny (1920), and When We Were 21 (1921).

It starred Richard Barthemless who reunited with King in The Seventh Day (1922), Sonny (1922), The Bond Boy (1922), and Fury (1923).

Working for Sam Goldwyn, King had a huge success with Stella Dallas (1925) with Coleman, Partners Again (1926), and some films with Colman and Vilma Bánky: The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926) and The Magic Flame (1927).

He made Lightnin' (1930) with Will Rogers, Merely Mary Ann (1931) with Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell, Over the Hill (1931), and The Woman in Room 13 (1932).

He was one of several directors on I Loved You Wednesday (1933) and My Lips Betray (1933) and made Carolina (1934) with Gaynor and Marie Galante (193) with Spencer Tracy.

A remake of Seventh Heaven (1937) was not that successful but In Old Chicago (1938), with Power, Don Ameche and Alice Faye was a big hit.

Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938), which reunited King with Power, Ameche and Faye, became the biggest hit in the studio's history.

[9] King directed Stanley and Livingstone (1939) with Tracy, Little Old New York (1940) with Faye, Maryland (1940) with Walter Brennan and Chad Hanna (1940) with Dorothy Lamour and Fonda.

King directed Remember the Day (1942), a drama with Claudette Colbert and John Payne, and The Black Swan (1942), a massively popular swashbuckler wih Power.

[10] Another big hit was The Song of Bernadette (1943) which made a star of Jennifer Jones and earned King a Best Director Oscar nomination.

King was entrusted Wilson (1944), a dream project of Daryl F. Zanuck, which was the most expensive film produced by Fox to date, but which was a box office disappointment.

King directed A Bell for Adano (1945) with Gene Tierney, then Margie (1946) with Jeanne Crain, which was a "sleeper" box office success.

King directed Wait Till the Sun Shines, Nellie (1952) with Jean Peters, an episode of O. Henry's Full House (1952) with Crain, then The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952), based on the short story by Ernest Hemingway, with Peck, Hayward and Ava Garner, which was one of the most popular movies of the decade.

[14] He returned to Fox for his last two films Beloved Infidel (1959) with Peck and Deborah Kerr and Tender Is the Night (1962) with Jones.