James Cruze is best known today among film buffs as the director of the epic silent Western The Covered Wagon.

Born Jens Cruz Bosen in Ogden, Utah of Mormon parents,[2] Cruze acquired his middle name solely by virtue of his birth date.

Cruze became one of Paramount's top directors, and in 1926 he scored another success with the seagoing saga Old Ironsides, with large-scale action scenes filmed in an experimental widescreen process.

The Great Gabbo fell far short of expectations at the boxoffice and Cruze, now on the Sono Art staff, found himself directing the company's routine, low-budget melodramas.

Carl Laemmle, president of Universal Pictures, loved action Westerns and he wanted to make a big outdoor spectacle, along the lines of the well remembered The Covered Wagon.

The studio assembled a "name" cast of popular character players including Edward Arnold, Lee Tracy, Harry Carey, and Binnie Barnes.

The only real benefit Universal derived from Sutter's Gold was its value as stock footage; Cruze's carefully staged outdoor scenes were often edited into the studio's low-budget adventures, Westerns, and serials.

Cruze, with the notoriety of the Sutter's Gold fiasco haunting his career, found work at Republic Pictures, a "budget" independent studio specializing in action and Western fare.

His fortunes had a temporary lift when he remarried in 1941, but his happiness was short-lived and he died by his own hand on August 3, 1942, at his home in Hollywood, California, aged 58.