Gerald Bertram Fairbanks (November 1, 1904, San Francisco — June 21, 1995, Santa Barbara, California) was a producer and director in the Hollywood motion picture and television industry.
Fairbanks survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and began his career in film as a cameraman on silent movies such as John Barrymore's The Sea Beast (1926).
This was followed by work on early sound productions such as Howard Hughes' film Hell's Angels (1930) in which he participated both as a biplane pilot and aerial cinematographer for the extensive World War I dogfight scenes.
Based on the success of these productions, he was able to sell Paramount Pictures on three new series of short subjects entitled Unusual Occupations, Speaking of Animals, and Popular Science.
[2][3][4] He broke new ground in television by inventing for NBC in 1947 the Multi-Cam multiple-camera setup of production, assisted by producer-director Frank Telford, which is still used by sitcoms today.
Jerry Fairbanks, like other visionaries who had embraced the idea of commercial television, had established himself early, before national networks were established—and well before stations in many cities were even built.
But Fairbanks soon amassed an inventory of filmed, low-budget productions that were already dated or outmoded by the early 1950s, while his competitors flourished with new programming especially designed for the new TV formats.
In 1967 he produced Bamboo Saucer, a theatrical feature starring Dan Duryea, one of the more engaging sci-fi films on UFOs of that era, written and directed by Frank Telford.
Among other things, Marjorie was a protégé of Max Reinhardt who auditioned for the part of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind, and creator of the popular annual Ladies of Charity luncheon at the Beverly Hilton Hotel (which sponsored Mother Teresa's first visit to the USA).