Began his film career as a prop boy for
D.W. Griffith and moved on to photograph
and direct at the
Hal Roach studios, where he met another upcoming
cameraman/director,
George Stevens; both men worked on many of the best
Stan Laurel and
Oliver Hardy silent shorts. When Stevens moved on to RKO in the
sound era, Guiol went with him. Unfortunately, many of the "B" films Guiol
directed there did not make money. Stevens, however, never forgot him,
hiring him as a screenwriter on
Gunga Din (1939), associate producer on
Penny Serenade (1941) and
The More the Merrier (1943), producer of
The Talk of the Town (1942) and associate director on
A Place in the Sun (1951) and
Shane (1953). In 1956 Guiol shared an Academy Award nomination for his screenplay on Stevens'
Giant (1956).
