AustLit

Alf Goulding performed on the vaudeville stage before moving into the film industry in the late-1910s. He went on to establish himself as a Hollywood film director and screenwriter, directing more than 180 films between 1917 and 1959, while also writing around 50 screenplays. In his early career he directed Harold Lloyd comedies for Hal Roach, and played an important role in the career of child star Baby Peggy, directing a number of shorts for Century Film during the early 1920s. He later joined Mack Sennett and then turned out two-reelers at RKO and Columbia, sometimes featuring Edgar Kennedy. A close friend of Stan Laurel, he also directed one of Laurel and Oliver Hardy's best features, A Chump at Oxford in 1940.

Shortly after completing A Chump at Oxford Goulding moving briefly back to Australia and in 1942 wrote and directed A Yank in Australia for the newly formed Austral-American Productions. Its poor reception from critics and subsequent failure at the box office meant that bit was to be his only Australian feature. After the war Goulding moved to England where he directed low-budget films made to fulfil a government requirement that a certain percentage of films shown in England be produced in England.

Goulding died in Hollywood from pneumonia.