Born Hermann Kosterlitz in Berlin. Flexible studio talent who began his career as a critic, becoming a scenarist in 1926 and a director in 1932. Leaving Germany the year Hitler took power, Koster made several films in Europe before going to Hollywood. His US debut with THREE SMART GIRLS (1936), the first in a series of Deanna Durbin vehicles, was a resounding success and helped bolster the straitened Universal studios. Koster is perhaps best known for HARVEY (1950), in which James Stewart played opposite an invisible six-foot rabbit; Kosted helmed several later Stewart films. He also directed THE ROBE (1953), the first film to be shot in CinemaScope. Other notable directing credits include THE LUCK OF THE IRISH (1948), COME TO THE STABLE and THE INSPECTOR GENERAL (both 1949), WABASH AVENUE and MY BLUE HEAVEN (both 1950), STARS AND STRIPES FOREVER and MY COUSIN RACHEL (both 1952), DESIRÉE (1954), A MAN CALLED PETER, THE VIRGIN QUEEN and GOOD MORNING, MISS DOVE (all 1955), D-DAY THE SIXTH OF JUNE and THE POWER AND THE PRIZE (both 1956), the remake of MY MAN GODFREY (1957), FRÄULEIN and THE NAKED MAJA (both 1958), THE STORY OF RUTH (1960), FLOWER DRUM SONG (1961), MR. HOBBLS TAKES A VACATION (1962), TAKE HER, SHE'S MINE (1963), DEAR BRIGITTE (1965), and his last film, THE SINGING NUN (1966). In 1942, Koster married actress Peggy Moran (1918 - 2002). Before she retired from Universal in 1943, she made movie history in THE MUMMY'S HAND (1940) by being kidnapped by The Mummy in the middle of the Egyptian desert dressed in a silk pegnoir and without a hair out of place during the whole grisley scene. When she married Koster, he promised her that he would put her "in every movie I make". He did, but it was a statue of her which appeared. Sculpted by Yucca Salamunich, the head of Moran appears in every movie, on a piano, a desk, a mantle. For THE ROBE, Koster had a Grecian-style bust made. They remained married until his death in 1988.  Nominated for Directing 1947: THE BISHOP'S WIFE 1 nomination