Charles Barton was born in Northern California in 1902. His family moved to Los Angeles when he was a child and he began acting as a teenager, both on stage and as an extra in silent films. In 1919 he signed with United Artists and appeared in THE COUNTY FAIR (1919), one of the few films for which he received credit as an actor. However, Barton saw a better future for himself behind the camera, and he stopped acting soon after in favor of starting over as an office boy at Paramount Pictures. He eventually worked his way up to assistant director, his first credited experience coming on the set of William Wellman’s WINGS (1927), in which he also had a small, uncredited role. For the next several years he worked as an assistant director on over a dozen features, most often for Norman Z. McLeod and William Wellman on such films as THE MAN I LOVE (1929), MONKEY BUSINESS (1931) and HORSE FEATHERS (1932), as well as for Dorothy Arzner on MERRILY WE GO TO HELL (1932). In 1934 Barton was the recipient of a special Academy Award certificate of merit for Best Assistant Director, the same year he made his directorial debut with WAGON WHEELS (1934). He directed a dozen more features at Paramount, many of them westerns, including ROCKY MOUNTAIN MYSTERY (1935), NEVADA (1935), THUNDER TRAIL (1937), and BORN TO THE WEST (1937).
In 1939, Barton left Paramount for Columbia Pictures, beginning an especially productive phase of his career in which he regularly completed several films a year for the studio. His work during this time covered a broad range of genres, including the crime thriller ISLAND OF DOOMED MEN (1940), the comedy SHUT MY BIG MOUTH (1942), the sports drama THE SPIRIT OF STANFORD (1942), several musical comedies starring Jinx Falkenburg, and all four films in the FIVE LITTLE PEPPERS (1939-1940) series of family films. Barton signed with Universal Pictures Co. in 1944, and his career shifted almost exclusively toward comedy. He directed six Abbott and Costello features while at the studio, including BUCK PRIVATES COME HOME (1947) and ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN (1948), as well as the Donald O’Connor comedies THE MILKMAN (1950) and DOUBLE CROSSBONES (1951). His final film for Universal was MA AND PA KETTLE AT THE FAIR (1952), after which he primarily directed for television. He worked on two dozen series over the next two decades, notably directing every episode of THE AMOS AND ANDY SHOW, numerous episodes of ZORRO and DENNIS THE MENACE, and over 100 episodes of the series FAMILY AFFAIR. He also directed a handful of films and television movies during this time, including the Walt Disney productions THE SHAGGY DOG (1959) and TOBY TYLER OR TEN WEEKS WITH A CIRCUS (1960). Following the end of FAMILY AFFAIR in 1971, Barton retired and married his fourth wife, FAMILY AFFAIR actress and dialog director Julie Gibson, and the two remained married until Barton’s death in 1981.