Actors turned directors

I looked him up because I thought he might have directed that dreadful remake of The Razor's Edge. (He didn't.)

Thanks, Mr. Kimble. I’d forgotten that dance scene. It’s breathtaking.

do you mean major directors or just directed a ccouple of things?


Rob Reiner and Opie.

Al Pacino  directed Salome, Wilde Salome, Chinese Coffee and Looking For Richard, which earned him a DGA Award.

Some actors who occasionally shifted from before the camera to behind it:

Lowell Sherman

Among his directorial credits were She Done Him Wrong and Morning Glory (Katharine Hepburn's 1st Oscar performance). He's pictured above with Constance Bennett in probably his best known appearance, What Price Hollywood? 

Lloyd Corrigan

Some directorial credits were Follow Thru, Paramount's 1930 All-Talking, All Singing, All Dancing, All Technicolor feature, La Cucaracha, the first live-action short in 3-strip Technicolor, Murder On A Honeymoon (a Hildegarde Withers mystery) and Night Key with Boris Karloff.

Lionel Barrymore

Directed Ruth Chatterton in Madame X, John Gilbert's notorious talkie debut His Glorious Night, the now mostly-lost Technicolor The Rogue Song and Barbara Stanwyck in Ten Cents A Dance among a few others. Pictured above pretending to direct Gilbert and Norma Shearer in The Hollywood Revue. 

Just came to think of Ernst Lubitsch, who begun as an actor/member of Max Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater in 1911, entering movies in 1913, he both directed and also acted in other directors movies. "He gradually abandoned acting to concentrate on directing" (Wiki)



Ernest Lubitsch in a double role in Der Stolz der Firma 1914, directed by Carl Wilhelm. 

Reynolds made 80 appearances on the big and small screens from 1934 - 1967 before branching into directing in the late-'50s, helming multiple episodes of Leave It To Beaver, Andy Griffith, My Three Sons and others, then expanding to producing as executive producer of Room 222, M*A*S*H, Lou Grant and others, also directing multiple episodes of those series.

In addition to his roles in such films as Boys Town, The Mortal Storm, 99 River Street or The Country Girl, viewers of I Love Lucy might remember him as the hapless newlywed whose bride, after renting the Ricardos' apartment and purchasing their furniture, upsets Lucy by wanting to cut the legs off the sofa and paint the coffee table black ("It was my wife's idea!").

Here, Fred Mertz is assuring prospective tenants the Taylors, "If there's one thing I give my tenants, it's plenty a'heat," while the Ricardos sit shivering in their bathrobes.
  

Sheldon Leonard

He's best remembered as a movie gangster...



Turned powerful TV producer:

An Andy Griffith Show script meeting



But he also directed a number of TV episodes



From Leonard's DGA page:

"In talking about the Directors Guild of America, the significant word is ‘Guild.’ We are not only concerned about wages, hours and working conditions, but we are also concerned about the creative aspects of our work. We religiously protect the director’s right to his first cut, the director’s right to involvement in casting and in revisions, and we therefore do the best we can to maintain the standards of our trade.” Leonard learned these lessons as a director, writer, actor and producer who remained devoted to Guild service throughout much of his 60-year career in Hollywood. He was awarded the Robert B. Aldrich Achievement Award for service and was named an honorary life member. When Leonard was DGA secretary-treasurer, then-President Gene Reynolds called him a treasure: “because he’s the salt of the earth, because he’s wise, courageous, generous, reliable, straight as hell, entertaining and profoundly devoted to our cause.”

That wasn't his only career:


The suspicious part of me wonders if some movies got approved b/c they also had juicy roles for Mr Crisp...