I sometimes make pictures which are not up to my standard, but then it can only be said of a mediocrity that all his work is up to his standard.

He turned his back on his father's tailoring business to enter the theater and by 1911 he was a member of Max Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater. Lubitsch served on the faculty of the University of Southern California for a time. It has been claimed that the last picture made by the director with his distinctive "touch" was Heaven Can Wait (1943) another Raphaelson collaboration.

His urbane comedies of manners gave him the reputation of being Hollywood's most elegant and sophisticated director; as his prestige grew his films were promoted as having "the Lubitsch touch. Ernst Lubitsch (January 29 1892 – November 30 1947) was a German Americanactor screenwriter producer and film director.