John Frankenheimer

He was married three times. His first wife was called Joanne Evans and they were briefly married while both were college students--chiefly, he claimed, because in the 1940s it was easier than living together. He claimed that neither of them remotely expected the marriage to last long, and it didn't.

Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume Two, 1945-1985." Pages 365-372. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1988.

Directed 140 live television dramas for Studio One in Hollywood (1948), Days Of Wine & Roses - Cliff Robertson & Piper Laurie, "Playhouse 90" Original TV Version (1956), The DuPont Show of the Month (1957) and other showcase anthologies.

Born in New York and raised in Queens, John Frankenheimer wanted to become a professional tennis player. He loved movies and his favorite actor was Robert Mitchum. He decided he wanted to be an actor but then he applied for and was accepted in the Motion Picture Squadron of the Air Force where he realized his natural talent to handle a camera. After his military discharge he began a TV career in 1953 convincing CBS to hire him as an assistant director, which consisted mainly working as a cameraman at that time. He eventually started to direct the show he was working on as an assistant director. Frankenheimer still didn't want to direct films. He liked to direct live television, and he would have continued to do it if the profession itself hadn't cease to exist.

Disappointed his with first feature film experience he returned to his successful television career directing a total of 152 live television shows between 1954 and 1960.

Directed "For Whom The Bell Tolls" for Days Of Wine & Roses - Cliff Robertson & Piper Laurie, "Playhouse 90" Original TV Version (1956), one of the first showcase dramas to be presented in two parts and on tape. The production, which cost $400,000, was the most expensive TV show at that time (1959).

He first turned to the big screen with The Young Stranger (1957) which he hated to do because he thought he didn't understand movies and wasn't used to work with only one camera.

When Burt Lancaster walked onto the set the first day of shooting of The Young Savages (1961), he was startled and dismayed to see the camera on the floor, aiming upward. Lancaster had never before worked with a director who used such innovative camera angles. He grew to trust Frankenhiemer, and they made four more films together.

Was approached by Albert R. Broccoli to screen-test for the role of James Bond in Dr. No (1962) (Frankenheimer began his career as an actor).

Burt Lancaster personally chose him to replace Arthur Penn as director of The Train (1964) when Lancaster did not approve of Penn's vision of the film--he wanted a more action-oriented film that would appeal to a wider audience, while Penn envisioned it as being more about the paintings that drove the film's plot.

When Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968, it was his good friend Frankenheimer who had personally driven him there that day. In the initial confusion following the shooting Frankenheimer was mistakenly identified as one of the other people shot that night.

Steve Martin's long-time girlfriend in the 1970s, Mitzi Trumbo, left him for Frankenheimer. A number of years later, Frankenheimer tried unsuccessfully to seduce Martin's wife at the time, Victoria Tennant, according to Martin's autobiography.

One of his biggest dreams when he started directing was to work with a concert orchestra. He eventually did it twice, in Prophecy (1979) and The Holcroft Covenant (1985).

Frankenheimer used the pseudonymous Alan Smithee credit on the 1987 TV-movie "Riviera".

Owned a 1988 supercharged Mercedes-Benz 560 SEL, which was willed to the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles upon his death. It can occasionally be seen at the museum on display.

Was attached to direct Men of War (1994) starring Dolph Lundgren, originally written by John Sayles as "A Safe Place". Dropped out to make a somewhat ecologically similarly themed, The Burning Season: The Chico Mendes Story (1994).

Children: daughters Elise and Kristi Frankenheimer. Kristi, a location manager of 20+ years, worked with her father on several projects, including his last, Path to War (2002), for HBO.

Had been working on directing Exorcist: The Beginning (2004) at the time of his death.