Sidney Lumet Popular Books

Sidney Lumet Biography & Facts

Sidney Arthur Lumet ( loo-MET; June 25, 1924 – April 9, 2011) was an American film director. Lumet started his career in theatre before moving to film where he gained a reputation for making realistic and gritty New York dramas which focused on the working class, tackled social injustices, and often questioned authority. He was nominated five times for Academy Awards: four for Best Director for 12 Angry Men (1957), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Network (1976), and The Verdict (1982) and one for Best Adapted Screenplay for Prince of the City (1981). Other films include A View from the Bridge (1962), Long Day's Journey into Night (1962), The Pawnbroker (1964), Fail Safe (1964), The Hill (1965), Serpico (1973), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), Equus (1977), The Wiz (1978), The Morning After (1986), Running on Empty (1988), and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007). He received the Academy Honorary Award in 2004. A member of the inaugural class at New York's Actors Studio, Lumet started acting off-Broadway and made his Broadway acting debut in the 1935 play Dead End. He later went on to direct the Broadway plays Night of the Auk (1956), Caligula (1960), and Nowhere to Go But Up (1962). Lumet is also known for his work on television. He received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series nomination for NBC Sunday Showcase (1961). He also directed for Goodyear Television Playhouse, Kraft Television Theatre, and Playhouse 90. Biography Early years Lumet was born in Philadelphia and grew up in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan. He studied theater acting at the Professional Children's School of New York and Columbia University. Lumet's parents, Baruch and Eugenia (née Wermus) Lumet, were Jewish and veterans of the Yiddish theatre; they had immigrated to the United States from Poland. His father, an actor, director, producer and writer, was born in Warsaw. Lumet's mother, who was a dancer, died when he was a child. He had an older sister. Lumet made his professional debut on the radio at age four and his stage debut at the Yiddish Art Theatre at age five. As a child he also appeared in many Broadway productions, including 1935's Dead End and Kurt Weill's The Eternal Road. In 1935, aged 11, Lumet appeared in a Henry Lynn short film Papirossen (meaning "Cigarettes" in Yiddish), co-produced by radio star Herman Yablokoff. The film was shown in a theatrical play with the same title, based on the hit song "Papirosn". The play and short film appeared in the Bronx McKinley Square Theatre. In 1939, he made his only feature-length film appearance, at age 15, in ...One Third of a Nation... World War II interrupted Lumet's early acting career and he spent four years in the U.S. Army. After returning from service as a radar repairman stationed in India and Burma (1942–1946), he became involved with the Actors Studio, and then formed his own theater workshop. He organized an Off-Broadway group and became its director, and continued directing in summer stock theatre, while teaching acting at the High School of Performing Arts. He was the senior drama coach at the new 46th Street building of "Performing Arts". The 25-year-old Lumet directed the drama department in a production of The Young and Fair. Early career Lumet began his career as a director with Off-Broadway productions and then evolved into a highly respected TV director. After working off-Broadway and in summer stock, he began directing television in 1950, after working as an assistant to friend and then-director Yul Brynner. He soon developed a "lightning quick" method for shooting due to the high turnover required by television. As a result, while working for CBS he directed hundreds of episodes of Danger (1950–55), Mama (1949–57), and You Are There (1953–57), a weekly series which featured Walter Cronkite in one of his early television appearances. Lumet chose Cronkite for the role of anchorman "because the premise of the show was so silly, was so outrageous, that we needed somebody with the most American, homespun, warm ease about him", he said. He also directed original plays for Playhouse 90, Kraft Television Theatre and Studio One, directing around 200 episodes, which established him as "one of the most prolific and respected directors in the business", according to Turner Classic Movies. His ability to work quickly while shooting carried over to his film career. Because the quality of many of the television dramas was so impressive, several of them were later adapted as motion pictures. Lumet began his directorial career in Off-Broadway productions, then became a highly efficient TV director. His first movie, 12 Angry Men (1957), a courtroom drama centered on a tense jury deliberation that was based on a CBS live play, was an auspicious beginning for Lumet. It was a critical success and established him as a director skilled at adapting properties from other mediums to motion pictures. Fully half of Lumet's complement of films originated in the theater. Following his first film, Lumet would subsequently divided his energies among political and social drama films, as well as adaptations of literary plays and novels, big stylish stories, New York–based black comedies, and realistic crime dramas, including Serpico and Prince of the City. As a result of directing 12 Angry Men, he was also responsible for leading the first wave of directors who made a successful transition from TV to movies. A controversial TV show he directed in 1960 gained him notoriety: The Sacco-Vanzetti Story on NBC. According to The New York Times, the drama drew flack from the state of Massachusetts (where Sacco and Vanzetti were tried and executed) because it was thought to postulate that the condemned murderers were, in fact, wholly innocent. However, the resulting controversy actually did Lumet more good than harm, sending several prestigious film assignments his way. He began adapting classic plays for both film and television, directing Marlon Brando, Joanne Woodward and Anna Magnani in the feature film The Fugitive Kind (1959), based on the Tennessee Williams play Orpheus Descending. He later directed a live television version of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh, which was followed by his film, A View from the Bridge (1962), another psychological drama from the play written by Arthur Miller. This was followed by another Eugene O'Neill play turned to cinema, Long Day's Journey into Night (also 1962), with Katharine Hepburn gaining an Oscar nomination for her performance as a drug-addicted housewife; the four principal actors swept the acting awards at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival. Directing style and subjects Realism and energetic style Film critic Owen Gleiberman has observed that Lumet was a "hardboiled straight-shooter", who, because he was trained during the golden Age of television in the 1950s, became noted for his energetic style of directing. The words "Sidney Lumet" and "energy", he ad.... Discover the Sidney Lumet popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Sidney Lumet books.