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John Frankenheimer
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John Frankenheimer was born February 19, 1930, in New York, the son of a Jewish father and an Irish Catholic mother. He graduated from Williams College and tried to become a professional tennis player. He learned to make movies in the Korean War, serving in the Air Force Motion Picture Squadron. After the war, he worked in live TV production for CBS and would direct 157 TV programs 1954-60, including several dozen Playhouse 90 live TV dramas. His first Hollywood film was The Young Stranger in 1957 about youth vs. the father, and the theme of the outsider. He joined the new generation of auteurs Elia Kazan and Nicholas Ray and Arthur Penn.
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Frankenheimer married three times. His first wife was Joanne Evans, in an arrangement of convenience to make the air force pay for her to live with him. They agreed to divorce when he was discharged, and they did. He married, second, Carolyn Miller in 1954, by whom he had two daughters. The marriage was dissolved. He married his third wife, Evan Evans, in 1964.
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To date, Frankenheimer has 28 feature films under his belt, with a 29th, Reindeer Games, currently in pre-production. For the most part, Frankenheimer has stuck with drama; his lone venture into comedy was 99 & 44/100 Percent Dead a satire about warring gangsters that ranks as one of his biggest bombs.
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When Sidney Lumet, the director of You Are There, left the show to begin a film directing career in 1954, Frankenheimer was promoted to director. While Lumet went on to have a solid film career, Frankenheimer ... made the most of his opportunity. He built a significant career directing live television plays that received much praise from critics and audiences alike.
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John started not showing up for shows or came whacked out. In the end, June had to finish up their contract with Roger Miller headlining - her sister was going out with Roger Miller - because John was incapable of finishing. All this stemmed from this intimacy between them that she then realized was a mistake."
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Frankenheimer is on firmer ground with the Robert Ludlum thriller The Holcroft Covenant. Michael Caine plays an architect whose Nazi father's past returns to haunt him when he's put in charge of a $4 billion dollar legacy ostensibly ear-marked for war reparations. Appearances are deceptive... and soon Caine finds himself on the run in Europe.
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John Frankenheimer