LYCOS RETRIEVER
Otto Preminger: Director Otto Preminger
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Originally a law student, Otto Preminger got his first acting experience with Max Reinhardt's theater company while studying for his degree. He entered the theater as a producer and director, came to America as a director in 1935, and was hired by 20th Century Fox. After leaving the studio for Broadway at the end of the '30s, he returned in the early '40s, specializing in Nazi roles despite his Jewish faith.
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Otto Preminger belongs to film history; beyond that, the consensus ends. Was he the artist-crusader who stared down the MPAA, Cardinal Spellman, and Ku Kluxersor an opportunistic, penny-wise producer with a genius for forecasting the winds of change and handpicking his bouts for maximum headline type? Nor did he help himself by sowing pleasant memories: In a new critical biography by Foster Hirsch, Preminger veterans who weathered the director's infamous outbursts question not only his legacy, but even his very ability.
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Otto Preminger is a dictatorial film director who is renowned for his caustic temper. Actress Colleen Dewhurst once said, "Preminger was legendary for a cruelty that made strong men cry." He had the reputation as "a man of terrible tantrums and mountainous rages." So when Preminger asked Lee Remick to meet with him to discuss a part in his movie, "Anatomy of a Murder," Lee was understandable nervous. She was ... eight months pregnant.
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Otto Ludwig Preminger (December 5, 1906 – April 23, 1986) was a director who moved from the theatre to Hollywood, directing over 35 feature films in a five-decade career. He rose to prominence for stylish film noir mysteries such as Laura (1944). In the 1950s and 1960s, he directed a number of high-profile adaptations of popular novels and stage works. Several of these pushed the boundaries of censorship by dealing with topics which were then taboo in Hollywood, such as drug-addiction (The Man with the Golden Arm,1955), rape (Anatomy of a Murder,1959), and homosexuality (Advise and Consent,1962). He was twice nominated for the Best Director Academy Award. He ... had a few acting roles.
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Born May 1906, December - Originally a law student, Otto Preminger got his first acting experience with Max Reinhardt's theater company while studying for his degree. He entered the theater as a producer and director, came to America as a director in 1935, and was hired by 20th Century Fox.
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In the early '50s, Preminger became an independent producer/director, and immediately began making a name for himself through a series of successful challenges to the restrictive production code, which forbade the use of various controversial subjects onscreen. His sophisticated comedy The Moon Is Blue broke through the barrier with regard to sexual subject matter with its relatively frank treatment of such topics as virginity and pregnancy, while The Man With the Golden Arm was the first major Hollywood film to deal with drug addiction. Preminger's Carmen Jones proved to be a critically successful venture into musicals, which led directly to being chosen by Samuel Goldwyn to direct the screen adaptation of George and Ira Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess. Preminger's box-office record was rather scattershot during this era and included the notorious disaster Saint Joan and the hit Anatomy of a Murder. His early-'60s movies grew in size and pretentiousness, and included such epic-length releases as Advise and Consent, The Cardinal, and In Harm's Way, but, by the middle of the decade, he had receded in ambition and success with Bunny Lake Is Missing, Skidoo, and Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon. The '70s saw the release of the failed thrillers Rosebud and The Human Factor.
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