DELBERT MANN (1920-2007) - Director

Interview Summary

Former DGA President Delbert Mann shares with interviewer Robert Butler his career as a director in television and film. Mann speaks of his friendship with producer Fred Coe, and how that relationship led him to working in television. He describes how the live television production of  Marty starring Rod Steiger, led to the enormously successful feature film version starring Ernest Borgnine that won him a DGA Award and garnered four Oscars and the Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. He also discusses work with actors like Sophia Loren, Cary Grant, and Laurence Olivier, and describes how he became active in the Directors Guild, especially in the areas of creative rights, pension and healthcare, and the Assistant Director Training Program. With over 45 years of filmmaking experience, Mann offers his reflections on the changes in the studio and network system and their effects on the craft of directing.

Biography

Oscar-winning director and “Golden Age of Television” luminary Delbert Mann graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1941 and went on to serve as a bomber pilot in the U.S. Air Corps during WWII, receiving a Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with four Oak Leaf Clusters. Following the war, he received his M.F.A. from Yale Drama School and was directing live theatre and teaching at Vanderbilt University when his friend, the noted producer Fred Coe, offered him the opportunity to direct live television drama.  Over the next six years, he directed over 100 teleplays with actors like Eva Marie Saint, Julie Harris, Humphrey Bogart and Henry Fonda. His groundbreaking work on the live television adaptation of What Makes Sammy Run? starred John Forsythe, Dina Merrill and Larry Blyden. Mann’s breakthrough came while working on The Goodyear Television Playhouse live production of Marty, written by Paddy Chayefsky and starring Rod Steiger. The success of the teleplay led to his 1955 feature film directing debut when Marty became the legendary blockbuster starring Ernest Borgnine, winning the Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and the Screen Directors Guild Award for Best Director, followed in 1956 by Oscars for Best Director, Best Actor, Best Screenplay, and Best Picture.  Mann followed with acclaimed screen adaptations of Desire under the Elms with Sophia Loren and Anthony Perkins and Separate Tables, starring Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, and David Niven, for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Direction. In the 1960s, he directed the feature film adaptation of the stage hit, The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, which earned him a DGA Nomination for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Films. Adept at a wide variety of genres, he followed up with A Gathering of Eagles, That Touch of Mink, Dear Heart, and Fitzwilly.  Returning to television, he directed such acclaimed movies as Heidi with Maximilian Schell, David Copperfield with Laurence Olivier, Jane Eyre with George C. Scott and Susannah York, All Quiet on the Western Front with Richard Thomas and Ernest Borgnine, and The Member of the Wedding with Pearl Bailey. All five of these movies for television were DGA Award-nominated for Outstanding Directorial Achievement.

Delbert Mann served as President of the Directors Guild of America from 1967 to 1971. He was a National Board member from 1958 to 1966 and from 1973 to 1977, both times serving as a Guild Vice President. He also participated on the National Board as an ex-officio member, and from 2001 to 2004, served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Directors Guild Foundation. In 1977, the DGA honored him with its Robert B. Aldrich Achievement Award for Extraordinary Service, and in 2002 with the DGA Honorary Life Member Award.