Biography for
Robert Aldrich (I) More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

9 August 1918, Cranston, Rhode Island, USA

Date of Death

5 December 1983, Los Angeles, California, USA (kidney failure)

Birth Name

Robert Burgess Aldrich

Mini Biography

Robert Aldrich entered the film industry in 1941 when he got a job as a production clerk at RKO Pictures. He soon worked his way up to script clerk, then became an assistant director, a production manager and an associate producer. He began writing and directing for TV series in the early 1950s, and directed his first feature in 1953 (Big Leaguer (1953)). Soon thereafter he established his own production company and produced most of his own films, collaborating in the writing of many of them. Among his best-known pictures are Kiss Me Deadly (1955), What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) and the muscular WW II mega-hit The Dirty Dozen (1967).

IMDb Mini Biography By: frankfob2@yahoo.com

Spouse

Sibylle Siegfried	(11 November 1966 - ?)
Harriet Foster	(1941 - 1965) (divorced) 4 children

Trade Mark

Frequently casts Wesley Addy.

Trivia

Nephew of John D. Rockefeller Jr., grandson of Nelson Aldrich.

Father of director Adell Aldrich

Father of William Aldrich.

President of the Directors Guild of America (DGA). [1975-1979]

Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume Two, 1945-1985". Pages 8-14. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1988.

Directed 5 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Victor Buono, Bette Davis, Agnes Moorehead, Ian Bannen and John Cassavetes.

Head of jury at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1959

Interviewed in Peter Bogdanovich's "Who the Devil Made It: Conversations With Robert Aldrich, George Cukor, Allan Dwan, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Chuck Jones, Fritz Lang, Joseph H. Lewis, Sidney Lumet, Leo McCarey, Otto Preminger, Don Siegel, Josef von Sternberg, Frank Tashlin, Edgar G. Ulmer, Raoul Walsh." NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997.

Personal Quotes

A director is a ringmaster, a psychiatrist and a referee.

[on What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)] Judging by the initial press reaction. I wasn't sure whether I was going to produce and direct a motion picture or referee a fight.

The struggle for self-determination, the struggle for what a character wants his life to be . . . I look for characters who feel strongly enough about something not to be concerned with the prevailing odds, but to struggle against those odds.

The power is for the director to do what he wants to do. To achieve that he needs his own cutter, he needs his cameraman, he needs his own assistant and a strong voice in his choice of writer; a very, very strong voice on who's the actor. He needs the power not to be interfered with and the power to make the movie as he sees it.

I think I am a much more humorous and funny fellow, and I would like to do a comedy or a musical, and I think I could easily adapt to that because of my knowledge of music. But it has nothing to do with what you think of yourself, but only what others think of you.

[on Bette Davis] Now Davis is a tough old broad and you fight. But when you see what she puts on the screen you know it was worth taking all the bull.

[on Frank Sinatra] Unpleasant man. No one has yet worked out what really makes him tick. But he sings well.

[on Lee Marvin] Look, this feller is a pretty good boozer, he's got a short fuse, but he can be handled okay.

[on Burt Lancaster] He has matured gracefully, plays men his own age and understands the need not to win the girl. He is much more tolerant of other people's point of view.

[on Lewis Milestone] From Lewis Milestone I learned diplomacy in dealing with actors.

[1974 comment on Kim Novak] Is Kim Novak a joke in her own time?

[on Charles Chaplin, for whom he worked as assistant director on Limelight (1952)] He's the greatest actor in the world but he doesn't know how to direct.

Salary

Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

$25,000

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