John Berry (film director)
John Berry ( born September 6, 1917 in the Bronx, New York as Jack Szold, † November 29, 1999 in Paris, France) was an American film director, screenwriter, actor and film producer. He directed films such as stretched to breaking point, Characteristics 7-73, the black slave, danger in the valley of the tiger or Caught in the eternal ice.
Life and career
Born in 1917 as Jack Szold in the Bronx, the son of Jewish parents, John Berry began his film career as an actor in small supporting roles as in Orson Welles short film Too Much Johnson in 1938, where he earned his spurs as well as first assistant director. There were other small appearances in American films like Billy Wilder's classic Double Indemnity. In the late 1940s he put his focus then on the training to become a director, among other things, with a further work as an assistant director at the Max Ophüls ' Drama Caught by 1948.
In 1949, he staged with stretched to tearing a thriller in the style of film noir with a renowned cast as Richard Basehart, Audrey Totter, Cyd Charisse, Barry Sullivan and William Conrad.
Berry turned only one other film in the U.S., Characteristics 7-73 before he denounced before the Committee on Un-American Activities as a Communist in Hollywood was no longer working and was forced to accept Directed Orders in Europe.
In 1955 he worked with stars like Eddie Constantine in kisses, balls and scoundrels or with remote Andel in the great seducer. In 1958 he occupied Dorothy Dandridge, Curd Jürgens and Jean Servais in his film drama The black slave, for which he also wrote the screenplay.
Since the 1960s, commissioned works, he directed then mainly as a risk in the valley of the Tiger ( 1966) Claudine (1974 ), I 'm right and you're to blame (1977 ) or The Bad News Bears Are Unstoppable (1978) and left in 1976 after a long time as an actor before the camera in Maurice Dugowsons F as in Fairbanks on the side of Patrick Dewaere, Miou Miou - and Michel Piccoli.
Only at the beginning of the 1980s, he invested more time on their work as an actor and he wrote again increased screenplays as in French Street Fighters (1987 ) and realized his own film projects like Trapped in the ice ( 1993) and his last work, the drama Buschmann and Lena with Danny Glover and Angela Bassett, who came posthumously into the cinemas.
John Berry died on 29 November 1999 in the French capital at the age of 82 years.
From 1975 until his death in 1999, he was married to the French actress Myriam Boyer.