Robert Burgess Aldrich

 Robert Burgess Aldrich (August 9, 1918 – December 5, 1983)

He was a film director, producer, and screenwriter. His notable credits include Vera Cruz (1954), Kiss Me Deadly (1955), The Big Knife (1955), Autumn Leaves (1956), Attack (1956), What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), The Flight of the Phoenix (1965), The Dirty Dozen (1967) and The Longest Yard (1974). Aldrich was fortunate to serve as an assistant director to many notable and talented Hollywood filmmakers. During these assignments which spanned nine years, Aldrich gained both practical and aesthetic fundamentals of filmmaking: “set location and atmosphere” (Jean Renoir, The Southerner, 1945), the “techniques of pre-planning a shot” (Lewis Milestone’s The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, 1946), “action scenes” (William Wellman’s The Story of G.I. Joe, 1946), the “importance of communication with actors” (Joseph Losey’s The Prowler, 1951) and “establishing visual empathy between camera and audience” (Charles Chaplin’s Limelight, 1952). A troupe of loyal, mostly male, players were enlisted for his film leads and supporting roles: Burt Lancaster, Jack Palance, Lee Marvin, Eddie Albert, Richard Jaeckel, Wesley Addy, Ernest Borgnine and Charles Bronson. Aldrich's last movies were comedies: The Frisco Kid (1979), set in the West with Gene Wilder and Harrison Ford, and ...All the Marbles (1981). He was married twice, with four children from his first marriage. Aldrich died of kidney failure on December 5, 1983 in a Los Angeles hospital. He is buried at Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills.