John Michael Frankenheimer ( February 19, 1930 – July 6, 2002 ) was an American film and television director known for social dramas and action / suspense films.

Frankenheimer was born in Queens, New York, the son of Helen Mary ( née Sheedy ) and Walter Martin Frankenheimer, a stockbroker.

His father was of German Jewish descent and his mother was Irish Catholic, and Frankenheimer was raised Catholic.

In May 2001, amid rumors that he was the biological father of film director Michael Bay, Frankenheimer stated he had a brief relationship with Bay's birth mother.

After the rumors surfaced that Bay's natural father was a filmmaker, there was much speculation about Frankenheimer, who continued to deny the story and told the Los Angeles Times that there had once been " tests " to determine paternity ( long before DNA testing ).

Burt Lancaster, who was producing as well as starring, asked Frankenheimer to take over the film.

As Frankenheimer describes in Charles Champlin's interview book, he advised Lancaster that the script was too long but was told he had to shoot all that was written.

The first cut of the film was four-and-a-half hours long, the length Frankenheimer had predicted.

Lancaster was committed to star in Judgment at Nuremberg, so he made that film while Frankenheimer prepared the reshoots.

Frankenheimer had to fight to cast Lansbury, who had worked with him on All Fall Down, and was just two years older than Harvey.

Urban legend has it that the film was pulled from circulation due to the similarity of its plot to the death of President Kennedy the following year, but Frankenheimer states in the Champlin book that it was pulled because of a legal battle between producer Sinatra and the studio over Sinatra's share of the profits.

Frankenheimer was ahead in schedule anyway, and the McQueen / Sturges project was called off, while the German race track was only mentioned briefly in Grand Prix.

Frankenheimer calls it in the Champlin book " the only movie I've made which I would say was a total disaster.

Frankenheimer was a friend of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and drove him to the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles the night Kennedy was assassinated in June 1968.

With Hackman reprising his role as New York cop Popeye Doyle, the film was a success and got Frankenheimer his next job, Black Sunday in 1976.

John Frankenheimer was originally hired as director for the project, but withdrew before filming started due to health concerns.

Banned movies included The Manchurian Candidate, directed by John Frankenheimer in 1962, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 1970 by Finnish director Caspar Wrede and Born American by Finnish director Renny Harlin in 1986.

Frankenheimer returned to television during the late 1950s, moving to film permanently in 1961 with The Young Savages, in which he worked for the first time with Burt Lancaster in a story of a young boy murdered by a New York gang.

Frankenheimer and producer George Axelrod bought Richard Condon's 1959 novel after it had already been turned down by many Hollywood studios.

In later years, Frankenheimer theorized that the audience may have developed an affinity over the course of the movie for the character played by Bruce Dern and thus felt conflicted when he was defeated at the end.

Most of his 1980s films were less than successful, both critically and financially, but Frankenheimer was able to make a comeback in the 1990s by returning to his roots in television.

* Year of the Gun ( 1991 ), directed by John Frankenheimer.

His girlfriend Velma Davis was played by Evans Evans, who was the wife of film director John Frankenheimer.

* A television adaptation, directed by John Frankenheimer, was broadcast in two parts on CBS's Playhouse 90 in 1956, starring Jason Robards and Maria Schell as Robert Jordan and Maria, with Nehemiah Persoff as Pablo, Maureen Stapleton as Pilar, and Eli Wallach as the gypsy Rafael.

She appeared opposite Mickey Rooney in the 1957 live CBS-TV broadcast of The Comedian, a harrowing drama written by Rod Serling and directed by John Frankenheimer.

This was adapted by Guy Trosper for the 1962 film of the same name, directed by John Frankenheimer.

The cult racing film Grand Prix, directed by John Frankenheimer, left Garner with a fascination for car racing that he often explored by actually racing during the ensuing years.

The game is the core and subject of a novel by French novelist Joseph Kessel titled Les Cavaliers ( aka Horsemen ) as well as of the film The Horseman ( 1971 ), which was directed by John Frankenheimer with Omar Sharif in the lead role.

* The Manchurian Candidate, directed by John Frankenheimer, starring Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh, Leslie Parrish, Angela Lansbury

Starting from the late 1940s until the 1950s and 1960s, he also appeared on American television, making guest appearances in drama programs, most notably in The Fifth Column for Buick Electra Playhouse / CBS in 1960, playing an almost-deaf Nazi officer in a group of fifth columnists operating behind the lines in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s ( the program was adapted from a story by Ernest Hemingway and directed by John Frankenheimer ).

As well as appearing in ten episodes of her father's half-hour television programme, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Hitchcock worked on a few others, including Playhouse 90, which was live, directed by John Frankenheimer.

John Frankenheimer directed All Fall Down ( 1962 ), Inge's screenplay adaptation of the novel by James Leo Herlihy.

At the age of 18, he played Hal Ditmar in the television play, Deal a Blow, directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Macdonald Carey, Phyllis Thaxter and Edward Arnold.

Frankenheimer was unable to meet with McQueen to offer him the role and instead sent Edward Lewis, his business partner and the producer of Grand Prix.

* TCM Remembers 2002: William Warfield, director George Sidney, Signe Hasso, Brad Dexter, producer Lew Wasserman, Ted Ashley, Lawrence Tierney, Leo McKern, Kim Hunter, John Agar, Jeff Corey, Dolores Gray, producer J. Lee Thompson, Eddie Bracken, Katy Jurado, animator Chuck Jones, Harold Russell, Eileen Heckart, Jack Kruschen, Buddy Lester, Adolph Green, director André de Toth, producer Richard Sylbert, Milton Berle, director Billy Wilder, director John Frankenheimer, Dudley Moore, Richard Harris, Rod Steiger and James Coburn.

Although producer David Susskind, in a 1960s roundtable discussion with leading 1950s TV dramatists, defined TV's Golden Age as 1938 to 1954, the final shows of Playhouse 90 in 1961 and the departure of leading director John Frankenheimer brought the era to an end.

He also mentored directors such as Sydney Pollack and John Frankenheimer and appeared in several television films.

In addition, John Frankenheimer directed five films with Lancaster: The Young Savages ( 1961 ), Birdman of Alcatraz ( 1962 ), Seven Days in May ( 1964 ), The Train ( 1964 ), and The Gypsy Moths ( 1969 ).

* 1930 – John Frankenheimer, American film director ( d. 2002 )

John Frankenheimer: A Conversation with Charles Champlin ( Riverwood Press ).

Pictures About Extremes: The Films of John Frankenheimer ( McFarland ).

* John Frankenheimer OpsRoom. org

* John Frankenheimer, Senses of Cinema, Issue 41 " Great Directors Series "

* Interview with John Frankenheimer video TV Legends, 28 minutes

* Literature on John Frankenheimer

* John Frankenheimer: The Hollywood Interview

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