13 Facts About Delbert Mann

Delbert Mann won the Academy Award for Best Director for the film Marty, adapted from a 1953 teleplay which he had directed.

Delbert Mann's father taught sociology at the University of Kansas from 1920 to 1926.

Delbert Mann was head of his high school drama club when he met Fred Coe, the future television producer and director, who was leading a church-sponsored acting society.

Delbert Mann graduated there in 1941 with a bachelor's degree on political science.

Delbert Mann attended the Yale School of Drama, where he earned a master's fine arts degree in directing.

Delbert Mann took a directing job at the Town Theatre, a community playhouse in Columbia, South Carolina.

Delbert Mann was affiliated with the Town Theatre from 1947 to 1949, before moving to New York to work with Coe in television.

In 1949, at Coe's invitation, Delbert Mann joined him in New York, where he became a stage manager and assistant director at NBC.

Between 1949 and 1955, Delbert Mann directed more than 100 live television dramas.

Delbert Mann directed more than two dozen films for television from the late 1960s to the early 1990s, including Heidi, David Copperfield, Jane Eyre and All Quiet on the Western Front.

Delbert Mann was married to Ann Caroline Gillespie from 1942 until her death by Alzheimer's disease in 2001.

Delbert Mann served as honorary chairman of the institute for a one-year term.

On November 11,2007, Delbert Mann died of pneumonia at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, at age 87.