42 Facts About Errol Morris

Errol Mark Morris was born on February 5,1948 and is an American film director known for documentaries that interrogate the epistemology of its subjects.

Errol Morris was born on February 5,1948, into a Jewish family in Hewlett, New York.

Errol Morris's father died when he was two and he was raised by his mother, a piano teacher.

Errol Morris had one older brother, Noel, who was a computer programmer.

Errol Morris began playing the cello, spending a summer in France studying music under the acclaimed Nadia Boulanger, who taught Morris's future collaborator Philip Glass.

Errol Morris left Princeton in 1972, enrolling at Berkeley as a doctoral student in philosophy.

Errol Morris claimed we weren't showing the real film noir.

Errol Morris later made plans with German film director Werner Herzog, whom Tom Luddy had introduced to Morris, to return in the summer of 1975 to secretly open the grave of Gein's mother to test their theory that Gein himself had already dug her up.

Herzog arrived on schedule, but Errol Morris had second thoughts and was not there.

Errol Morris later returned to Plainfield, this time staying for almost a year, conducting hundreds of hours of interviews.

Errol Morris accepted $2,000 from Herzog and used it to take a trip to Vernon, Florida.

Herzog had said he would eat his shoe if Errol Morris completed the documentary.

Errol Morris returned to Vernon in 1979 and again in 1980, renting a house in town and conducting interviews with the town's citizens.

Errol Morris eventually got funding in 1983 to write a script about John and Jim Pardue, Missouri bank robbers who had killed their father and grandmother and robbed five banks.

Errol Morris worked on writing scripts for various other projects, including a pair of ill-fated Stephen King adaptations.

In 1984, Errol Morris married Julia Sheehan, whom he had met in Wisconsin while researching Ed Gein and other serial killers.

In 1985, Errol Morris became interested in Dr James Grigson, a psychiatrist in Dallas.

Errol Morris began researching the case because it related to Dr Grigson.

At the time, Errol Morris had been making a living as a private investigator for a well-known private detective agency that specialized in Wall Street cases.

Errol Morris wanted to make a film about what happened to Albert Einstein's brain and approached Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment about it.

Errol Morris dedicated the film to his mother and stepfather, who had recently died.

In 2002, Errol Morris was commissioned to make a short film for the 75th Academy Awards.

Errol Morris was hired based on his advertising resume, not his career as a director of feature-length documentaries.

Errol Morris was nominated for an Emmy for this short film.

Errol Morris considered editing this footage into a feature-length film, focusing on Donald Trump discussing Citizen Kane.

Errol Morris went on to make a second short for the 79th Academy Awards in 2007, this time interviewing the various nominees and asking them about their Oscar experiences.

In early 2010, a new Errol Morris documentary was submitted to several film festivals, including Toronto International Film Festival, Cannes Film Festival, and Telluride Film Festival.

In 2003, Morris won the Oscar for Best Documentary for The Fog of War, a film about the career of Robert S McNamara, the Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War under Presidents John F Kennedy and Lyndon B Johnson.

In 2002, Errol Morris directed a series of television ads for Apple Computer as part of a popular "Switch" campaign.

One commercial in the series, starring Ellen Feiss, a high-schooler friend of his son Hamilton Errol Morris, became an Internet meme.

Errol Morris has directed hundreds of commercials for various companies and products, including Adidas, AIG, Cisco Systems, Citibank, Kimberly-Clark's Depend brand, Levi's, Miller High Life, Nike, PBS, The Quaker Oats Company, Southern Comfort, EA Sports, Toyota and Volkswagen.

In July 2004, Errol Morris directed another series of commercials in the style of the "Switch" ads.

Errol Morris wrote an editorial for The New York Times discussing the commercials and Kerry's losing campaign.

In late 2004, Errol Morris directed a series of noteworthy commercials for Sharp Electronics.

Errol Morris directed a series of commercials for Reebok that featured six prominent National Football League players.

In 2013, Errol Morris stated that he has made around 1,000 commercials during his career.

In 2015, Errol Morris made commercials for medical technology firm Theranos, and interviewed its founder, Elizabeth Holmes.

Errol Morris has written long-form journalism, exploring different areas of interest and published on The New York Times website.

In 2012, Errol Morris published his second book, A Wilderness of Error: The Trials of Jeffrey MacDonald, about Jeffrey MacDonald, the Green Beret physician convicted of killing his wife and two daughters on February 17,1970.

Errol Morris first became interested in the case in the early 1990s and believes that MacDonald is not guilty after undertaking extensive research.

Errol Morris employs the use of narrative elements within his films.

Errol Morris's style has been spoofed in the mockumentary series Documentary Now.