42 Facts About Fred Zinnemann

Alfred "Fred" Zinnemann was an Austrian Empire-born American film director.

Fred Zinnemann won four Academy Awards for directing and producing films in various genres, including thrillers, westerns, film noir and play adaptations.

Fred Zinnemann made 25 feature films during his 50-year career.

Fred Zinnemann was among the first directors to insist on using authentic locations and for mixing stars with civilians to give his films more realism.

Fred Zinnemann's films have received 65 Oscar nominations, winning 24; Zinnemann himself was nominated for ten, and won Best Director for From Here to Eternity, Best Picture and Best Director for A Man for All Seasons, and Best Documentary, Short Subjects for Benjy.

Fred Zinnemann directed and introduced a number of stars in their US film debuts, including Marlon Brando, Rod Steiger, Pier Angeli, Julie Harris, Brandon deWilde, Montgomery Clift, Shirley Jones and Meryl Streep.

Fred Zinnemann directed 19 actors to Oscar nominations, including Frank Sinatra, Montgomery Clift, Audrey Hepburn, Glynis Johns, Paul Scofield, Robert Shaw, Wendy Hiller, Jason Robards, Vanessa Redgrave, Jane Fonda, Gary Cooper and Maximilian Schell.

Fred Zinnemann was born in Rzeszow, the son of Anna and Oskar Fred Zinnemann, a doctor.

Fred Zinnemann grew up in Vienna during the First World War, during much of which his father was serving with the Austro-Hungarian Army on the Eastern Front.

Fred Zinnemann later recalled that his father was severely traumatized by his war experiences and often suffered from nightmares.

Fred Zinnemann worked in Germany with several other beginners after he studied filmmaking in France.

Fred Zinnemann became disenchanted with Berlin after continually seeing decadent ostentation and luxury existing alongside desperate unemployment.

Fred Zinnemann arrived in New York at the end of October 1929, at the time of the stock market crash.

Fred Zinnemann took a Greyhound bus to Hollywood a few months later following the completion of his first directorial effort for the Mexican cultural protest film, The Wave, in Alvarado, Mexico.

Fred Zinnemann established residence in North Hollywood with Henwar Rodakiewicz, Gunther von Fritsch and Ned Scott, all fellow contributors to the Mexican project.

Fred Zinnemann said that many of the other extras were former Russian aristocrats and high-ranking officers who fled to America as refugees from the October Revolution in 1917 and the ensuing Red Terror.

Fred Zinnemann was twenty-two but he said he felt older than the forty-year-olds in Hollywood.

Fred Zinnemann is the subject of heroic assistance from anti-Nazi Germans.

Fred Zinnemann was frustrated by his studio contract, which dictated that he did not have a choice in directing films like Little Mister Jim and My Brother Talks to Horses despite his lack of interest in their subject matter.

Fred Zinnemann filmed many scenes in a California hospital where real patients served as extras.

However, Fred Zinnemann disagreed, insisting, late in life, that the issues in the film, for him, were broader, and were more about conscience and independent, uncompromising fearlessness.

Fred Zinnemann says, "High Noon is "not a Western, as far as I'm concerned; it just happens to be set in the Old West.

Prince adds that Fred Zinnemann, having learned that both his parents were murdered in the Holocaust, wanted Kane willing to "fight rather than run", unlike everyone else in town.

Fred Zinnemann explains the theme of the film and its relevance to modern times:.

Fred Zinnemann fought hard with producer Harry Cohn to cast Montgomery Clift as the character of Prewitt, although Frank Sinatra, who was at the lowest point of his popularity, cast himself in the role of "Maggio" against Fred Zinnemann's wishes.

Fred Zinnemann's next film was A Hatful of Rain, starring Don Murray, Eva Marie Saint and Anthony Franciosa, and was based on the play by Michael V Gazzo.

Fred Zinnemann rounded out the 1950s with The Nun's Story, casting Audrey Hepburn in the role of Sister Luke, a nun who eventually gives up the religious life to join the Belgian resistance in the Second World War.

Fred Zinnemann was grateful that Hepburn was easy to work with:.

Fred Zinnemann's fortunes changed with A Man for All Seasons, scripted by Robert Bolt from his own play and starring Paul Scofield as Sir Thomas More, portraying him as a man driven by conscience to his ultimate fate.

In protest, Fred Zinnemann filed a lawsuit against the studio, and it would be four years before he would make his next film.

Fred Zinnemann was intrigued by the opportunity to direct a film in which the audience would already be able to guess the ending, and was pleased when it ultimately became a hit with the public.

Fred Zinnemann thought that Fonda's acting was extraordinary and she deserved an Oscar.

The film was both a critical and commercial flop, although Fred Zinnemann would be told by various critics in later years that they considered it an underrated achievement.

Fred Zinnemann is often regarded as striking a blow against ageism in Hollywood.

The apocryphal story goes that in the 1980s, during a meeting with a young Hollywood executive, Fred Zinnemann was surprised to find the executive didn't know who he was, despite having won four Academy Awards, and directing many of Hollywood's biggest films.

Fred Zinnemann died of a heart attack in London, England on March 14,1997.

Fred Zinnemann's films are characterized by an unshakable belief in human dignity; a realist aesthetic; a preoccupation with moral and social issues; a warm and sympathetic treatment of character; an expert handling of actors; a meticulous attention to detail; consummate technical artistry; poetic restraint; and deliberately open endings.

Fred Zinnemann said that regardless of the size of an actor's part, he spends much time discussing the roles with each actor separately and in depth.

Fred Zinnemann's films are mostly dramas about lone and principled individuals tested by tragic events, including High Noon, From Here to Eternity ; The Nun's Story ; A Man For All Seasons ; and Julia.

Fred Zinnemann said something to me that I always try to keep in my head every time I decide on what film to do next.

Fred Zinnemann told me that making a film was a great privilege, and you should never waste it.

Fred Zinnemann again incorporated newsreel footage in Behold a Pale Horse, about the Spanish Civil War.