Arthur Penn

Arthur Hiller Penn (September 27, 1922 – September 28, 2010) was an American director and producer of film, television and theater. Closely associated with the American New Wave, Penn directed critically acclaimed films throughout the 1960s such as the drama The Chase (1966), the biographical crime film Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and the comedy Alice's Restaurant (1969). He also received attention for his acclaimed revisionist Western Little Big Man (1970). Night Moves (1975) and The Missouri Breaks (1976) which were commercial flops, though they first generated positive reviews. In the 1990s he returned to stage and television direction and production, including an executive producer role for the crime series Law & Order. By his death in 2010, he had been nominated for three Academy Awards for Best Director, a BAFTA, a Golden Globe, two Emmys, and two Directors Guild of America Awards. He was the recipient of several honorary accolades, including an Honorary Golden Bear, a Tony Award, and an Akira Kurosawa Award from the San Francisco International Film Festival. Early life Penn was born in 1922, to a Russian Jewish family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Sonia (Greenberg), a nurse, and Harry William Penn, originally Chaim Michelsohn, a watchmaker, both natives of then Novoaleksandrovsk, Russia, now Zarasai, Lithuania. He was the younger brother of Irving Penn, the fashion, portrait and still life photographer. During his early years, he moved in with his mother after she divorced his father. Some time after, he came back to his sickly father, leading him to run his father's watch repair shop. At 19, he was drafted into the United States Army during World War II (1943–1946), serving as an infantryman in the Battle of the Bulge. While stationed in Britain, he became interested in theater. He started to direct and take part in shows being put on for the soldiers around England at the time. As Penn grew up, he became increasingly interested in film, especially after seeing the Orson Welles film Citizen Kane. He later attended Black Mountain College in North Carolina, and was a featured commentator in the documentary Fully Awake about the college. Career After making a name for himself as a director of quality television dramas, Penn made his feature debut with The Left Handed Gun (1958) for Warner Brothers.