Michael Pressman

Michael Pressman is an American film and television producer and director. Early life A native of Manhattan, Pressman was born into a theatrical family. His mother, Sasha, a modern dancer, was an original member of Martha Graham's renowned first dance troupe. His father, David Pressman, was a well-known theatrical and television director who helped launch Boston University’s distinguished school of theater and helmed Broadway plays, including The Disenchanted, Jason Robards' first Broadway appearance; and the original Actor’s Studio Anthology Series in the late 1940’s, for which he discovered and cast an unknown Grace Kelly. David Pressman’s pioneer career in live television in the early 1950’s was suddenly derailed when he was targeted by Senator Joseph McCarthy during his blacklisting of alleged communist sympathizers. Unable to work in television for close to 15 years, he survived the blacklist by teaching. When the Blacklist itself derailed in the early 1960’s, he began working regularly in television directing soap operas. He directed the popular One Life to Live for twenty-eight years, and for which he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy and ten Daytime Emmys, winning three times. Career Pressman’s interest in filmmaking was directly motivated, if not provoked, by his family’s persecution for their early political sympathies, not unlike others of his era, including those in entertainment and in sciences. It led him to pursue projects, when professionally and financially viable to do so, that were politically, socially and racially compatible with his personal perspectives.   Of course, young filmmakers must make a living, and Pressman knew he needed to establish his bona fides first. His first feature film as a director was the raucous indie comedy The Great Texas Dynamite Chase, made in collaboration with producers and fellow film school students Sean Daniel and David Kirkpatrick, both who went on to forge successful producing careers of their own. With that modest success, Pressman was categorized as a comedy director, and was offered films like the Bad News Bears in Breaking Training, the sequel to the immensely popular original starring Walter Matthau, the Dan Aykroyd comedy Doctor Detroit, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze. These films, though successful, represented but one side of his ambition and talent.