Sidney Arthur Lumet ( ; June 25, 1924 – April 9, 2011) was an American film director. Lumet started his career in theatre before transitioning to film where he gained a reputation for making realistic and gritty New York dramas which focused on the working class, tackled social injustices and often questioned authority. Lumet is often identified as part of the New Hollywood wave of filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, and Woody Allen.
He was nominated five times for Academy Awards: four for Best Director for 12 Angry Men (1957), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Network (1976), and The Verdict (1982) and one for Best Adapted Screenplay for Prince of the City (1981). Other films include A View from the Bridge (1962), Long Day's Journey into Night (1962), The Pawnbroker (1964), Fail Safe (1964), The Hill (1965), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), Equus (1977), The Wiz (1978), The Morning After (1986), Running on Empty (1988), and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007). He received the Academy Honorary Award in 2004.
A member of the inaugural class at New York's Actors Studio, Lumet started acting off-Broadway and made his Broadway acting debut in the 1935 play Dead End. He later went on to direct the Broadway plays Night of the Auk (1956), Caligula (1960), and Nowhere to Go But Up (1962). Lumet is also known for his work on television. He received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series nomination for NBC Sunday Showcase (1961). He also directed for Goodyear Television Playhouse, Kraft Television Theatre, and Playhouse 90.
Biography
Early years
Lumet was born in Philadelphia and grew up in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan. He studied theater acting at the Professional Children's School of New York and Columbia University.
Lumet's parents, Baruch and Eugenia (née Wermus) Lumet, were veterans of the Yiddish theatre, and were Polish-Jewish emigrants to the United States. His father, an actor, director, producer and writer, was born in Warsaw. Lumet's mother, who was a dancer, died when he was a child. He had an older sister. He made his professional debut on the radio at age four and his stage debut at the Yiddish Art Theatre at age five. As a child he also appeared in many Broadway productions, including 1935's Dead End and Kurt Weill's The Eternal Road.
In 1935, aged 11, he appeared in a Henry Lynn short film Papirossen (meaning "Cigarettes" in Yiddish), co-produced by radio star Herman Yablokoff. The film was shown in a theatrical play with the same title, based on the hit song "Papirosn". The play and short film appeared in the Bronx McKinley Square Theatre. In 1939, he made his only feature-length film appearance, at age 15, in ...One Third of a Nation...
World War II interrupted his early acting career and he spent four years in the U.S. Army. After returning from service as a radar repairman stationed in India and Burma (1942–1946), he became involved with the Actors Studio, and then formed his own theater workshop. He organized an Off-Broadway group and became its director, and continued directing in summer stock theatre, while teaching acting at the High School of Performing Arts. He was the senior drama coach at the new 46th St. building of "Performing Arts". The 25-year-old Lumet directed the drama department in a production of The Young and Fair.
Early career
Lumet began his career as a director with Off-Broadway productions and then evolved into a highly respected TV director. After working off-Broadway and in summer stock, he began directing television in 1950, after working as an assistant to friend and then-director Yul Brynner. He soon developed a "lightning quick" method for shooting due to the high turnover required by television. As a result, while working for CBS he directed hundreds of episodes of Danger (1950–55), Mama (1949–57), and You Are There (1953–57), a weekly series which featured Walter Cronkite in one of his early television appearances. Lumet chose Cronkite for the role of anchorman "because the premise of the show was so silly, was so outrageous, that we needed somebody with the most American, homespun, warm ease about him", Lumet said.
He also directed original plays for Playhouse 90, Kraft Television Theatre and Studio One, directing around 200 episodes, which established him as "one of the most prolific and respected directors in the business", according to Turner Classic Movies. His ability to work quickly while shooting carried over to his film career. Because the quality of many of the television dramas was so impressive, several of them were later adapted as motion pictures.