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Biography: Don Siegel

Coming out of a musical family and trained as a stage actor, Don Siegel became one of the most respected directors of action films in Hollywood. He began his career as a film librarian and advanced through the editing department at Warner Bros., where he frequently directed transition and linking footage in the early '40s, making two Oscar-winning short films during this same period. Siegel became a feature director in 1946 with an offbeat mystery called The Verdict, starring Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre. His second film, the much-underrated Night Unto Night, proved so difficult a subject -- as a psychological drama about a dying man (Ronald Reagan) and a suicidal woman (Viveca Lindfors, who was then Siegel's wife) -- that its release was delayed for more than two years. During the early '50s, Siegel made his reputation as an efficient, reliable, often inspired maker of action and crime films, most notably Riot in Cell Block H and Private Hell 36 (both 1954). His ability to transform difficult or lackluster script material into original, memorable, often startling motion pictures was established with 1955's Invasion of the Body Snatchers, one of the most unsettling, popular, and profitable science fiction films of the decade. Siegel thrived for the next 15 years in relative obscurity (although he made one of Elvis Presley's finest films, Flaming Star) until the late '60s, when he began his association with Clint Eastwood. His Eastwood vehicles included Two Mules for Sister Sara, The Beguiled (both 1970), and the phenomenally popular and controversial police hriller Dirty Harry (1971). The actor and future director was just rising to fame after his success in Sergio Leone's spaghetti Westerns, and Siegel's recognition rose commensurately with Eastwood's popularity. He became something of a mentor to Eastwood and made a cameo in the actor's directorial debut, Play Misty for Me (1971). Siegel's other '70s films included John Wayne's final movie, The Shootist (1976), and the Cold War hriller Telefon (1977). He made another cameo appearance as a taxi driver in Philip Kaufman's Body Snatchers remake in 1978 and directed Eastwood one last time in 1979's Escape From Alcatraz. Retired from films since the early '80s, Siegel died of cancer in 1991. Eastwood wrote a forward for his autobiography, A Siegel Film, which was published posthumously in 1993. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide less

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Movies (36)
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Jinxed! (1982)
Cast: Bette Midler
Tags: Black Comedy Comedy
Length: 103min
Jinxed is an apt name for this disastrous project which, sadly, turned out to be Don Siegel's final film. The film takes place in Reno, where blackjack dealer Willie Brodax (Ken Wahl) becomes an innocent victim of a broken-down gambler named Harold...
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Rough Cut (1980)
Cast: Burt Reynolds David Niven
Tags: Comedy Caper Crime Comedy
Length: 112min
Notorious international jewel thief Jack Rhodes (Burt Reynolds) is out to steal 30 million in uncut diamonds in this visually opulent, uneven comedy. Chief Inspector Cyril Willis (David Niven) is Rhodes' nemesis. He wants to retire from Scotland Yard...
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Escape from Alcatraz (1979)
Cast: Clint Eastwood
Tags: Action Prison Film Escape Film
Length: 112min
No one can escape from Alcatraz, right? Try telling that to lifer Frank Morris (Clint Eastwood). This Donald Siegel-directed nailbiter is a reenactment of Frank Morris' 1962 attempt to bust himself and two other cons out of The Rock. Eastwood, as...
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Telefon (1977)
Cast: Charles Bronson
Tags: Action Thriller Spy Film Action
Length: 103min
Don Siegel took over the directing chores from Peter Hyams on this taut cold war action film, based on the novel by Walter Wager. With the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union thawing, old KGB hard-liner Nicolai Dalchimsky (Donald...
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The Shootist (1976)
Cast: James Stewart John Wayne Lauren Bacall
Tags: Outlaw (Gunfighter) Film Revisionist Western Western
Length: 99min
About ten minutes into The Shootist, Doctor Hostetler (James Stewart) tells aging Western gunfighter John Bernard Books (John Wayne), "You have a cancer." Knowing that his death will be painful and lingering, Books is determined to be shot in the line...
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The Black Windmill (1974)
Cast: Michael Caine Delphine Seyrig Don Siegel
Tags: Psychological Thriller Thriller
Length: 106min
Michael Caine stars as an espionage agent whose young son is kidnapped. Complicating matters is the fact that the kidnappers (John Vernon and Delphine Seyrig) are Caine's own colleagues. They want to secure Caine's aid in rounding up a diamond...
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Charley Varrick (1973)
Cast: Walter Matthau
Tags: Action Thriller Crime Crime Thriller
Length: 111min
Don Siegel directed this offbeat crime thriller which stars Walter Matthau as the titular Charley Varrick. Varrick is a small-time stick-up man who, in tandem with his partner Harman Sullivan (Andrew Robinson), makes plans to rob a small bank in New...
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Dirty Harry (1971)
Tags: Crime Action Thriller Police Detective Film Thriller
Length: 102min
"You've got to ask yourself a question: 'do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?" Dirty Harry provoked a critical uproar in 1971 for its "fascist" message about the power of one, as it also elevated Clint Eastwood to superstar status through his most...
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The Beguiled (1970)
Tags: Period Film Melodrama Drama
Length: 105min
The Beguiled is a Freudian mood piece from the team of actor Clint Eastwood and director Don Siegel. Eastwood plays Corp. John McBurney, a wounded Union soldier during the Civil War, who takes refuge in a prim-and-proper Southern girl's school run by...
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Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970)
Cast: Shirley MacLaine
Tags: Comedy Western Western
Length: 105min
Director Budd Boetticher wrote the story upon which this comic Western was based. Clint Eastwood stars as Hogan, a tough cowboy who rescues a woman, Sara (Shirley Maclaine) as she's about to be attacked by a trio of rapists. Surprised to learn that...
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Biography: Don Siegel

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