Born April 29, 1907, in Austria; died March 14, 1997, in London, England. Producer and director. Zinnemann began his adult life as a law student at ViennaUniversity who skipped classes to see movies; he died a legendary director with several Academy Awards to his name. After doing the odd camera and production jobs on European sets, Zinnemann left for Hollywood in 1929 and got hisfirst film job as an extra in All Quiet on the Western Front. He started directing short films for MGM in the 1930s and won an Oscar in 1938 for the shortThat Mother Might Live. His feature-length films were equally as successfuland many went on to become classics, especially High Noon (1952, starring Gary Cooper), From Here to Eternity (1953, starring Donna Reed and Frank Sinatra), Oklahoma! (1955), The Nun's Story (1959), and The Sundowners (1960). All were nominated for or won Academy Awards. But the pinnacle of Zinnemann's career may have been the 1966 film A Man for All Seasons, starring Paul Scofield.Zinnemann had used his quiet, persuasive manner with the studio bosses before, most notably to get Montgomery Clift the starring role in From Here to Eternity. But the company heavily objected to Zinnemann's choice for the lead inA Man for All Seasons--British actor Scofield, who was relatively unknown toAmerican audiences at the time. Zinnemann won them over and the film won several Academy Awards--the film won best picture, Zinnemann won for best director, and Scofield took best actor. Actors liked his attention to performance and many of them--Cooper, Jason Robards (for Julia in 1977), Reed and Sinatra-- won Academy Awards in his films. Zinnemann's other directorial credits include The Search (1948), The Men (1950), Teresa (1951), The Member of the Wedding (1952), Behold a Pale Horse (1964), The Day of the Jackal (1973), and FiveDays One Summer (1981).
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