Frank Perry
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Frank Perry (August 21 1930 – August 29 1995) was an American stage and film director, producer and screenwriter.
Perry was born in New York City where as a teenager he began pursuing his interest in the theater with a job as a parking lot attendant for the Westport Country Playhouse in nearby Westport, Connecticut. He would develop his talents to where he produced several plays at Westport then turned for a time to producing television documentaries.
A veteran of the Korean War, he returned to the entertainment industry after being discharged and made his Hollywood directorial debut in 1962 with the low-budget drama film David and Lisa. Based on the novel by Theodore Isaac Rubin, the screenplay was written by his wife, Eleanor Perry, who would receive a nomination for an Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay. A character study of two emotionally disturbed teenagers, the film was successful at the box office and met with much critical acclaim, earning him a nomination for an Academy Award for Directing.
Frank Perry went on to direct and produce a number of films including The Swimmer in 1968 based on a John Cheever story and 1969's Trilogy written by Truman Capote. Frank and Eleanor Perry divorced in 1971.
Perry is most regarded for his character studies involving a dysfunctional family such as that in his wife's script of the Sue Kaufman novel Diary of a Mad Housewife that earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination for Carrie Snodgress and his 1972 film Play It As It Lays starring Tuesday Weld that brought her a Golden Globe Best Actress nomination. Both of these films Perry produced and directed, but he is probably best remembered for directing the controversial 1981 bio-drama Mommie Dearest, an adaptation of a biography by actress Joan Crawford's adoptive daughter, which portrayed the famous movie starlet as a cruel, sadistic tyrant.
Diagnosed with prostate cancer, in 1992 Frank Perry made his final film. An autobiographical documentary called On the Bridge, it recounted Perry's lengthy battle with cancer, from which he died in 1995, 8 days after his 65th birthday.
Further reading
- Beaver, Jim. Frank Perry. Films in Review, November 1981.
