Ralph Nelson
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Ralph Nelson | |
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File:Portrait of Ralph Nelson.jpg
Portrait of Ralph Nelson
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Born | Long Island City, New York, U.S. |
August 12, 1916
Died | Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist. Santa Monica, California, U.S. |
Years active | 1950-1979 |
Spouse(s) | Celeste Holm (1936–1939)[1] Beatrice Bahnsen (1945-1947) Barbara Powers (1954-1981, her death) |
Children | Ted Nelson (b. 1937) Ralph Nelson (b. 1946) Peter Nelson (b. 1955) Meredith Nelson (b. 1956) |
Ralph Nelson (August 12, 1916 – December 21, 1987) was an American film and television director, producer, writer, and actor.
Life and career
Nelson was born in Long Island City, New York. He served in the Army Air Corps as a flight instructor[2] in World War II.
Nelson directed the acclaimed episode A World of His Own of The Twilight Zone" (he should not be confused with The Twilight Zone's production manager, Ralph W. Nelson). He also directed both the television and film versions of Rod Serling's Requiem for a Heavyweight.
He directed Charly, the 1968 film version of Flowers for Algernon, for which Cliff Robertson won an Academy Award, as well as several racially provocative films in the 1960s and early 1970s, including the Academy Award-winning Lilies of the Field,[3] ...tick...tick...tick..., Christmas Lilies of the Field, The Wilby Conspiracy, and Soldier Blue. The starring role in "Lilies" led to Sidney Poitier winning the Academy Award for Best Actor.
Nelson also directed the Cary Grant comedy Father Goose, the offbeat Soldier in the Rain with Jackie Gleason and Steve McQueen, the crime story Once a Thief, and Rita Hayworth's last film, The Wrath of God. He both directed, and briefly appeared in, Duel at Diablo, starring James Garner and Sidney Poitier.
Nelson's other credits include several episodes of TV's Starsky & Hutch, the '70s camp horror classic Embryo, and A Hero Ain't Nothin' But A Sandwich.
A television drama about mounting the live show of Requiem for a Heavyweight called The Man in the Funny Suit was made in 1960, with Nelson both writing and directing. Nelson, Serling, Red Skelton, Keenan Wynn and Ed Wynn appeared in it as themselves.[citation needed]
He returned to TV in the late 1970s with a string of TV movies, including a sequel to Lillies of the Field which starred Billy Dee Williams.
Death
He died in Santa Monica, California, aged 71.
Filmography
- Film
- Lilies of the Field (1963)
- Soldier in the Rain (1963)
- Fate Is the Hunter (1964)
- Father Goose (1964)
- Once a Thief (1965)
- Duel at Diablo (1966)
- Counterpoint (1967)
- Charly (1968)
- ...tick...tick...tick... (1970)
- Soldier Blue (1970)
- Flight of the Doves (1971)
- The Wrath of God (1972)
- The Wilby Conspiracy (1975)
- Embryo (1976)
- A Hero Ain't Nothin' But a Sandwich (1978)
- Television
- The Farmer's Daughter (1963)
References
- ↑ Married to Celeste Holm from 1936 to 1939 per Holm profile at superiorpics.com
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
External links
- Ralph Nelson at the Internet Movie Database
- Ralph Nelson at the Internet Broadway DatabaseLua error in Module:WikidataCheck at line 28: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
- 1953 Time Magazine
- Pages with broken file links
- Articles with hCards
- Articles with unsourced statements from July 2011
- 1916 births
- 1987 deaths
- American male film actors
- American film directors
- American film producers
- American male television actors
- American male screenwriters
- Emmy Award winners
- People from New York City
- 20th-century American male actors
- 20th-century American businesspeople