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Robert Parrish

Known For
Directing

Known Credits
17

Gender
Male

Birthday
January 4, 1916 (110 years old)

Place of Birth
Columbus, Georgia, USA

Robert Parrish

Biography

Robert R. Parrish (born 4 January 1916, Columbus, Georgia – 4 December 1995, Southampton, New York) was an American actor, film editor, film director, and writer. He received an Academy Award for Film Editing for the 1947 film, Body and Soul.

Parrish was the son of factory cashier Gordon R. Parrish and Laura R. Parrish. In the mid-1920s, the family moved from Georgia to Los Angeles and Parrish and his sisters Beverly and Helen began obtaining work as actors soon thereafter. Parrish made his film debut in the 1927 Our Gang short Olympic Games. (Their mother, Laura R. Parrish, was an actress as well and appeared in a few films of the 1940s.) He appeared in the anti-war classic All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) and Charles Chaplin's City Lights (1931), and in several films for John Ford.

Ford then enlisted him as an assistant editor in 1936 on Mary of Scotland, and as a sound editor on Young Mr Lincoln (1939). Parrish worked as an assistant editor and sound editor on other Ford movies as Drums Along the Mohawk (1939) and The Grapes of Wrath (1940). Parrish and Ford were in the United States Navy during the Second World War, and worked on documentary and training films including The Battle of Midway (1942).

In 1947 he won an Oscar for his debut as a feature film editor on Robert Rossen's high tempo boxing drama Body and Soul; the award was shared with Francis Lyon. Parrish was later nominated for another Rossen film – the political drama All the King’s Men (1949); he shared the nomination with Al Clark.

Parrish went on to contribute his technical talents to a host of highly regarded films and made a promising directorial debut in 1951 with the gripping revenge melodrama, Cry Danger. His subsequent output met with varying success. The Purple Plain (1954) was nominated for "Best British film" at the 8th British Academy Film Awards. One of the most notorious of his films was the James Bond Parody Casino Royale (1967), in which he was one of the film's five directors. His last film, on which he shared co-director credit with Bertrand Tavernier, was Mississippi Blues (1983).

Parrish wrote two memoirs, Growing Up in Hollywood (1976) and its sequel Hollywood Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1988). Of the first, Kevin Brownlow wrote, "His stories about these pictures were marvellous in themselves, and he often came at them sideways, so not only the punchline but the situation took you by surprise. We all entreated him to write them down and in 1976 he did so, producing one of the most enchanting - and hilarious - books about the picture business ever written. It was called Growing Up in Hollywood and it ought to be reprinted in this centenary year." Summing up Parrish's career, Allen Grant Richards wrote, "Other than his excellent editing work and early directing, Parrish may be most remembered as storyteller from his two books of Hollywood memoirs."

Known For

Directing

2002The Twilight Zone...Director
1984Mississippi Blues...Director
1974The Marseille Contract...Director
1971A Town Called Bastard...Director
1969Doppelgänger...Director
1968Duffy...Director
1967Casino Royale...Director
1967The Bobo...Director
1965Up from the Beach...Director
1963In the French Style...Director
1959The Wonderful Country...Director
1959The Twilight Zone...Director
1959Johnny Staccato...Director
1958Saddle the Wind...Director
1957Fire Down Below...Director
1955Lucy Gallant...Director
1954The Purple Plain...Director
1953Rough Shoot...Director
1952My Pal Gus...Director
1952Assignment: Paris...Director
1952The San Francisco Story...Director
1951The Mob...Director
1951Cry Danger...Director

Production

1963In the French Style...Producer

Editing

1950No Sad Songs for Me...Editorial Consultant
1949All the King's Men...Editorial Consultant
1949Caught...Editor
1948No Minor Vices...Editor
1947A Double Life...Editor
1947Body and Soul...Editor
1945That Justice Be Done...Editor
1943December 7th...Editor
1943Undercover: How to Operate Behind Enemy Lines...Editor
1942The Battle of Midway...Editor
1940The Grapes of Wrath...Negative Cutter
1935The Informer...Assistant Editor

Sound

1940The Grapes of Wrath...Sound Effects Editor
1939Stagecoach...Sound Effects Editor

Acting

2010Sodankylä Foreveras Self
1993Hollywood Bluesas Self - director
1990Blue Bayouas Tony
1938Mr. Doodle Kicks Offas 2nd Sophomore
1937History Is Made at Nightas
1935Steamboat Round the Bendas Boy
1935The Informeras Young Soldier (uncredited)
1933Doctor Bullas Teenager
1932The Miracle Manas
1931City Lightsas Newsboy (uncredited)
1931Scandal Sheetas Copy Boy
1930The Right to Loveas Willie
1930Up the Riveras Boy (uncredited)
1930All Quiet on the Western Frontas Schoolboy (uncredited)
1930Anna Christieas Boy at Coney Island (uncredited)
1928Riley the Copas Boy
1927Sunrise: A Song of Two Humansas Boy (uncredited)