Delbert Mann

The legacy of Oscar-winning writer-director Delbert Mann in American films after WWII is incomparable. One of the premier directors of network dramas during its Golden Age, Mann frequently worked with scripts by the best of stage dramatists who adapted their narratives for the small screen. With a gentle and seemingly effortless hand, Mann brought the artistry of Paddy Chayefsky, William Inge, Eugene O'Neill, and many other top-tiered playwrights to millions of American homes. He then leapt into cinema history with a big screen adaptation of one of his television dramas and with it, he managed to bag in one of the most coveted awards in the film industry.
Born in Lawrence, Kansas, in January 30th 1920, Mann moved to Nashville at the age of 11 and became instantly fascinated with theater during adolescence, even snagging a position as president of his high school drama club.

His path soon intersected with that of future film director Fred Coe, who quickly became one of his closest friends and colleagues. Mann attended Vanderbilt University and graduated in 1941, then enlisted in the military and served with the Air Force, initially as a B-24 bomber pilot, then as an 8th Air Force intelligence officer stationed in Britain. Upon returning home, he used the G.I. Bill to enroll in the Yale School of Drama and earned his MFA in directing. He then accepted a position as director of Columbia, SC's Town Theatre. In 1949, Coe invited Mann to move to Manhattan and work with him in live television. Mann obliged and took a position as stage manager and assistant director at NBC. Within a few months, he impressed the network heads so much that they tapped him as one of the key directors of the NBC dramatic anthology Philco Television Playhouse. Thus began one of the most prolific careers in early television, with Mann turning out over 100 short television dramas from 1949-1955.
Mann's career took a fantastic turn thanks to one of those assignments in particular: playwright Paddy

Chayefsky's drama Marty, which was about a Bronx butcher who suffers from the pangs of loneliness until he falls for a quiet schoolteacher. With Ernest Borgnine in the lead, the film won Best Picture and Best Director at the 1955 Oscars and checked in as the first American motion picture to win the Golden Palm at the 1955 Cannes Film Festival. Thereafter, Mann refocused his attention on the big screen for around 10 years and directed numerous additional features that swept up critical and popular acclaim. These included The Bachelor Party (1957), The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960), That Touch of Mink (1962), and Dear Heart (1964).

As the 1960s waned, however, Mann's big screen activity did slightly as well, though he found increased work on television once again, and subsequently turned out over two dozen small-screen features, often as adaptations of classic literature. These included the 1968 Heidi, the 1970 David Copperfield, the 1971 Jane Eyre, and the 1971 Kidnapped. Mann reteamed with Borgnine for the 1979 adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front and did multiple projects for Disney studios in the 1980s, including Night Crossing (1981) and the television movie biopic Love Leads the Way (1984). Mann enjoyed one of his last directorial assignments with the made-for-television drama Incident in a Small Town (1994); starring Walter Matthau and Harry Morgan, it concerned a judge tagged as a suspect in the murder of his own son-in-law. Thereafter, Mann spent around a decade in retirement before succumbing to pneumonia at age 87 in the fall of 2008.