![]() ![]() Producer David Wolper was so impressed with it that he brought Friedkin to Hollywood to direct network TV shows.Īfter working on such shows as “The Bold Ones,” “The Alfred Hitchcock Hour” and the documentary “The Thin Blue Line,” Friedkin landed his first film, 1967’s “Good Times.” It was a lighthearted musical romp headlined by the pop duo Sonny and Cher in what would be their only movie appearance together. It was the story of a prison inmate who rehabilitates himself on Death Row after being sentenced for the murder of a guard during a botched robbery at a Chicago food plant. ![]() He moved from live shows to documentaries, making “The People Versus Paul Crump,” in 1962. I think of the sounds first and then the images.” “I remember listening to it in the dark, Everything was left to the imagination. “My main influence was dramatic radio when I was a kid,” he said in a 2001 interview. 29, 1935, he began working in local TV productions as a teenager. Other film credits included “To Live and Die in L.A.,” “Rules of Engagement” and a TV remake of the classic play and Sidney Lumet movie “12 Angry Men.” Friedkin also directed episodes for such TV shows as “The Twilight Zone,” “Rebel Highway” and “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.”īorn in Chicago on Aug. It was protested by gay rights activists for how it depicted homosexuality. It’s very hard to grasp that I will never enjoy his company again, but his work will at least stand in for him,” Coppola’s statement said.Ī few years after “Sorcerer” brought him back to Earth, he followed with another disappointment: “Cruising,” starring Al Pacino as a cop who goes undercover to solve the grisly murders of several gay men. His lovable, irascible personality was cover for a beautiful, brilliant, deep-feeling giant of a man. “Pick any of them out of a hat and you’ll be dazzled. He also turned down “M(asterisk)A(asterisk)S(asterisk)H” for the same reason.įrancis Ford Coppola praised Friedkin in a statement, saying his films “are alive with his genius. “Star Wars” was a film he was approached to produce, but he said later that he couldn’t see its potential. “It came out at the time of ‘Star Wars,’ and that more than any film that I can recall really captured the zeitgeist.” “The zeitgeist had changed by the time it came out,” he said in 2013. In 2017, he told IndieWire that it’s the only of his films that he could still watch. It’s since been reappraised by critics and has become a cult classic that Friedkin himself would continue to defend. His 1977 film “Sorcerer,” a gangster thriller starring Roy Scheider was widely panned at the time and also failed with audiences. “I embody arrogance, insecurity and ambition that spur me on as they hold me back,” he wrote in his 2012 memoir. But he would never again come close to matching the acclaim he’d received for those early works, and gained a reputation for clashing with both actors and studio executives. With that second success, Friedkin would go on to direct movies and TV shows well into the 21st century. “The Exorcist” received 10 Oscar nominations, including one for Friedkin as director, and won two, for Blatty’s script and for sound. ![]()
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