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Don Siegel
Birthday:
26 October 1912
Birth Name:
Donald Siegel
Height:
175 cm
Biography
[on shooting in CinemaScope] I don't like the proportions at all. Look at the great paintings in museums: they are not in the shape of Band-Aids. I prefer the older, rectangular aperture.
[on shooting in CinemaScope] I don't like the proportions at all. Look at the great paintings in museums: they are not in the shape of Band-Aids. I prefer the older, rectangular aperture.
[on Mickey Rooney, who he directed in Baby Face Nelson (1957)] . . . I admired his skill and loathed his personality.
[on Mickey Rooney, who he directed in Baby Face Nelson (1957)] . . . I admired his skill and loathed his personality.
I'm not a violent man . . . There are many other things that happen in our lives other than crime and violence and I think, as long as we do them entertainingly, then what's wrong with doing them?
I'm not a violent man . . . There are many other things that happen in our lives other than crime and violence and I think, as long as we do them entertainingly, then what's wrong with doing them?
On The Verdict (1946), I was working with Sydney Greenstreet, who knew every period, every comma, every dotted "i" in the script, and the only thing he would beg was that his lines should not be changed. Peter Lorre would walk on the set, and his first remark would be, not "What picture am I doing?" or "What scene am I doing?", but "What studio am I in? What...
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On The Verdict (1946), I was working with Sydney Greenstreet, who knew every period, every comma, every dotted "i" in the script, and the only thing he would beg was that his lines should not be changed. Peter Lorre would walk on the set, and his first remark would be, not "What picture am I doing?" or "What scene am I doing?", but "What studio am I in? What country am I in?" Apparently, he'd never seen the script before. We would stumble through three rehearsals. [He] was the fastest study I have ever seen in my life, and these two people, these two incredibly different people, from opposite worlds and with the opposite approach to their work, would make poetry together.
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[on Eli Wallach] Eli Wallach is a great actor, but like all great actors--he has so much to give--he must be watched carefully by the director, or he'll overact. This isn't because he's a bad actor, but because he can call on such reservoirs of talent.
[on Eli Wallach] Eli Wallach is a great actor, but like all great actors--he has so much to give--he must be watched carefully by the director, or he'll overact. This isn't because he's a bad actor, but because he can call on such reservoirs of talent.
When I refused to take directing credit for the film [Death of a Gunfighter (1969)], as did [Robert Totten], the Directors' Guild made up a pseudonym for Totten and myself, 'Allen Smithee". As the picture was well received, I told my young friends who wanted to be directors to change their name to Smithee and take credit for direction of the picture. I don't...
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When I refused to take directing credit for the film [Death of a Gunfighter (1969)], as did [Robert Totten], the Directors' Guild made up a pseudonym for Totten and myself, 'Allen Smithee". As the picture was well received, I told my young friends who wanted to be directors to change their name to Smithee and take credit for direction of the picture. I don't know if anyone did this. I still think under certain circumstances, they might have cracked the "magic barrier" and become directors.
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I think in America I'm looked upon as the equivalent of a European director--which is quite laughable. I've never had a personal publicity man working for me. So all this came out of the blue--all this publicity. The cult was not engineered. It festered, in a sense. And erupted. And it did me a lot of good.
I think in America I'm looked upon as the equivalent of a European director--which is quite laughable. I've never had a personal publicity man working for me. So all this came out of the blue--all this publicity. The cult was not engineered. It festered, in a sense. And erupted. And it did me a lot of good.
[on Charles Bronson] He is a very helpful actor in planning or staging a scene. He gets wonderful ideas, good practical suggestions and I enjoy his contributions. He's a positive force for the good in this grinding work of making a film. He's patient when the work is difficult and he's never satisfied until he's convinced what's been done is right. He's my k...
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[on Charles Bronson] He is a very helpful actor in planning or staging a scene. He gets wonderful ideas, good practical suggestions and I enjoy his contributions. He's a positive force for the good in this grinding work of making a film. He's patient when the work is difficult and he's never satisfied until he's convinced what's been done is right. He's my kind of actor, you might say. He's a true loner.
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[on Clint Eastwood] Hardest thing in the world is to do nothing and he does it marvelously.
[on Clint Eastwood] Hardest thing in the world is to do nothing and he does it marvelously.
[on Walter Matthau] One of the funniest men I ever worked with and didn't understand a thing about the movie [Charley Varrick (1973)] at all. When I showed him the first cut all he said was, "Well, I got to admit it's a picture but can anyone tell me what the hell it's all about?"
[on Walter Matthau] One of the funniest men I ever worked with and didn't understand a thing about the movie [Charley Varrick (1973)] at all. When I showed him the first cut all he said was, "Well, I got to admit it's a picture but can anyone tell me what the hell it's all about?"
[on working with Steve McQueen on Hell Is for Heroes (1962)] He walked around with the attitude that the burden of preserving the integrity of the picture was on his shoulders and all the rest of us were company men ready to sell out, grind out an inferior picture for a few bucks and the bosses. Eventually, we grew to like each other.
[on working with Steve McQueen on Hell Is for Heroes (1962)] He walked around with the attitude that the burden of preserving the integrity of the picture was on his shoulders and all the rest of us were company men ready to sell out, grind out an inferior picture for a few bucks and the bosses. Eventually, we grew to like each other.
[on Walter Wanger] He was a rarity among producers. He encouraged creativity. He wasn't only interested in protecting himself, which is what most producers do.
[on Walter Wanger] He was a rarity among producers. He encouraged creativity. He wasn't only interested in protecting himself, which is what most producers do.
[on working with Bette Midler in Jinxed! (1982)] I'd let my wife, children and animals starve before I'd subject myself to something like that again.
[on working with Bette Midler in Jinxed! (1982)] I'd let my wife, children and animals starve before I'd subject myself to something like that again.
[on editing] If you shake a movie, ten minutes will fall out.
[on editing] If you shake a movie, ten minutes will fall out.
I once told [Jean-Luc Godard] that he had something I wanted--freedom. He said, "You have something I want--money".
I once told [Jean-Luc Godard] that he had something I wanted--freedom. He said, "You have something I want--money".
Most of my pictures, I'm sorry to say, are about nothing. Because I'm a whore. I work for money. It's the American way.
Most of my pictures, I'm sorry to say, are about nothing. Because I'm a whore. I work for money. It's the American way.
Don Siegel
Don Siegel was educated at Cambridge University, England. In Hollywood from the mid-'30s, he began his career as an editor and second unit director. In 1945 he directed two shorts (Hitler Lives (1945) and Star in the Night (1945)) which both won Academy Awards. His first feature as a director was 1946's The Verdict (1946). He made his reputation in the early and mid-'50s with a series of tightly made, expertly crafted, tough but intelligent "B" pictures (among them The Lineup (1958), Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)), then graduated to major "A" films in the 1960s and early 1970s. He made several "side trips" to television, mostly as a producer. Siegel directed what is generally considered to be Elvis Presley's best picture, Flaming Star (1960). He had a long professional relationship and personal friendship with Clint Eastwood, who has often said that everything he knows about filmmaking he learned from Don Siegel.
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