Jewish film directors in American Cinema

07 Abr Jewish film directors in American Cinema

Jewish film directors in American Cinema

By Diego Moldes

Great Jewish film directors in Hollywood’s classic period (many of them also directed features in Europe): Max Reinhardt (born Maximilian Goldmann, 1873–1943) and his sons Gottfried Reinhardt (1911–1994) and producer–screenwriter Wolfgang Reinhardt (1908–1979); Cecil B. DeMille (1881–1959); Erich von Stroheim (Erich Oswald Stroheim, 1885–1957); Michael Curtiz (born Manó Kertész Kaminer, 1886–1962); John M. Stahl (Jacob Morris Strelitsky, 1886–1950); Irving Pichel (1891-1954), Ernst Lubitsch (1892–1947); John Brahm (1893–1982), son of German theater actor Ludwig Brahm and nephew of the theater director–producer and literary critic Otto Brahm: the Brahms’ original surname was Abrahamsohn; Sir Alexander Korda (1893–1956) and his brother Zoltan Korda (1895–1961); William Dieterle (Wilhelm Dieterle, 1893–1972); Gregory Ratoff (1893– 1960); Albert Lewin (1894–1968); Josef von Sternberg (Jonas Sternberg, 1894–1969); Lewis Milestone (Leib Milstein, 1895–1980); Victor Halperin (1895–1983); Rudolph Maté (1898–1964); Irving Rapper (1898–1999); George Cukor (1899–1983, mother’s maiden name: Gross); Curtis Bernhardt (1899–1981); Norman Taurog (1899-1981, mother’s maiden name: Goldsmith); Mervyn LeRoy (1900–1987); Robert Siodmak (1900–1973) and his brother the screenwriter and novelist Curt Siodmak (1902–2000); Charles Vidor (Vidor Károly, 1900–1959); Anatole Litvak (1902–1974); Herbert Biberman (1900–1971); William Wyler (Wilhelm Weiller, 1902–1981); Max Ophüls (Maximillian Oppenheimer, 1902–1957); Boris Ingster (1903–1978); Edgar G. Ulmer (1904–1972); Otto Preminger (Otto Ludwig Preminger, 1905–1986); Henry Koster (Hermann Kosterlitz, 1905–1988); László Benedek (1905-1992); Billy Wilder (Samuel Wilder, 1906–2002); Irving Reis (1906–1953); Clifford Odets (Clifford Gorodetsky, 1906–1963); Vincent Sherman (born Abraham Orovitz, 1906–2006); Nathan H. Juran (Naftuli Hertz Juran, 1907–2002); Fred Zinnemann (1907–1997); Phil Karlson (Philip N. Karlstein, 1908–1982); Michael Gordon (Irving Kunin Gordon, 1909–1993); Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1909–1993) and his brother the screenwriter and producer Herman Mankiewicz (1897–1953); Robert Rossen (1908–1966), a rabbi’s son like so many others; Abraham Polonsky (1910–1999); Jules Dassin (Julius Dassin, 1911–2008); Anthony Mann (Emil Anton Bundesmann, 1906–1967), son of a Catholic Austrian father and German Jewish mother, Bertha Weichselbaum; Richard Brooks (Ruben Sax, 1912–1992); Samuel Fuller (1912–1997); Don Siegel (1912–1991); Cornel Wilde (Kornél Lajos Weisz, 1912–1989); George Sidney (1916–2002) —the original surnames of his parents, who came from Russia and Poland, respectively, were Rabinovitch and Baum—; Richard Fleischer (1916–2006), son of the animation pioneer who created the Popeye and Betty Boop shorts, Max Fleischer (1883–1972); Maya Deren (1917–1961) and John Berry (Jak Szold, 1917–1999).

Important Jewish filmmakers in Hollywood’s modern era (directorial debuts from the postwar years to the early 1960s): Daniel Mann (born Daniel Chugerman, 1912–1991), Stanley Kramer (1913–2001), William Castle (William Schloss, 1914–1977), Norman Panama (1914–2003), Martin Ritt (1914–1990), Irving Allen (born Irving O. Cohen, 1916–1991), Melville Shavelson (1917–2007), Ted Post (1918–2013), Sam Wannamaker (1919-1993), Lewis Gilbert (1920–2018), Gene Saks (1921–2015, mother’s maiden name: Lewkowitz), Arthur Penn (1922–2010), Carl Reiner (1922–2020), Russ Meyer (1922–2004), George Axelrod (1922-2003), Arthur Hiller (1922–2016), Irvin Kershner (1923–2010), Boris Sagal (1923–1981), Stanley Donen (1924–2019), Sidney Lumet (1924–2011), Paul Newman (1925–2008), Mel Brooks (Melvin Kaminsky, b. 1926), Karel Reisz (1926–2002), John Schlesinger (1926–2003), Stuart Rosenberg (1927–2007), Herbert Ross (1927–2001), Jerry Schatzberg (b. 1927),  Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999), Alan J. Pakula (1928–1998), Mark Rydell (b. 1929), Ulu Grosbard (Israel Grosbard, 1929–2012), Marvin J. Chomsky (1929-2022), Richard Donner (b. Richard Donald Schwartzberg; 1930–2021), Paul Mazursky (1930–2014), Larry Peerce (b. 1930), Frederick Wiseman (b. 1930), Mike Nichols (Michael Igor Peschkowsky, 1931–2014), Elaine May (née Elaine Berlin, b. 1932), Roman Polanski (Rajmund Liebling, b. 1933), Sidney J. Furie (b. 1933), Alan Arkin (b. 1934), Sydney Pollack (1934–2008), Woody Allen (Allen Stewart Konigsberg, b. 1935), William Friedkin (b. 1935), Philip Kaufman (b. 1936), Larry Cohen (1936–2019), Peter Medak (b. 1937), Ralph Bakshi (b. 1938), and Peter Bogdanovich (1939–2022).

Jewish first-rate filmmakers in contemporary Hollywood: Joel Schumacher (1939–2020), James L. Brooks (b. 1940), Stephen Frears (b. 1941), Nora Ephron (1941–2012), Barry Levinson (b. 1942, mother’s maiden name: Krichinsky), Mark Rappaport (b. 1942), Joel Zwick (b. 1942), Michael Mann (b. 1943), David Cronenberg (b. 1943), Bruce Paltrow (1943–2002, mother’s maiden name: Weigert), Peter Hyams (b. 1943), Mike Leigh (b. 1943), Harold Ramis (1944–2014), Frank Oz (Frank Richard Oznowicz, b. 1944), Jim Abrahams (b. 1944), Roland Joffé (b. 1945), Nicholas Meyer (b. 1945), Michael Radford (b. 1946), Steven Spielberg (b. 1946), Rob Reiner (b. 1947), David Mamet (b. 1947), David Zucker (b. 1947) and his brother Jerry Zucker (b. 1950), Albert Brooks (b. 1947), Errol Morris (b. 1948), Jon Avnet (b. 1949), Rob Cohen (b. 1949), Lawrence Kasdan (b. 1949), Nancy Meyers (b. 1949), Linda Yellen (b. 1949), Howard Deutch (b. 1950), John Landis (b. 1950), Mimi Leder (b. 1952), whose mother survived Auschwitz; Edward Zwick (b. 1952), Barry Sonnenfeld (b. 1953), the Coen brothers (Joel and Ethan Coen, b. 1954 and 1957), Amy Heckerling (b. 1954), Sam Raimi (Samuel Marshall Raimi, b. 1955, mother’s maiden name: Abrams), Nicholas Hytner (b. 1956), Charlie Kaufman (b. 1958), David O. Russell (b. 1958), Jewish on his father’s side; Richard Schenkman (b. 1958), Todd Solondz (b. 1959), who at one point considered becoming a rabbi; Susanne Bier (b. 1960), Michael Mayer (b. 1960), Beeban Kidron (b. 1961), Tod Haynes (b. 1961), Akiva Goldsman (b. 1962), Kenneth Lonergan (b. 1962), Rob Minkoff (b. 1962), Ari Folman (b. 1962), Grant Heslov (b. 1963), Vadim Perelman (b. 1963), Jon Turteltaub (b. 1963), Lisa Cholodenko (b. 1964), Adam Shankman (b. 1964), John Hyams (b. 1964), Michael Bay (b. 1965), Doug Liman (b. 1965), Jonathan Glazer (b. 1965), Sam Mendes (b. 1965), Bryan Singer (b. 1965), Paul Weitz (b. 1965) and his brother Chris Weitz (b. 1969), Boaz Yakin (b. 1965), J. J. Abrams (b. 1966), Jon Favreau (b. 1966), Lenny Abrahamson (b. 1966), Yaron Zilberman (b. 1966), Judd Apatow (b. 1967), Darren Aronofsky (b. 1969), James Gray (b. 1969), Spike Jonze (Adam Spiegel, b. 1969), Noah Baumbach (b. 1969), Brett Ratner (b. 1969), Todd Phillips (Todd Bunzl, b. 1970), Genndy Tartakovsky (b. 1970), Craig Mazin (b. 1971), Eli Roth (b. 1972), Ben Younger (b. 1972), Ruben Fleischer (b. 1974), Craig Zobel (b. 1975), Taika Waititi (David Cohen, b. 1975), Harmony Korine (b. 1973), Seth Grossman (b. 1975), Dan Trachtenberg (b. 1981), Seth Rogen (b. 1982), Matthew Heineman (b. 1983) and Ari Aster (b. 1986).

From my book When Einstein Met Kafka. Jews Who Made the Modern World (Galaxia Gutenberg, Barcelona, 2019), translated by Steven Capsuto (New York, 2024). Agent: Jeanne Bracken.

When Einstein Met Kafka. Jews Who Made The Modern World