Donald Siegel (October 26, 1912 - April 20, 1991) was an American film director and producer. His name variously appeared in the credits of his films as both Don Siegel and Donald Siegel. He was best known for the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and five films with Clint Eastwood, including Dirty Harry (1971) and Escape from Alcatraz (1979).

Early life[link]

Born in Chicago, with Jewish origins, he attended schools in New York and later graduated from Jesus College, Cambridge in England.^[1] For a short time he studied at Beaux Arts in Paris, France, but left at age 20 and later made his way to Los Angeles.^[1]

Career[link]

Siegel found work in the Warner Bros. film library after meeting producer Hal Wallis,^[1] and later rose to head of the Montage Department, where he directed thousands of montages, including the opening montage for Casablanca. In 1945 two shorts he directed, Hitler Lives? and Star in the Night, won Academy Awards, which launched his career as a feature director.

He directed whatever material came his way, often transcending the limitations of budget and script to produce interesting and adept works. He made the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers in 1956. He directed two episodes of The Twilight Zone, "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross" and "Uncle Simon". He worked with Elvis Presley and Dolores del Río in Flaming Star (1960), with Steve McQueen in Hell Is for Heroes and Lee Marvin in the influential The Killers (1964) before directing a series of five films with Clint Eastwood that were commercially successful in addition to being well received by critics. These included the policiers Coogan's Bluff and Dirty Harry, the Budd Boetticher-scripted Western Two Mules for Sister Sara, the cynical American Civil War melodrama The Beguiled and the prison-break picture Escape from Alcatraz. He was a considerable influence on Eastwood's own career as a director, and Eastwood's film Unforgiven is dedicated "for Don [Siegel] and Sergio [Leone]".

He had a long collaboration with composer Lalo Schifrin, who scored five of his films: Coogan's Bluff, The Beguiled, Dirty Harry, Charley Varrick and Telefon.

Schifrin composed and recorded what would have been his sixth score for Siegel on Jinxed! (1982), but it was rejected by the studio despite Siegel's objections. This was one of several fights Siegel had on this, his last film.^[2]

Siegel was also important in the career of director Sam Peckinpah. In 1954, Peckinpah was hired as a dialogue coach for Riot in Cell Block 11. His job entailed acting as an assistant for the director, Siegel. The film was shot on location at Folsom Prison. Siegel's location work and his use of actual prisoners as extras in the film made a lasting impression on Peckinpah. He worked as a dialog coach on four additional Siegel films: Private Hell 36 (1954), An Annapolis Story, (1955), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and Crime in the Streets (1956).^[3] 25 years later, Peckinpah was all but banished from the industry due to his troubled film productions. Siegel gave the director a chance to return to filmmaking. He asked Peckinpah if he would be interested in directing 12 days of second unit work on Jinxed!. Peckinpah immediately accepted, and his earnest collaboration with his longtime friend was noted within the industry. While Peckinpah's work was uncredited, it would lead to his hiring as the director of his final film The Osterman Weekend (1983).^[4][5]

Cameos[link]

He has a cameo role as a bartender in Eastwood's Play Misty For Me, and in Philip Kaufman's 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers--a remake of Siegel's own 1956 film—he appears as a "pod" taxi driver. In Charley Varrick (a film slated for Eastwood but ultimately turned down by the actor), starring Walter Matthau, he has a cameo as a ping-pong player.

Personal life[link]

From 1948 to 1953 he was married to actress Viveca Lindfors, with whom he had a son, Kristoffer Tabori. He married Doe Avedon (a former actress and wife of photographer Richard Avedon) in 1957. They adopted four children Nowell, Anney, Katherine and Jack and later divorced. He married Carol Rydall, former assistant to Clint Eastwood, and they remained together until he died at the age of 78 from cancer in Nipomo, California.

Filmography[link]

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Munn, Michael (1992). Clint Eastwood: Hollywood's Loner. London: Robson Books. ISBN 0-86051-790-X. 

External links[link]

• Don Siegel at the Internet Movie Database
• Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
• An Academy Salute to Don Siegel, With Curtis Hanson and Clint Eastwood