Preminger, Otto

Preminger, Otto (Ludwig)

(born Dec. 5, 1906, Vienna, Austria—died April 23, 1986, New York, N.Y., U.S.) Austrian-born U.S. film director. While studying law in his native Vienna, he worked with Max Reinhardt's theatre and soon became its director. In 1935 he went to the U.S. to direct Libel on Broadway. Invited to Hollywood, he made the successful thriller Laura (1944), which helped establish film noir. Forming his own production company, he defied Hollywood's Production Code with a series of controversial films and brought about the relaxation of censorship regulations. His landmark films include The Moon Is Blue (1953); the all-African American Carmen Jones (1954); and The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), a tale of drug addiction. His later films include Anatomy of a Murder (1959), Exodus (1960), The Cardinal (1963), and Hurry Sundown (1967). He also worked as a character actor, most notably in Billy Wilder's Stalag 17 (1953).

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Preminger, Otto (1906–86) movie director/producer; born in Vienna, Austria. He abandoned a career as a lawyer to act and work in the theater with Max Reinhardt, and he directed his first movie in 1931. Coming to the U.S.A. in 1933 to direct Libel on Broadway, he moved to Hollywood but quarreled with Darryl Zanuck, who prevented him from directing movies. During World War II, with Zanuck away, he got both to act (playing Nazis, although Jewish himself) and direct in three movies and then was allowed to produce and direct Laura (1944), which was a big success. In the early 1950s he became an independent producer/director and enjoyed considerable success with such movies as Anatomy of a Murder (1959) and Exodus (1960). Although most of his movies were simply popular entertainment, his The Moon is Blue (1953) broke new ground with its use of what was then regarded as sexually explicit language ("virgin" and "pregnant") while The Man with the Golden Arm (1957) was the first Hollywood movie to deal so explicitly with drug addiction.