John Frankenheimer Movies and Career Information

John Michael Frankenheimer (February 19, 1930 – July 6, 2002) was an American filmmaker. He is known for making The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Birdman of Alcatraz (also 1962), The Train, (1964), Seven Days in May (also 1964) and Ronin (1998). Frankenheimer was born in Queens, New York, the son of Helen Mary (née Sheedy) and Walter Martin Frankenheimer, a stockbroker. Frankenheimer thought he might be related to actress Ally Sheedy. His father was of German Jewish descent and his mother was Irish Catholic, and Frankenheimer was raised Catholic. He graduated from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, in 1951. Frankenheimer became a filmmaker while serving as a U.S. Air Force lieutenant during the Korean War, directing service films for the Air Force and became interested in directing after his military service. Frankenheimer began his directing career in live television at CBS. Throughout the 1950s he directed over 140 episodes of shows like Playhouse 90, Climax!, and Danger, including The Comedian, written by Rod Serling and starring Mickey Rooney as a ragingly vicious television comedian. His first theatrical film was 1957's The Young Stranger, starring James MacArthur