Obituary: Vincent Sherman / Directed Hollywood stars of 1940s, '50s
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Vincent Sherman, who directed Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis and Errol Flynn during their 1940s heyday at Warner Bros. and was one of the last surviving studio-era contract directors, has died. He was 99.
Mr. Sherman died Sunday of natural causes at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital, his son Eric Sherman told The Associated Press.
An actor-turned-screenwriter, Vincent Sherman began his directing career at Warner Bros. in 1939 with the low-budget "The Return of Dr. X," which is memorable only as Bogart's sole foray into the horror genre.
Working on pictures assigned by the studio, Mr. Sherman quickly established a reputation as a competent technician with a flair for melodrama.
Among his credits are "All Through the Night" (1942), starring Bogart; "The Hard Way" (1942), starring Ida Lupino and Jack Carson; "Mr. Skeffington" (1944), starring Davis and Claude Rains; "The New Adventures of Don Juan" (1948), starring Flynn; "Goodbye, My Fancy" (1951), starring Joan Crawford; "Lone Star" with Clark Gable and Ava Gardner (1952); and "An Affair in Trinidad" (1952) with Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford.
Mr. Sherman later directed Paul Newman in "The Young Philadelphians" (1959) and Richard Burton in "Ice Palace" (1960). In the 1960s, after the demise of the studio system, he turned to directing for television.
Mr. Sherman was born Abraham Orovitz in Vienna, Ga., on July 16, 1906.
He graduated from Oglethorpe University in Atlanta in 1925 and planned to become a lawyer. But in 1927, while working as a newspaper police reporter in Atlanta and studying law at night, he and a former classmate wrote a play and decided to move to New York City to seek fame and fortune in the theater.
When they failed to sell their play, Mr. Sherman, who had gotten his first taste of acting while at the university, began looking for work as an actor.
Renamed Vincent Sherman by a receptionist at a talent agency, he began landing small roles in Theater Guild productions. During the summers, he worked as a social director at a camp in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, where he acted in and directed dramatic and musical shows.
In 1932, Mr. Sherman was hired for a role as a young communist in the Chicago company of Elmer Rice's play "Counsellor-at-Law." A year later, he was brought out to Hollywood to re-create the role in director William Wyler's film version.
Mr. Sherman stayed in Hollywood six months, playing small gangster parts in a few films before returning to New York, where he appeared in and directed numerous plays, including playing a role in Clifford Odets' "Waiting For Lefty." He also continued to write his own plays.
In 1937, a part in the road company of Sidney Kingsley's "Dead End" brought Mr. Sherman back to Los Angeles, where he met Bryan Foy, head of the B-picture unit at Warner Bros., who asked him if he would like to try writing for films.
Assigned to Mr. Foy's B-unit, Mr. Sherman began by rewriting old screenplays into new movies.
One day, Mr. Foy asked Mr. Sherman to shoot a brief scene of a radio broadcast of a sporting event with a young actor the studio had recently signed: Ronald Reagan, whom Mr. Sherman later directed in "The Hasty Heart" (1949).
After directing "The Hard Way" -- the 1943 film earned Lupino the New York Film Critics Award as best actress of the year -- Mr. Sherman established a reputation as a women's director.
Mr. Sherman wrote about his Hollywood days in his 1996 book "Studio Affairs: My Life as a Film Director" (University of Kentucky Press). The title refers, in part, to his love affairs with Davis and Crawford, as well as a fling with Hayworth.
1952 photoActress Rita Hayworth chats with director Vincent Sherman, right, between takes of the movie "Affair In Trinidad."
First Published June 21, 2006 12:00 am
