Arthur Penn

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other people named Arthur Penn, see Arthur Penn (disambiguation).
This article possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims
made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be
removed. (February 2014)
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this
article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and
removed.(September 2010)

Arthur Penn

Born

Arthur Hiller Penn

September 27, 1922
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States

Died

September 28, 2010 (aged 88)

New York City, United States

Occupation

Film director, producer

Spouse(s)

Peggy Maurer (19552010; his death)

Children

Matthew Penn, Molly Penn

Arthur Hiller Penn (September 27, 1922 September 28, 2010)[1] was an American director
and producer of film, television and theater. Penn directed critically acclaimed films throughout
the 1960s such as the drama The Chase (1966), the biographical crime filmBonnie and
Clyde (1967) and the comedy Alice's Restaurant (1969). He also got attention for his revisionist
Western Little Big Man (1970).
By the mid-1970s his films were received with much less enthusiasm. In the 1990s he returned
to stage and television direction and production, including an executive producer role for the
crime series Law & Order.[2]
Contents
[hide]

1 Early years

2 Career

3 Personal life

4 Work
o

4.1 Filmography

4.2 Stage

5 See also

6 References

7 External links

Early years[edit]
Penn was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Sonia (Greenberg), a nurse, and
Harry Penn, a watchmaker.[3] He was the younger brother of Irving Penn, the successful fashion
photographer. During the 1920s, he moved in with his mother after she divorced Penn's father.
Some time after, he came back to his sickly father, leading him to run his father's watch repair
shop. At 19 he was drafted into the army. Stationed in Britain, he became interested in theater.
He started to direct and take part in shows being put on for the soldiers around England at the
time. As Penn grew up, he became increasingly interested in film, especially after seeing
the Orson Welles film Citizen Kane.[citation needed] He later attended Black Mountain College in North
Carolina, and was a featured commentator in the documentary Fully Awake about the college.[4]

Career[edit]
After making a name for himself as a director of quality television dramas, Penn made his
feature debut with a western, The Left Handed Gun (1958) for Warner Brothers. A retelling of
the Billy the Kid legend, it was distinguished by Paul Newman's sharp portrayal of the outlaw

as a psychologically troubled youth (the role was originally intended for the archetypal
portrayer of troubled teens, James Dean).[citation needed] The production was completed in only 23
days, but Warner Brothers reedited the film against his wishes with a new ending he
disapproved of. The film subsequently failed upon release in North America, but was well
received in Europe.[5]
Penn's second film was The Miracle Worker (1962), the story of Anne Sullivan's struggle to
teach the blind and deaf Helen Keller how to communicate. It garnered two Academy Awards
for its leads Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke. Penn had won a Tony Award for directing the stage
production, written by William Gibson, also starring Bancroft and Duke,[6] and he had directed
Bancroft's Broadway debut in playwright Gibson's first Broadway production, Two for the
Seesaw.[citation needed]
In 1965 Penn directed Mickey One. Heavily influenced by the French New Wave, it was the
dreamlike story of a standup comedian (played by Warren Beatty) on the run from sinister,
ambiguous forces. In 2010, Penn commented: "You know, you could not have gone through
theSecond World War with all that nonsense with Russia being an ally and then being the big
black monster. It was an absurd time. TheMcCarthy period was ridiculous and humiliating,
deeply humiliating. When I finally did 'Mickey One', it was in repudiation of the kind of fear that
overtook free people to the point where they were telling on each other and afraid to speak out.
It just astonished me, really astonished me. I mean, I was a vet, so it was nothing like what we
thought we were fighting for."[7]
Penn's next film was The Chase (1966) a thriller following events in a small corrupt Southern
town on the day an escaped convict, played by Robert Redford, returns. Although not a major
success, The Chase nonetheless caught the mood of the turbulent times, a 'state of the nation'
tale of racism, corruption and the violence endemic in American society.[citation needed]
Reuniting with Warren Beatty for the rural gangster film Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Penn once
again showed that he had his finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist, perfectly catching the youthful
disenchantment of the late '60s. Although set 30 years earlier, during the Depression, it was
very much in the spirit of the contemporaneous "counter-culture". Bonnie and Clyde went on to
become a worldwide phenomenon, at the same time pushing the limits of acceptable screen
violence with its bloody machine-gun climax (two years before Sam Peckinpah'sThe Wild
Bunch).[citation needed] The film was strongly influenced by the French New Wave and itself went on to
make a huge impression on a younger generation of filmmakers. Indeed, there was a strong
resurgence in the "love on the run" subgenre in the wake of Bonnie and Clyde, peaking
with Badlands (1973; in which Penn received acknowledgement in the credits).
Next came Alice's Restaurant (1969), based on a satirical ballad by Arlo Guthrie. His next film
after this was a return to the western genre,Little Big Man (1970), a "shaggy dog" account of
the life of a white man (played by Dustin Hoffman) who gets adopted into the Cheyennetribe.
In 1973 Penn provided a segment for a promotional film for the Olympics, Visions of
Eight along with several other major directors such asJohn Schlesinger and Milo Forman. His
next film was a paranoid thriller set in Los Angeles, Night Moves (1975) about a private
detective (played by Gene Hackman) on the trail of a runaway. Next came a comic
western, The Missouri Breaks (1976), a ramshackle, eccentric story of a horse thief (Jack
Nicholson) facing off with an eccentric bounty hunter (played by Marlon Brando).
In the 1980s, Penn's career began to lose its momentum with critics and audiences: Four
Friends (1981) was a traumatic look back at the Sixties, returning to the old themes of Vietnam,
civil rights, sexual politics, and drugs. Next came Target (1985), a mainstream thriller reuniting
the director with Gene Hackman, and Dead of Winter (1987) was a horror/thriller in the style
of Alfred Hitchcock, which he took over directing during production.[8]

Subsequently, Penn returned to work in television, including an executive producer role for the
crime series Law & Order.
Throughout the years, Penn had maintained an affiliation with Yale University, occasionally
teaching classes there.[9]

Personal life[edit]
In 1955, he married Peggy Maurer. They had two children, a son, Matthew Penn and a
daughter, Molly Penn.
In July 2009, Penn was hospitalized with pneumonia.[10] In July 2010, Penn reflected on his life
and career, including his relationship withAlger Hiss:
...During that period [Mickey One] I met Alger Hiss, and we became very close friends. In fact,
Alger got married here in my apartment. And so I became more of a student of the Hiss period
than I knew what to do with, frankly.[7]
Penn died in Manhattan, on September 28, 2010, a day after his 88th birthday from congestive
heart failure.[1] He is survived by his two children, Molly and Matthew.

Work[edit]
Filmography[edit]

Stage[edit]

The Left Handed Gun (1958)

Two for the Seesaw (1958)

The Miracle Worker (1962)

The Miracle Worker (1959)

Mickey One (1965)

An Evening With Mike Nichols and Elain

The Chase (1966)

All the Way Home (1960)

Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

Toys in the Attic (1960)

Flesh and Blood (1968)

Golden Boy (1964)

Alice's Restaurant (1969)

Wait Until Dark (1966)

Little Big Man (1970)

Sly Fox (1976)

Visions of Eight (documentary) (segment The Hightest) (1973)

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (2000)

Night Moves (1975)

Fortune's Fool (2002)

The Missouri Breaks (1976)

Four Friends (1981)

Target (1985)

Dead of Winter (1987)

Penn & Teller Get Killed (1989)

The Portrait Television film (1993)

Inside Television film (1996)

See also[edit]
Biography portal

Sally Pierone

References[edit]
1.

^ Jump up to:a b Dave Kehr (September 29, 2010). "Arthur Penn, Director of 'Bonnie and
Clyde,' Dies". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 2, 2010.
Retrieved September 29, 2010.

2.

Jump up^ Whitaker, Sheila (September 29, 2010). "Arthur Penn Obituary". The
Guardian (London).

3.

Jump up^ "Arthur Penn Biography". filmreference. 2010. Archived from the original on
October 2, 2010. Retrieved September 29, 2010.

4.
5.

6.

Jump up^ "Ashley" (October 5, 2010). "Arthur Penn and Black Mountain College".
Jump up^ Harris, Mark (2008). Pictures at a Revolution: Five Films and the Birth of the
New Hollywood. Penguin Press. p. 17.
Jump up^ The 1960 Tony Awards

7.

^ Jump up to:a b Gregory Zucker; Robert White (August 2010). "Radical Reflection Arthur
Penn, In Conversation with Gregory Zucker and Robert White".Brooklyn Rail.
Retrieved September 29, 2010.

8.

Jump up^ Nat Segaloff (2011). Arthur Penn: American Director. University Press of
Kentucky. ISBN 9780813129815.

9.

Jump up^ Bernard Weinraub (August 24, 2000). "Rare Vote for Experience Over
Youth". The New York Times. Retrieved September 30, 2010.

10.

Jump up^ Penn's battle with pneumonia

External links[edit]

Arthur Penn at the Internet Broadway Database

Arthur Penn at the Internet Off-Broadway Database

Arthur Penn at the Internet Movie Database

Arthur Penn at Senses of Cinema

Looking Back at Arthur Penn slideshow by The New York Times

Literature on Arthur Penn

Arthur Penn interview video at the Archive of American Television

Preceded by
Frank Corsaro

Artistic Director of the Actors Studio

19951998

Succeeded by
Estelle Parsons
[show]

Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play (19471975)

[show]

Films directed by Arthur Penn

Authority control

WorldCat
VIAF: 27116176
LCCN: n79090078
ISNI: 0000 0001 2277 6959
GND: 120429349
SUDOC:030814111
BNF: cb122153690 (data)

Categories:
1922 births

2010 deaths

Actors Studio members

American film directors

American film producers

American television producers

American Jews

People from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Bard College faculty

Tony Award winners

American military personnel of World War II