Richard Fleischer

16 films · 1948 to 1985

Born 8 December 1916, New York City · Died 25 March 2006

Richard Owen Fleischer was an American film director. His career spanned more than four decades, beginning at the height of the Golden Age of Hollywood in the 1940s, and lasting through the New Hollywood era, until the late 1980s. He was the son of animation pioneer Max Fleischer, and served as chairman of Fleischer Studios. Fleischer began his career in B department of RKO Pictures, mainly directing noirs and crime dramas like The Narrow Margin (1952). Though he went on to direct films across many genres and styles, he is best known for his big-budget "tentpole" films and star vehicles, including: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), The Vikings (1958), Barabbas (1961), Fantastic Voyage (1966), Doctor Dolittle (1967), Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), Soylent Green (1973), Mandingo (1975), and the Robert E. Howard sword-and-sorcery films Conan the Destroyer (1984) and Red Sonja (1985).

Biography adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.