Otto Preminger

Otto Ludwig Preminger 5 December 1905 – 23 April 1986 was an Austro – Hungarian-American theater and film director. His father was a prosecutor, and Otto originally intended to follow his father into a law career however, he fell in love with the theater and became a stage director. He directed his first film in 1931, and came to the US in 1936 to direct on the Broadway stage. He alternated between stage and film until the great success of Laura 1944 made him an A-list director in Hollwyood.

For two decades after “Laura was released in 1944, Preminger ranked as one of the top directors in the world. His powers began to wane after Advise & Consent (1962), and by the end of the decade, he was considered washed-up. However, such was the potency of his craftsmanship that he continued to direct major motion pictures into the 1970s, with Rosebud 1975 getting scathing reviews. His last directorial effort was The Human Factor 1979, which won him respectful notices.

“My father believed that it was impossible to be too kind or too loving to a child. He never punished me. When there were problems he sat down and discussed them with me reasonably, as though I was an adult. I don’t think my mother agreed completely with this method but she acted, as always, according to his wishes. I adored him. I had an affectionate relationship with my mother; she was a wonderful, warm-hearted woman, but she did not really play a large part in the formation of my character. Intellectually my father influenced me more than my mother.

Known for his boundary-pushing characters and story-lines, which frequently courted controversy upon release Otto Preminger died in New York City, New York in 1986, aged 80, from cancer while suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and diabetes . He was cremated and is interred in a niche in the Azalea Room of the Velma B. Woolworth Memorial Chapel at Woodlawn Cemetery, The Bronx, New York.