Julius "Jules" Dassin ( ; December 18, 1911 – March 31, 2008) was an American film and theatre director, producer, writer and actor. A subject of the Hollywood blacklist, he subsequently moved to France, and later Greece, where he continued his career. He was best-known for his noir and crime films, though he also worked in other genres. He won the Best Director Award at the 1955 Cannes Film Festival for his pioneering heist film Rififi, and received Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Never on Sunday (1960).
He adapted Never on Sunday into the stage musical Illya Darling, earning Tony nominations for Best Musical and Best Direction of a Musical. Dassin's other notable films included Brute Force (1947), The Naked City (1948), Thieves' Highway (1949), Night and the City (1950), Topkapi (1964), and Uptight (1968).
Dassin was the husband of Greek actress and activist Melina Mercouri, and the father of singer-songwriter Joe Dassin. He was a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Directors Guild of America.
Biography Early life Julius Dassin was born in Middletown, Connecticut, on December 18, 1911, to Bertha () and Samuel Dassin, a barber. His parents were both Jewish immigrants from Odessa, Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine).David B. Green, This Day in Jewish History 1911: Blacklisted Director Who Became the Toast of Paris Is Born, Haaretz, December 18, 2015. Retrieved May 30, 2018. Julius had seven siblings, including four brothers, Louis C., Benjamin, Irving and Edward; and three sisters.
In 1915, when Julius was three years old, the Dassin family moved to Harlem, New York. He attended public grammar school where he received his first acting role in a school play. Julius was given a small part but when came time to speak his only line, he fainted due to stage fright. He also learned to play the piano at a young age. During his youth he attended Camp Kinderland, a left-wing Yiddish youth camp.
Julius attended Morris High School in the Bronx. He started acting professionally in 1926, at the age of fourteen, with the Yiddish Art Theatre in New York City. On October 13, 1929, newspaper columnist Mark Hellinger printed a story given to him by Dassin in the New York Daily News; nearly twenty years later, the two would work together in Hollywood.
On July 11, 1933, Julius' older brother Louis was arrested in Meriden, Connecticut when he confessed to the theft of $12,000 from the Puritan Bank and Trust Company, where he worked as a teller and treasurer. On September 10, 1933, when he was 21 years old, Julius married Beatrice Launer, a concert violinist and a graduate of the Juilliard School of Music.
Beginning in 1934, Julius spent three years studying dramatic technique in Europe. He spent time in Italy, France, Spain, Germany, the Soviet Union, U.K., Czechoslovakia, Portugal, Switzerland and Greece, working odd jobs to sustain himself.
New York theatre and radio career After returning from Europe in 1936, Dassin joined the Children's Theatre, a division of the Federal Theatre Project during the Great Depression. It was during this time that he joined the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). The troupe put on children's plays at the Adelphi Theatre in New York City. During this time, he played the role of Zar in The Emperor's New Clothes in September 1936, and the role of Oakleaf in Revolt of the Beavers, which ran from May 20, 1937, to June 19, 1937. The later play was criticized as strongly communist.
He later joined up with the Artef Players, a Yiddish Proletarian Theater company in 1937, serving as an actor, set designer, set builder, stage director and even ticket salesman. Beginning on October 5, 1937, he appeared in Moyshe Kulbak's play The Outlaw, which had been adapted by Chaver Paver at The Artef Theatre He also appeared in Artef Players' Recruits and 200,000. On November 5, 1938, Dassin's wife Beatrice gave birth to their first child, son Joseph. In October 1939, he acted in Chaver Paver's Clinton Street, which was staged at the Mercury Theatre, after Orson Welles' troupe had left for Hollywood and the Radio-Keith-Orpheum circuit. Since the pay was poor with Artef Players, Dassin formed a theatre troupe to tour the Borscht Circuit in the Catskills as summer stock.
Dassin acted in a movie scripted and directed by Jack Skurnick, which was shown to a small group at a space that Skurnick rented in New York but was never exhibited beyond that.
He then wrote sketches for radio, at times directing his own radio plays, and became a stage director and producer. In April 1939, Dassin adapted Nicolai Gogol's story The Overcoat for the CBS variety program The Kate Smith Hour, which starred Burgess Meredith and was broadcast live on April 20, 1939. In early 1940, Dassin staged and directed the play Medicine Show for producer Martin Gabel, starring Isabel Bonner, Philip Bourneuf and Norman Lloyd. Although it was well received by critics, Medicine Show only ran for 35 performances at the New Yorker Theatre, from April 12, 1940, to May 11, 1940.
Working in Hollywood
RKO Radio Pictures (1940) In June 1940, Dassin was signed to a term contract with Hollywood film studio RKO Radio Pictures as a director. He was immediately assigned as an assistant director to learn the motion picture business, working under Garson Kanin on They Knew What They Wanted (1940) and Alfred Hitchcock on Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941), both starring Carole Lombard and both under the supervision of producer Harry E. Edington. During the filming of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Dassin's wife Beatrice gave birth to their second child, daughter Richelle. By January 1941, after six months without a proper directorial job, Dassin was released from his RKO Radio Pictures contract.
Dassin returned to radio work in Hollywood, presenting his previously adapted Gogol story The Overcoat for a repeat performance on The Kate Smith Hour, this time starring Henry Hull, which was broadcast live on January 3, 1941. He was also one of the several actors who formed the Actors' Laboratory Theatre.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and loan-out to Eagle-Lion Films (1941–1946) Wanting to prove that he could direct motion pictures, Dassin approached Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the spring of 1941 offering his services for free. He told the studio that he would direct any film for free; the studio instead offered to pay him to direct a short film. Dassin made his directorial debut with a short film of Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart. Filmed in June 1941 and released on October 25, 1941, the success of the picture led to his hasty promotion as a feature film director and the signing of an exclusive five-year contract in early November 1941. Dassin was promoted from the short story department to the feature film department by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer at the same time as Fred Zinnemann and Fred Wilcox.
His feature film debut at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was the low-budget spy thriller Nazi Agent (originally announced under the titles Salute to Courage, House of Spies and Out of the Past), under the supervision of producer Irving Asher and starring Conrad Veidt, in the dual roles of twin brothers, and Ann Ayars. Released in early 1942, the film received immediate critical acclaim and was a box office success, with Dassin being compared to Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock.
Dassin followed with the romantic comedy The Affairs of Martha (originally announced under the title Once Upon a Thursday), starring Marsha Hunt and Richard Carlson, and under the supervision of producer Irving Starr. The film was made in early 1942 on a limited budget. When released in mid-1942, the film was a moderate success and again Dassin was highlighted in the reviews.
In mid-February 1942, it was reported that Dassin would direct a film titled Men at Sea from a Marine Corps story by Alma Rivkin (possibly a typo for Allen Rivkin) starring Philip Dorn. The film was presumably abandoned. In April 1942, it was reported that Dassin would be one of eight directors, along with Fred Zinnemann, Fred Wilcox, Charles Lederer, Edward Cahn, Joseph M. Newman and David Miller, to film a sequence for a planned patriotic anthology film at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer titled Now We Are 21. The film was to be produced by B. F. Zeidman and scripted by Peter Ruric from a story by Jerry Schwartz. Actors such as Gene Kelly, Ray McDonald, Virginia O'Brien, James Warren, Tatricia Dane, Johnny Davis and Barry Wilson were to appear in the film, but it was never made.
Joan Crawford, one of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's biggest stars at the time, watched a private screening of Nazi Agent, after which she rushed to Louis B. Mayer's office insisting that Dassin direct her upcoming World War II drama vehicle, Reunion in France (originally announced simply as Reunion). The picture was being produced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and was to co-star Philip Dorn and John Wayne. Crawford also requested that Ann Ayars, who co-starred in Nazi Agent, be given the second female lead in her film. Dassin was notified of this new assignment on May 19, 1942, and the press reported that he had been promoted to become an "A movie" director. On the first day of shooting, Dassin yelled "cut" while Crawford was performing, which deeply upset the actress and led her to rush into Mayer's office. Dassin was called into Mayer's office and told that his career as a film director was over. To his surprise, Crawford invited the young director to have dinner at her house later that night and the two became dear friends; the next day, Dassin resumed his directorial duty on the film. The film opened to theatres in December 1942 but received mixed opinions from critics who found its pace too slow.
After completing Reunion in France, it was reported that Dassin received a leave of absence from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to act in a stage production of William Shakespeare's Richard III on Broadway. The play was to be directed by and starring John Carradine, though it is unknown if this production came through. Dassin was also employed by Frank Tuttle as one of the lecturers for Hollywood School for Writers' new film directing class, along with Fred Zinnemann, Irving Pichel and László Benedek.
In mid-November 1942, he was assigned to direct another romantic comedy, Young Ideas (originally announced as Faculty Row), under the supervision of producer Robert Sisk. The film was shot from mid-December 1942 to early 1943 and starred Susan Peters, Herbert Marshall and Mary Astor. The film was released in the summer of 1943 and received favorable reviews as a light comedy. In March 1943, Dassin joined the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
In September 1943, after several months without a project, Dassin took over the directorial duties on a comedy film adaptation of Oscar Wilde's The Canterville Ghost. Original director Norman Z. McLeod had departed after five weeks of shooting, following a clash with producer Arthur Field and the cast, which included Charles Laughton, Robert Young and Margaret O'Brien. The film finished shooting in December 1943 and was released in the summer of 1944. Between the filming of scenes, Laughton often asked Dassin to play Russian classical songs on the piano, of which both were fond. The Canterville Ghost was very well received by critics and won a Retro Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in 2020.