Arthur Penn, Director of "Bonnie and Clyde," Dies at 88
NEW YORK (CBS) Arthur Penn, revolutionary director of the stage, television and motion pictures has died.
Famous for his sex-and-violence filled 1967 masterwork "Bonnie and Clyde" which forever changed the U.S. film industry, Penn died Tuesday night at the age of 88.
The New York Times reports that his death was confirmed by Evan Bell, a friend and accountant for Mr. Penn for 25 years. No other details were immediately provided.
In 1957, he directed William Gibson's television play "The Miracle Worker" for the CBS series "Playhouse 90" which earned Emmy nominations for him and his star.
In 1959, he took the show to Broadway, winning Tony Awards for himself, the writer and star Anne Bancroft. And in 1962, he directed the film version, which earned multiple Academy Award nominations and won Oscars for Bancroft, who reprised her Broadway role, and supporting actress Patty Duke.
Penn was born on Sept. 27, 1922. in Philadelphia to parents of Russian-Jewish heritage. His father, a watchmaker, and his mother, a nurse, divorced when he was 3, and Arthur and his brother Irving (who would achieve fame as a photographer) went to live with their mother in New York and New Jersey, changing homes and schools frequently as she struggled to make a living.
He advised Sen. John F. Kennedy during his watershed television debates with Richard M. Nixon in 1960 and directed the broadcast of the third debate.
In his last years, Mr. Penn returned to the medium that had given him his start, television. He served as an executive producer on several episodes of "Law and Order," a series on which his son, Matthew Penn, worked as a director, and directed a 2001 episode of "100 Centre Street," a program executive produced by Mr. Penn's old television colleague, the director Sidney Lumet.
His final work for the theater was the 2002 Tony Award-winning Broadway production "Fortune's Fool," an adaptation of Ivan Turgenev's 1848 play.
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