Jules Dassin

Born: 18 December 1911
Where: Middletown, Connecticut

Dassin studied drama in Europe and acted in New York's Yiddish theatre in the late 1930s before writing for radio and directing on the stage.

He went to Hollywood in 1940 and worked as an assistant on films for Garson Kanin and Alfred Hitchcock, later being signed by MGM. There he "apprenticed" as a director of short subjects, graduating to grade-B feature films with 1942's Nazi Agent.

Dassin hit his stride in the late 1940s with such dynamic film noir melodramas as Brute Force and The Naked City.

After being blacklisted he moved to Europe, where he made Night and the City, and scored his greatest international successes with the French-produced Rififi and Never on Sunday, starring his second wife Melina Mercouri. The later earned Dassin two Oscar nominations, for Best Director and Best Screenplay.

The director made Phaedra with Mercouri, and returned to the caper film with Topkapi in 1964, but none of his films since then has achieved similar critical or commercial success.

For the most part, his later films, like Up Tight, a remake of John Ford's 1935 classic The Informer; A Dream of Passion; and Circle of Two, have been disappointing.