Frank Darabont

Born: 28th January 1959
Where: Montebeliard, France

The son of Hungarian refugees, he was born in a French relocation camp and raised in Chicago and Southern California.

Turning his back on college for a crack at a career in films, Frank along with several friends, acquired the rights to a Stephen King short story, Woman in the Room, and made a 30-minute short that eventually aired on cable and was released to video.

A screenwriter turned director, Frank initially entered the film industry as production assistant and set dresser before he got a break when he sold an original screenplay called Black Cat Run, to producer Jere Henshaw and Apollo Pictures.

Frank received his first screenplay credit when he helped director Chuck Russell rewrite A Nightmare on Elm Street III: Dream Warriors.

The film's popularity and Frank's long-standing love of horror films led to his writing screenplays for the remake The Blob, the sequel The Fly II, and several episodes of TV's Tales from the Crypt.

He began to branch out, writing for the adventure series, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, after which he produced his most ambitious work to date adapting another Stephen King novel, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. The movie's title was shortened to The Shawshank Redemption.

Offered £1.6m for his adaptation, he held out for the chance to direct, and the result was a critically praised prison story, which earned seven Oscar nominations including Best Picture, with Frank earning nominations from the Directors Guild, the Writers Guild and the Academy, for Best Adapted Screenplay.

It took four years before his next film reached cinemas, and he returned to the director's chair to undertake the screen adaptation of Stephen King's The Green Mile, after which he both wrote and directed The Majestic.