MANN, DELBERT

MANN, DELBERT (1920– ), U.S. director. Born in Lawrence, Kansas, Mann served in the U.S. Air Force during World War II and entered the theater as stage manager and then director for repertory and summer playhouse productions. From 1949 to 1955 he directed a number of television dramas, including Playhouse 90 and Omnibus productions, and in 1955 directed the movie Marty, from his television adaptation of Paddy Chayevsky's drama. It earned him an Academy Award for Best Director. Mann also directed the movies Bachelor Party (1957), Separate Tables (1958), Desire under the Elms (1958), Middle of the Night (1959), Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960), The Outsider (1961), Lover Come Back (1961), That Touch of Mink (1962), Dear Heart (1964), A Gathering of Eagles (1964), Quick Before It Melts\! (1965), Kidnapped (1971), The Pink Jungle (1968), Birch Interval (1977), and Bronte (1983). In 1968 he began working outside the United States, directing movies premiered on television and then shown in movie theaters, including Heidi (1969), David Copperfield (1970), Jane Eyre (1971), and All Quiet on the Western Front (1979), for which he was nominated for an Emmy. Mann's TV films include All the Way Home (1981), The Member of the Wedding (1982), The Last Days of Patton (1986), and Incident in a Small Town (1994). He also wrote Looking Back … At Live Television and Other Matters (1998). Mann served as president of the Directors Guild of America (1967–71). In 2002 the DGA awarded him an Honorary Life Member Award. (Ruth Beloff (2nd ed.)