Frank Pierson

Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox person Frank Romer Pierson<ref name=filmr>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> (May 12, 1925 – July 22, 2012) was an American screenwriter and film director.<ref name="throbit">Byrge, Duane (July 23, 2012). [Frank Pierson, Former Movie Academy President, Writer and Director, Dies at 87.] The Hollywood Reporter</ref><ref name="nytobit">Yardley, William (July 24, 2012).Frank Pierson, Oscar-Winning Writer, Dies at 87. The New York Times</ref>

Life and career

Pierson was born in Chappaqua, New York, the son of Louise (née Randall), a writer, and Harold C. Pierson.<ref name=filmr/> Pierson's family was the subject of his mother's 1943 autobiography Roughly Speaking and a 1945 movie of the same name, starring Rosalind Russell and Jack Carson as his parents.

Pierson served in the Army during World War II, then graduated from Harvard.<ref name="guardian">Frank Pierson obituary. The Guardian. Retrieved March 28, 2020.</ref> He worked as a correspondent for Time and Life magazines before selling his first script to Alcoa-Goodyear Theater. He got his break in Hollywood in 1958 as script editor for Have Gun – Will Travel and moved on to write for the television series Naked City, Route 66 and others. He wrote or co-wrote several successful films, including Cat Ballou and Cool Hand Luke, which were both nominated for Academy Awards. He wrote Dog Day Afternoon, which won Pierson the Academy Award. He directed and contributed to the screenplay of the 1976 remake of A Star Is Born; and the in-fighting between himself, Barbra Streisand, Kris Kristofferson and producer (and at the time boyfriend of Streisand) Jon Peters on the film led him to write the article "My Battles with Barbra and Jon" for The Village Voice.<ref name="pierson1976">Pierson, Frank (November 16, 1976). My Battles with Barbra and Jon. The Village Voice</ref>

Pierson directed several films produced for television, including Dirty Pictures, Citizen Cohn, Conspiracy, and Somebody Has to Shoot the Picture. His direction on Conspiracy won a Directors' Guild Award for Best Television Movie, and his second Peabody and BAFTA Award.

He was President of the Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW) from 1981 to 1983 and again from 1993 to 1995 and was President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) from 2001 to 2005. In 2003, Pierson was the recipient of the Austin Film Festival's Distinguished Screenwriter Award. Screenwriter Brian Helgeland presented him with the Award. He was a consultant on Mad Men, co-writing (with Matthew Weiner) the fifth episode of its fifth season, "Signal 30",<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> a member of the teaching staff of Sundance Institute, and artistic director of the American Film Institute.

Pierson died on July 22, 2012, in his home in Los Angeles, California. He was survived by his wife Helene and his two children.

Filmography

Television

Year	Title	Director	Writer	Notes
1962	Have Gun – Will Travel	Template:Yes	Template:Yes
1962–1963	Naked City	Template:No	Template:Yes
1963	Route 66	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Episode "Build Your Houses with Their Backs to the Sea"
1970	The 42nd Annual Academy Awards	Template:No	Template:Yes
1971	Nichols	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Also creator
1973	The Bold Ones: The New Doctors	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Episode "And Other Springs I May Not See"
1985	Alfred Hitchcock Presents	Template:Yes	Template:No
2010	The Good Wife	Template:No	Template:Yes	Episode "Hybristophilia"
2012	Mad Men	Template:No	Template:Yes	Episode "Signal 30"

TV movies

Year	Title	Director	Writer
1971	The Neon Ceiling	Template:Yes	Template:No
1973	Amanda Fallon	Template:No	Template:Yes
1980	Haywire	Template:No	Template:Yes
1990	Somebody Has to Shoot the Picture	Template:Yes	Template:No
1992	Citizen Cohn	Template:Yes	Template:No
1994	Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee	Template:Yes	Template:No
1995	Truman	Template:Yes	Template:No
2000	Dirty Pictures	Template:Yes	Template:No
2001	Conspiracy	Template:Yes	Template:No
2003	Soldier's Girl	Template:Yes	Template:No
2004	Paradise	Template:Yes	Template:No

Feature film

Year	Title	Director	Writer
1965	Cat Ballou	Template:No	Template:Yes
1967	The Happening	Template:No	Template:Yes
	Cool Hand Luke	Template:No	Template:Yes
1970	The Looking Glass War	Template:Yes	Template:Yes
1971	The Anderson Tapes	Template:No	Template:Yes
1975	Dog Day Afternoon	Template:No	Template:Yes
1976	A Star Is Born	Template:Yes	Template:Yes
1978	King of the Gypsies	Template:Yes	Template:Yes
1989	In Country	Template:No	Template:Yes
1990	Presumed Innocent	Template:No	Template:Yes

External links

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• Frank Pierson to Receive Edmund H. North Award WGA News, February 1999.