William Friedkin (born 29 August 1935) is an American film director, producer and screenwriter best known for directing The French Connection in 1972, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Director. The following year he was nominated for his directing The Exorcist (1973). His recent film, Bug (2006) won the FIPRESCI prize at the Cannes Film Festival.
After seeing the movie Citizen Kane as a boy, Friedkin became fascinated with movies and b...
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William Friedkin (born 29 August 1935) is an American film director, producer and screenwriter best known for directing The French Connection in 1972, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Director. The following year he was nominated for his directing The Exorcist (1973). His recent film, Bug (2006) won the FIPRESCI prize at the Cannes Film Festival.
After seeing the movie Citizen Kane as a boy, Friedkin became fascinated with movies and began working for WGN-TV immediately after high school. He eventually started his directorial career doing live television shows and documentaries, including The People vs. Paul Crump which won several awards and contributed to the commutation of Crump's death sentence. As mentioned in Friedkin's voice over commentary on the dvd re-release of Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, Friedkin also directed one of the last episodes of "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour" in 1965, called "Off Season". Hitchcock admonished Friedkin for not wearing a tie while directing....
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