Elliot Silverstein

Biography: After matriculating from Yale Drama School, Boston-born Elliot Silverstein taught theatre arts at Brandeis University. His earliest film activity consisted of episodic television in the late '50s and early '60s, including The Twilight Zone and Kraft Suspense Theatre. After witnessing the post-production editorial butchery on his 1961 Twilight Zone episode "The Obsolete Man," Silverstein rallied his Directors Guild colleagues to pass legislation preventing film editors from tampering with the director's concepts. Silverstein's first theatrical film, Belle Somers (1962), was actually an expanded TV pilot; it was his second feature Cat Ballou (1965) which established Silverstein as a major film director. His followup film The Happening (1967) was not quite as successful, and Silverstein's subsequent movie projects have been variable; his last was the 1977 horror film The Car. In the late '80s, Eliot Silverstein became spokesperson for the Directors Guild movement against theAfter matriculating from Yale Drama School, Boston-born Elliot Silverstein taught theatre arts at Brandeis University. His earliest film activity consisted of episodic television in the late '50s and early '60s, including The Twilight Zone and Kraft Suspense Theatre. After witnessing the post-production editorial butchery on his 1961 Twilight Zone episode "The Obsolete Man," Silverstein rallied his Directors Guild colleagues to pass legislation preventing film editors from tampering with the director's concepts. Silverstein's first theatrical film, Belle Somers (1962), was actually an expanded TV pilot; it was his second feature Cat Ballou (1965) which established Silverstein as a major film director. His followup film The Happening (1967) was not quite as successful, and Silverstein's subsequent movie projects have been variable; his last was the 1977 horror film The Car. In the late '80s, Eliot Silverstein became spokesperson for the Directors Guild movement against the "colorizing" of old black and white films for television.… Expand