Emmy-Nominated Director Arthur Penn Dies at 88

Arthur Penn, a director who excelled on Broadway, helped to shape television drama in the medium’s developing years and invigorated the feature film world with movies like Bonnie and Clyde and Little Big Man, died September 28, 2010, at his home in New York City. He had celebrated his 88th birthday the day before his passing. According to news reports, the cause was congestive heart failure.

Penn favored a visceral, physical approach to performance and staging and gravitated toward stories about social outsiders on the margins of conventional behavior. This was perhaps most vivid in Bonnie and Clyde, starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway as Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, the notorious 1930s bank robbers.

In a striking departure from filmmaking styles of the time, Penn infused the film with overt sexuality and graphic violence, most notably in the final sequence, in which the duo is gunned down in a hail of bullets. Penn’s decision to shoot the sequence with four cameras operating at different speeds, resulted in one of the most famous scenes in movie history.

He was born September 27, 1922, in Philadelphia. His parents divorced when he was three, and he and his brother Irving (who became a renowned photographer) went to live with their mother, a nurse, in New York and New Jersey, changing homes and schools frequently as she worked to support the family.

At 14, he returned to Philadelphia to live with his father and in high school became interested in theater. In 1943 he joined the Army; during his military service in South Carolina he organized a theater troupe with his fellow soldiers. At a nearby community theater he met Fred Coe, who would become an acclaimed producer and director of live television dramas and would produce Penn’s first two films.

After the war, Penn enrolled at Black Mountain College in North Carolina on the GI Bill, followed by two years studying in Italy at the University of Perugia and the University of Florence.

Back in the U.S., he found work as a floor manager at NBC, and before long his friend Coe helped him find work as a director on The Gulf Playhouse: First Person. As Coe moved on to such programs as The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse and Playhouse 90, Penn continued with him. From 1953-1958, Penn directed more than 30 episodes of live television, many of them movie-length.

His 1957 Playhouse 90 production of William Gibson’s The Miracle Worker, starring Patricia McCormack as Helen Keller and Teresa Wright as Keller’s teacher, Annie Sullivan, earned glowing reviews. Penn received a Primetime Emmy nomination for his work.

On the strength of their television success, Penn and Gibson turned to Broadway and achieved success with Gibson’s play Two for the Seesaw, produced by Coe.

They next set their sights on Hollywood, and with Coe producing, Penn directed his first feature film, the 1958 release The Left Handed Gun, starring Paul Newman as outlaw Billy the Kid.

In 1960, Penn played a role in history when he advised Senator John F. Kennedy during his television debates with Richard Nixon, and directed the broadcast of the third debate. Penn helped Kennedy to exude a confidence and ease in front of the camera that helped his campaign greatly.

When The Left-Handed Gun did not fare well, Penn returned to New York and brought The Miracle Worker to Broadway with Anne Bancroft as Annie Sullivan and the 13-year-old Patty Duke as Helen Keller. The production ran for 719 performances and earned Tony Awards for best play, for Penn’s direction and Bancroft’s performance.

During the run of The Miracle Worker, Penn launched three more hits — Toys in the Attic, An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May and All the Way Home.

The momentum of The Miracle Worker led to a feature film version, in which Penn directed Duke and Bancroft as they reprised their stage roles. The 1962 release earned Oscars for Bancroft and Duke, as well as nominations for Penn, Gibson and costume designer Ruth Morley.

In 1965 he directed Mickey One, his first collaboration with Warren Beatty, and a year later made The Chase, with Robert Redford and Marlon Brando.

Bonnie and Clyde, released in 1967, is now regarded as a watershed film that ushered in the type of tone, style and subject matter that prevailed throughout the 1970s in works by directors such as Robert Altman, Hal Ashby, Bob Rafelson, Terrence Malick, Sidney Lumet and others. It was nominated for 10 Oscars, including best picture and best director for Penn. It won Oscars for Estelle Parsons as best actress in a supporting role and best cinematography for Burnett Guffey.

His other films include 1969’s Alice’s Restaurant (for which he garnered his third Oscar nomination), 1970’s Little Big Man and the 1976 release The Missouri Breaks. His final film was Penn and Teller Get Killed, released in 1989.

He later returned to television with the made-for-TV movies The Portrait (1993) with Gregory Peck and Lauren Bacall, and Inside (1996), with Eric Stoltz, Louis Gossett, Jr., and Nigel Hawthorne. In 2001 he directed an episode of the short-lived series 100 Centre Street, and he also served as an executive producer of the NBC series Law & Order, for which he earned his second Primetime Emmy nomination.

Penn is survived by his wife, two children and four grandchildren.

On October 21, 1998, Penn had the distinction of being interviewed by the Television Academy Foundation’s Archive of American Television. During the interview, conducted by Henry Colman, Penn offered his perspective on directing for television by highlighting his early jobs with many live shows including Producer's Showcase, Philco Television Playhouse and Playhouse 90. He also reminisced about legendary producer Fred Coe and related how his television experience prepared him for his motion picture career, which include the classics The Miracle Worker, Bonnie and Clyde and Little Big Man.

Penn’s full Archive interview can be viewed here.