Ulu Grosbard
Directing
Biography
Israel "Ulu" Grosbard (January 9, 1929 – March 19, 2012) was a Belgian-born, naturalized American theater and film director and film producer. Born in Antwerp, Grosbard emigrated to Havana with his family in 1942. In 1948, they moved to the United States, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees from the University of Chicago. He studied then at the Yale School of Drama for one year before joining the United States Army, and he became a naturalized citizen in 1954. Grosbard gravitated towards theatre when he relocated to New York City in the early 1960s. After directing The Days and Nights of BeeBee Fenstermaker off-Broadway, he earned his first Broadway credit with The Subject Was Roses, for which he was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play in 1964. That same year he won the Obie Award for Best Direction and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Play for an off-Broadway revival of the Arthur Miller play A View from the Bridge, for which Dustin Hoffman served as stage manager and assistant director. Grosbard's additional Broadway credits include Miller's The Price; David Mamet's American Buffalo, which earned him Tony and Drama Desk Award nominations; Woody Allen's The Floating Light Bulb; and a revival of Paddy Chayefsky's The Tenth Man. In Hollywood, Grosbard worked as an assistant director on Splendor in the Grass, West Side Story, The Hustler, The Miracle Worker, and The Pawnbroker before helming the screen adaptation of The Subject Was Roses on his own. Additional screen credits include Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? and Straight Time, both with Dustin Hoffman; True Confessions and Falling in Love, both with Robert De Niro; Georgia for which he won the Grand Prix des Amériques at the Montréal World Film Festival; and The Deep End of the Ocean. Grosbard has been married to actress Rose Gregorio since 1965. Description above from the Wikipedia article Ulu Grosbard, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Known For
A three-year-old boy disappears during his mother's high school reunion. Nine years later, by chance, he turns up in the town in which the family has just relocated.
The Deep End of the Ocean
During shopping for Christmas, Frank and Molly run into each other. This fleeting short moment will start to change their lives, when they recognize each other months later in the train home and have a good time together. Although both are married and Frank has two little kids, they meet more and more often, their friendship becoming the most precious thing in their lives.
Falling in Love
The true story of the frightening, lonely world of silence and darkness of 7-year-old Helen Keller who, since infancy, has never seen the sky, heard her mother's voice or expressed her innermost feelings. Then Annie Sullivan, a 20-year-old teacher from Boston, arrives. Having just recently regained her own sight, the no-nonsense Annie reaches out to Helen through the power of touch, the only tool they have in common, and leads her bold pupil on a miraculous journey from fear and isolation to happiness and light.
The Miracle Worker
A fragile Kansas girl's unrequited and forbidden love for a handsome young man from the town's most powerful family drives her to heartbreak and madness.
Splendor in the Grass
After being released on parole, a burglar attempts to go straight, get a regular job, and just go by the rules. He soon finds himself back in jail at the hands of a power-hungry parole officer.
Straight Time
A cop clashes with his priest brother while investigating the brutal murder of a young prostitute.
True Confessions
Sadie looks up to her older sister Georgia, a successful folk singer. Unfortunately it is this very obsession — coupled with her self-destructive tendencies and rampant drug abuse — that keeps her spiraling down the drain.
Georgia
A Jewish pawnbroker, a victim of Nazi persecution, loses all faith in his fellow man until he realizes too late the tragedy of his actions.
The Pawnbroker
Hugely successful but impossibly neurotic songwriter Georgie Soloway is sliding into a mid-life crisis. He believes that all of his past romantic relationships have been destroyed not by his own failings but by the interference of the mysterious Harry Kellerman. Family, friends, and his psychiatrist cannot give him the help he seeks. When his father is diagnosed with a terminal illness, Georgie begins spending more and more time flying his personal aircraft, distancing himself physically, emotionally, and mentally from the real world.
Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?
Timmy Cleary returns to his Bronx home at the end of World War II and is soon disillusioned to find his parents' marriage filled with discord, quarreling, and recriminations.
The Subject Was Roses
A brief overview of The Hustler's making and the players involved.
The Hustler: The Inside Story
This is a film about the making of Salaam Cinema by Mohsen Makhmalbaf in Tehran and it’s eventual screening in Cannes Film Festival. Viewers are introduced to the personal and professional sides of Makhmalbaf and also to the uncontrollable passion for the cinema, held by the Iranian youth.
Cinema Cinema
This short focuses on Patricia Neal's return to motion pictures three years after she suffered a near-fatal stroke. We see her and the cast and crew at work in New York City on the feature film The Subject Was Roses (1968).