Robert Frederick Day (11 September 1922 – 17 March 2017) was an English
film director
A film director or filmmaker is a person who controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfillment of that Goal, vision. The director has a key role ...
. He directed more than 40 films between 1956 and 1991.
Biography
Day was born in
Sheen, England. He worked his way up from
clapper boy to
camera operator
A camera operator, or depending on the context cameraman or camerawoman, is a professional operator of a film camera or video camera as part of a film crew. The term "cameraman" does not necessarily imply that a male is performing the task.
...
then
cinematographer
The cinematographer or director of photography (sometimes shortened to DP or DOP) is the person responsible for the recording of a film, television production, music video or other live-action piece. The cinematographer is the chief of the camera ...
while in his native country, and began directing in the mid-1950s. His first film as director, the black comedy ''
The Green Man'' (1956) for the writer-producer team of
Frank Launder
Frank Launder (28 January 1906 – 23 February 1997) was a British writer, film director and producer, who made more than 40 films, many of them in collaboration with Sidney Gilliat.
Early life and career
He was born in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, ...
and
Sidney Gilliat
Sidney Gilliat (15 February 1908 – 31 May 1994) was an English film director, producer and writer.
In the 1930s he worked as a scriptwriter, most notably with Frank Launder on ''The Lady Vanishes'' (1938) for Alfred Hitchcock, and '' Nig ...
, gained good reviews. Using this as a starting point, Day went on to become one of the industry's busiest directors. He directed several
Tarzan
Tarzan (John Clayton, Viscount Greystoke) is a fictional character, a feral child raised in the African jungle by the Mangani great apes; he later experiences civilization, only to reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer.
Creat ...
films.
He relocated to
Hollywood
Hollywood usually refers to:
* Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California
* Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States
Hollywood may also refer to:
Places United States
* Hollywood District (disambiguation)
* Hollywood ...
in the 1960s and directed many TV episodes and made-for-TV movies. He occasionally had small parts in his own productions, including ''
The Haunted Strangler'' (1958), ''
Two-Way Stretch'' (1960), and the TV mini-series ''
Peter and Paul'' (1981).
In the 1970s and 1980s, Day would direct episodes of numerous American television shows, including ''
Barnaby Jones'', ''
The F.B.I.'', ''
Dallas
Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...
'', ''
Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color
The Walt Disney Company has produced an anthology series, anthology television series since 1954 under several titles and formats. The program's current title, ''The Wonderful World of Disney'', was used from 1969 to 1979 and again from 1991 onwa ...
'', and ''
Matlock''.
Personal life
Day married Eileen Day in 1948. The couple had a daughter together, Roberta (born 1952),
before divorcing in 1968, when he married actress
Dorothy Provine.
He and Provine had a son together, Robert (born 1969), and were married until her death in 2010.
[ He was the brother of cinematographer Ernest Day.
Day died at the age of 94 on Bainbridge Island near ]Seattle
Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...
on 17 March 2017.
Selected filmography
*'' The Green Man'' (1956)
*'' The Haunted Strangler'' (1958)
*'' Corridors of Blood'' (1958)
*'' First Man into Space'' (1959)
*'' Life in Emergency Ward 10'' (1959)
*'' Two-Way Stretch'' (1960)
*'' Tarzan the Magnificent'' (1960)
*'' The Rebel'' (1961)
*''Operation Snatch
''Operation Snatch'' (also known as ''Top Secret'' ) is a 1962 British comedy film starring Terry-Thomas and George Sanders and directed by Robert Day (director), Robert Day. It was written by Alan Hackney, Len Heath and John Warren (actor), ...
'' (1962)
*'' Tarzan's Three Challenges'' (1963)
*'' She'' (1965)
*'' Tarzan and the Valley of Gold'' (1966)
*'' Tarzan and the Great River'' (1967)
*'' The Reluctant Heroes'' (TV film, 1971)
*'' The Initiation of Sarah'' (1978)
*'' Murder by Natural Causes'' (1979)
*'' The Man with Bogart's Face'' (1980)
*'' Peter and Paul'' (1981)
*'' The Lady from Yesterday'' (1985)
*'' Celebration Family'' (1987)
*'' The Quick and the Dead'' (1987)
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Day, Robert
1922 births
2017 deaths
English film directors
People from Richmond, London