John Berry (September 6, 1917 – November 29, 1999) was an American film director, who went into
exile in France when his career was interrupted by the
Hollywood blacklist
The Hollywood blacklist was an entertainment industry blacklist, broader than just Hollywood, put in effect in the mid-20th century in the United States during the early years of the Cold War. The blacklist involved the practice of denying empl ...
.
Early life
Berry was born Jak Szold in
The Bronx
The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...
, New York, the son of a
Polish-Jewish father and a
Romanian
Romanian may refer to:
*anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania
**Romanians, an ethnic group
**Romanian language, a Romance language
*** Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language
** Romanian cuisine, tradition ...
mother.
He was a child performer in
vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...
, first going on stage at the age of four. In his teens he briefly worked as a
boxer Boxer most commonly refers to:
* Boxer (boxing), a competitor in the sport of boxing
*Boxer (dog), a breed of dog
Boxer or boxers may also refer to:
Animal kingdom
* Boxer crab
* Boxer shrimp, a small group of decapod crustaceans
* Boxer snipe ee ...
under the name Jackie Sold.
Berry's father was a restaurateur who at one point owned 28 restaurants around New York City but he went out of business during the
Great Depression and Berry sought to support himself by working as a comedian and master of ceremonies in the Catskill resorts as well as working as an actor.
Mercury Theatre and Hollywood
Berry's first big break came when he was hired by the
Mercury Theatre
The Mercury Theatre was an independent repertory theatre company founded in New York City in 1937 by Orson Welles and producer John Houseman. The company produced theatrical presentations, radio programs and motion pictures. The Mercury als ...
for its debut production, titled ''
Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, an ...
'' (1937). Berry acted in other roles with the theater and assisted
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential f ...
in directing the 1942 production of ''
Native Son
''Native Son'' (1940) is a novel written by the American author Richard Wright. It tells the story of 20-year-old Bigger Thomas, a black youth living in utter poverty in a poor area on Chicago's South Side in the 1930s.
While not apologizing f ...
''.
In a late-life interview with ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', Berry spoke positively of his association with Welles and
John Houseman, who co-founded the Mercury. "It was like living near the center of a volcano of creating inspiration and fury, glamorous and exciting, full of the kind of theatricality that seems lost forever," he said.
[
By 1943, Houseman was producing films in Hollywood at Paramount Pictures and hired Berry, who attended Paramount Studios' director-in-training programme, to direct Houseman's production of '']Miss Susie Slagle's
''Miss Susie Slagle's'' is a 1946 American drama film directed by John Berry. It was based on the popular novel by Augusta Tucker. The film was Berry's directorial debut and first starring role for Joan Caulfield.
Plot summary
A nursing studen ...
'' starring Veronica Lake
Constance Frances Marie Ockelman (November 14, 1922 – July 7, 1973), known professionally as Veronica Lake, was an American film, stage, and television actress. Lake was best known for her femme fatale roles in film noirs with Alan Ladd ...
and Lillian Gish. Berry stayed with Paramount in Hollywood and directed other features, including ''From This Day Forward
''From This Day Forward'' is a 1946 American drama film directed by John Berry, starring Joan Fontaine and Mark Stevens.
Plot
Army sergeant Bill Cummings ( Mark Stevens) is about to be discharged after service in World War II. He was a blue co ...
'' and '' Cross My Heart''. Berry was sacked by Paramount for refusing to direct the studio's 1946 Alan Ladd spy film '' O.S.S.''[''The Guardian'']
/ref>
Berry returned to direct the musical ''Casbah
A kasbah (, also ; ar, قَـصَـبَـة, qaṣaba, lit=fortress, , Maghrebi Arabic: ), also spelled qasba, qasaba, or casbah, is a fortress, most commonly the citadel or fortified quarter of a city. It is also equivalent to the term ''alca ...
'' (1948) for Tony Martin's production company featuring Martin and Yvonne De Carlo for Universal, ''Tension
Tension may refer to:
Science
* Psychological stress
* Tension (physics), a force related to the stretching of an object (the opposite of compression)
* Tension (geology), a stress which stretches rocks in two opposite directions
* Voltage or el ...
'' (1950) for MGM and ''He Ran All the Way
''He Ran All the Way'' is a 1951 American crime drama and film noir directed by John Berry and starring John Garfield and Shelley Winters. Distributed by United Artists, it was produced independently by Roberts Pictures, a company named for Ga ...
'' (1951) starring John Garfield
John Garfield (born Jacob Julius Garfinkle, March 4, 1913 – May 21, 1952) was an American actor who played brooding, rebellious, working-class characters. He grew up in poverty in New York City. In the early 1930s, he became a member of ...
and Shelley Winters
Shelley Winters (born Shirley Schrift; August 18, 1920 – January 14, 2006) was an American actress whose career spanned seven decades. She appeared in numerous films. She won Academy Awards for ''The Diary of Anne Frank'' (1959) and ''A Patch o ...
.
Blacklisted
In 1950, Berry agreed to direct a short documentary on the Hollywood 10
The Hollywood blacklist was an entertainment industry Blacklisting, blacklist, broader than just Hollywood, put in effect in the mid-20th century in the United States during the early years of the Cold War. The blacklist involved the practice of ...
, a group of directors and writers who refused to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in their pursuit of supposed Communist Party
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...
infiltration within the U.S. film industry. After directing the crime drama ''He Ran All the Way
''He Ran All the Way'' is a 1951 American crime drama and film noir directed by John Berry and starring John Garfield and Shelley Winters. Distributed by United Artists, it was produced independently by Roberts Pictures, a company named for Ga ...
'' (1951), Berry was named a communist by fellow director and former party member Edward Dmytryk
Edward Dmytryk (September 4, 1908 – July 1, 1999) was an American film director. He was known for his 1940s noir films and received an Oscar nomination for Best Director for '' Crossfire'' (1947). In 1947, he was named as one of the Hollywoo ...
, one of the Hollywood Ten, who had been jailed for contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with HUAC.[ After being released from prison, Dmytryk had gone into exile in England but he sought to reenter the Hollywood film industry and voluntarily testified before HUAC in April 1951, clearing himself by "naming names". Berry had joined the Communist Party during the ]Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, link ...
.[
By naming Berry and 25 other alleged communists, Dmytryk was then able to resume his Hollywood career. Berry was also named by ex-Communist Party member Frank Tuttle, who testified before HUAC in 1951 after returning from ]Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
, to clear his name and regain employment in Hollywood. Unable to secure work, Berry left the U.S. and resettled with his family in Paris. ''He Ran All the Way'' would be the last American film Berry directed for nearly a quarter of a century.
In France, Berry was hired to co-direct ''Atoll K
''Atoll K'' is a 1951 Franco-Italian co-production film—also known as ''Robinson Crusoeland'' in the United Kingdom and ''Utopia'' in the United States – which starred the comedy duo Laurel and Hardy in their final screen appearance. The film ...
'' (1951), the last comedy film
A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the ol ...
of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Berry did not receive a screen credit; only French director Léo Joannon
Léo Joannon (21 August 1904 – 28 March 1969) was a French writer and film director. Born in Aix-en-Provence, Joannon was originally a law student who became a novelist and journalist before entering the film industry in the 1920s as a camerama ...
was credited as director.
During the 1950s, Berry directed two films starring Eddie Constantine
Eddie Constantine (born Edward Israël Constantinowsky; October 29, 1917 – February 25, 1993) was an American singer, actor and entertainer who spent most of his career in France. He became well-known to film audiences for his portrayal of se ...
, ''Ça va barder'' (1953) and ''Je suis un sentimental
''Je suis un sentimental'' is a 1955 French crime film directed by John Berry.
Plot
Barney Morgan is a reporter who works for a French journal. His editor-in-chief Rupert finds his lover Alice murdered. His boss is the main suspect but Barney ...
'' (1955) and he also directed '' Tamango'' (1958), a film about a slave uprising that starred Dorothy Dandridge
Dorothy Jean Dandridge (November 9, 1922 – September 8, 1965) was an American actress, singer and dancer. She is the first African-American film star to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, which was for her performance in '' C ...
.
Exile's return
The blacklist was broken in 1960 with the release of two films written by blacklisted Hollywood Ten member Dalton Trumbo
James Dalton Trumbo (December 9, 1905 – September 10, 1976) was an American screenwriter who scripted many award-winning films, including ''Roman Holiday'' (1953), ''Exodus'', ''Spartacus'' (both 1960), and ''Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo'' (1944) ...
; ''Exodus
Exodus or the Exodus may refer to:
Religion
* Book of Exodus, second book of the Hebrew Torah and the Christian Bible
* The Exodus, the biblical story of the migration of the ancient Israelites from Egypt into Canaan
Historical events
* Ex ...
'' and ''Spartacus
Spartacus ( el, Σπάρτακος '; la, Spartacus; c. 103–71 BC) was a Thracian gladiator who, along with Crixus, Gannicus, Castus, and Oenomaus, was one of the escaped slave leaders in the Third Servile War, a major slave uprisin ...
'', which gave Trumbo — one of the most prominent of the Ten — his first screen credits since being blackballed by Hollywood. With the blacklist gone, Berry returned to the U.S. in the early 1960s, where he directed episodes of the TV shows ''East Side/West Side
''East Side/West Side'' is an American drama series starring George C. Scott, Elizabeth Wilson, Cicely Tyson, and, later on, Linden Chiles. The series aired for one season (1963–1964), and was shown Monday nights on CBS.
Set in New York City ...
'' and '' Seaway''.
He continued to work in France, but again returned to the U.S in the 1970s and directed several films, including ''Claudine Claudine may refer to: Name
* Claudine (given name), a feminine given name of French origin
Culture
* ''Claudine'' (film), a 1974 American film by John Berry
** ''Claudine'' (soundtrack), its soundtrack album. Music by Curtis Mayfield and Gladis ...
'' (1974), starring Diahann Carroll, for which she received an Academy Award
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
nomination, and ''The Bad News Bears Go to Japan
''The Bad News Bears Go to Japan'' (also known as ''The Bad News Bears 3'') is a 1978 American sport comedy film released by Paramount Pictures and was the third and last of a series, following ''The Bad News Bears'' and ''The Bad News Bears in Br ...
'' (1978). At the time of his death in Paris, he was editing a film version (released in 2000, starring Danny Glover and Angela Bassett) of the 1969 Athol Fugard play ''Boesman and Lena
''Boesman and Lena'' is a small-cast play by South African playwright Athol Fugard, set in the Swartkops mudflats outside of Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape, that shows the effect of apartheid on a few individuals, featuring as characters ...
'', which he had directed in its acclaimed US premiere at the Circle in the Square Theatre
The Circle in the Square Theatre is a Broadway theater at 235 West 50th Street, in the basement of Paramount Plaza, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It is one of two Broadway theaters that use a thrust stage that extends ...
in 1970.
Legacy
Berry divided the remainder of his career between theater direction in London and film direction in Paris. His experiences during the Hollywood blacklist era were the inspiration for the character played by Robert De Niro in the film ''Guilty by Suspicion
''Guilty by Suspicion'' is a 1991 American drama film about the Hollywood blacklist, McCarthyism, and the activities of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Written and directed by Irwin Winkler, it stars Robert De Niro, Annette Bening, and ...
'' (1991). Berry played Ben, the night club owner, in the movie '' Round Midnight'' (1986), which was produced by Irwin Winkler
Irwin Winkler (born May 28, 1931) is an American film producer and director. He is the producer or director of over 58 motion pictures, dating back to 1967's '' Double Trouble'', starring Elvis Presley. The fourth film he produced, '' They Shoot ...
, the writer-director of ''Guilty by Suspicion''.
Berry, looking back at his career for an interview with '' Newsday'', remarked: "I wouldn't give up my life for anything. I have been a curiously blessed individual despite all I've lived through."
Dennis Berry (1944-2021), also a film director, was his son.
Selected filmography
* ''Miss Susie Slagle's
''Miss Susie Slagle's'' is a 1946 American drama film directed by John Berry. It was based on the popular novel by Augusta Tucker. The film was Berry's directorial debut and first starring role for Joan Caulfield.
Plot summary
A nursing studen ...
'' (1946)
* ''From This Day Forward
''From This Day Forward'' is a 1946 American drama film directed by John Berry, starring Joan Fontaine and Mark Stevens.
Plot
Army sergeant Bill Cummings ( Mark Stevens) is about to be discharged after service in World War II. He was a blue co ...
'' (1946)
* '' Cross My Heart'' (1946)
* ''Casbah
A kasbah (, also ; ar, قَـصَـبَـة, qaṣaba, lit=fortress, , Maghrebi Arabic: ), also spelled qasba, qasaba, or casbah, is a fortress, most commonly the citadel or fortified quarter of a city. It is also equivalent to the term ''alca ...
'' (1948)
* ''Tension
Tension may refer to:
Science
* Psychological stress
* Tension (physics), a force related to the stretching of an object (the opposite of compression)
* Tension (geology), a stress which stretches rocks in two opposite directions
* Voltage or el ...
'' (1950)
* ''The Hollywood Ten
''The Hollywood Ten'' is a 1950 American 16mm short documentary film. In the film, each member of the Hollywood Ten made a short speech denouncing McCarthyism and the Hollywood blacklisting.
The film was directed by John Berry. After being na ...
'' (1950)
* ''Atoll K
''Atoll K'' is a 1951 Franco-Italian co-production film—also known as ''Robinson Crusoeland'' in the United Kingdom and ''Utopia'' in the United States – which starred the comedy duo Laurel and Hardy in their final screen appearance. The film ...
'' (1950)
* ''He Ran All the Way
''He Ran All the Way'' is a 1951 American crime drama and film noir directed by John Berry and starring John Garfield and Shelley Winters. Distributed by United Artists, it was produced independently by Roberts Pictures, a company named for Ga ...
'' (1951)
* '' It Happened in Paris'' (1952)
* '' Ça va barder'' (1955)
* ''Je suis un sentimental
''Je suis un sentimental'' is a 1955 French crime film directed by John Berry.
Plot
Barney Morgan is a reporter who works for a French journal. His editor-in-chief Rupert finds his lover Alice murdered. His boss is the main suspect but Barney ...
'' (1955)
* ''Don Juan
Don Juan (), also known as Don Giovanni ( Italian), is a legendary, fictional Spanish libertine who devotes his life to seducing women. Famous versions of the story include a 17th-century play, ''El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra'' ...
'' (1956)
* '' Tamango'' (1958)
* ''Oh! Qué mambo
Oh, OH, or Oh! is an interjection, often proclaiming surprise (emotion), surprise. It may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music Albums
* Oh! (Girls' Generation album), ''Oh!'' (Girls' Generation album), 2010
* Oh! (ScoLoHoFo album), ''Oh!'' (Sc ...
'' (1959)
* ''Maya
Maya may refer to:
Civilizations
* Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America
** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples
** Maya language, the languages of the Maya peoples
* Maya (Ethiopia), a popul ...
'' (1966)
* ''À tout casser
"À tout casser" is a song by French singer and actor Johnny Hallyday. It was used in the opening title sequence of the 1968 film of the same name. Hallyday also released it as a single and on his 1968 studio album '' Jeune homme''. The B-side ...
'' (1968)
* ''Claudine Claudine may refer to: Name
* Claudine (given name), a feminine given name of French origin
Culture
* ''Claudine'' (film), a 1974 American film by John Berry
** ''Claudine'' (soundtrack), its soundtrack album. Music by Curtis Mayfield and Gladis ...
'' (1974)
* ''Thieves
Theft is the act of taking another person's property or services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. The word ''theft'' is also used as a synonym or informal shorthand term for some ...
'' (1977)
* ''The Bad News Bears Go to Japan
''The Bad News Bears Go to Japan'' (also known as ''The Bad News Bears 3'') is a 1978 American sport comedy film released by Paramount Pictures and was the third and last of a series, following ''The Bad News Bears'' and ''The Bad News Bears in Br ...
'' (1978)
* '' Sister, Sister'' (1982)
References
External links
*
John Berry
at AllMovie
John Berry
at ''Encyclopædia Britannica
The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various t ...
''
John Berry
s obituary in ''The Philadelphia Inquirer
''The Philadelphia Inquirer'' is a daily newspaper headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The newspaper's circulation is the largest in both the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the Delaware Valley metropolitan region of Southeastern Pennsy ...
''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Berry, John
1917 births
1999 deaths
Male actors from New York City
American emigrants to France
Film producers from New York (state)
American people of Polish-Jewish descent
American people of Romanian descent
American male screenwriters
Hollywood blacklist
Film directors from Paris
People from the Bronx
20th-century American male actors
20th-century American businesspeople
Film directors from New York City
Screenwriters from New York (state)
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American screenwriters