Samuel Fuller

Samuel Fuller
Fuller in Normandy, France in 1987
Born	Samuel Michael Fuller (1912-08-12)August 12, 1912 Worcester, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died	October 30, 1997(1997-10-30) (aged 85) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation	Director, screenwriter
Years active	1936–94
Spouse(s)	Martha Downes Fuller (div. 1959) Christa Lang (m. 1967–97)

Samuel Michael Fuller (August 12, 1912 – October 30, 1997) was an American screenwriter, novelist, and film director known for low-budget, understated genre movies with controversial themes. Fuller's wrote his first screenplay for Hats Off in 1936, and made his directorial debut with the Western I Shot Jesse James (1949). He would continue to direct several other Westerns and war thrillers throughout the 1950s.

Fuller shifted from Westerns and war thrillers in the 1960s with his low-budget thriller Shock Corridor in 1963, followed by the neo-noir The Naked Kiss (1964). He was inactive in filmmaking for most of the 1970s, before writing and directing the war epic The Big Red One (1980), and the experimental White Dog (1982), whose screenplay he co-wrote with Curtis Hanson.

Samuel Michael Fuller was born in Worcester, Massachusetts of Jewish parents. His father, Benjamin Rabinovitch, died in 1923 when Samuel was 11. After immigrating to the United States, the family's surname was changed from Rabinovitch to Fuller, a name possibly inspired by a doctor who arrived in America on the Mayflower. Fuller tells in his autobiography, A Third Face (2002), that he did not speak until he was five. His first word was "Hammer!".

After his father's death, the family moved to New York City where, at the age of 12, he began working in journalism as a newspaper copyboy. He became a crime reporter in New York City at age 17, working for the New York Evening Graphic. He broke the story of Jeanne Eagels' death. He wrote pulp novels, including The Dark Page (1944; reissued in 2007 with an introduction by Wim Wenders), which was later adapted into the 1952 movie, Scandal Sheet.