Robert Aldrich entered the film industry in 1941 when he got a job as a production clerk at RKO Pictures. He soon worked his way up to script clerk, then became an assistant director, a production manager and an associate producer. He began writing and directing for TV series in the early 1950s, and directed his first feature in 1953 (Big Leaguer). Soon thereafter he established his own production company and produced most of his own films, collaborating in the writing of many of them. Among his best-known pictures are Mickey Spillane's Kiss Me Deadly, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and the muscular WW II mega-hit The Dirty Dozen.


Kiss Me Deadly (1955): $25,000

Nephew of John D. Rockefeller Jr., grandson of Nelson Aldrich. Father of William Aldrich. Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume Two, 1945-1985". Pages 8-14. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1988. Head of jury at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1959